Undoing the Revolution: Comparing Elite Subversion of Peasant Rebellions

Description

Undoing the Revolution looks at the way rural underclasses ally with out-of-power elites to overthrow their governments—only to be shut out of power when the new regime assumes control. Vasabjit Banerjee first examines why peasants need to ally with dissenting elites in order to rebel. He then shows how conflict resolution and subsequent bargains to form new state institutions re-empower allied elites and re-marginalize peasants.   Banerjee evaluates three different agrarian societies during distinct time periods spanning the twentieth century: revolutionary Mexico from 1910 to 1930; late-colonial India from 1920 until 1947; and White-dominated Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) from the mid-1960s to 1980. This comparative approach also allows examination of both the underclass need for elite participation and the variety of causes that elites use to incentivize peasant classes to participate, extending from religious-ethnic identity and common political targets to the peasants’ and elites’ own economic grievances.  Undoing the Revolution demonstrates that both international and domestic investors in cash crops, natural resources, and finance can ally with peasant rebels; and, after threatened or actual state collapse, they can bargain with each other to select new state institutions. Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: A Theory of Peasant Rebellions and Elite Victories 1. The Critical Elites: Class Coalitions in Peasant Rebellions of Colonial India and Revolutionary Mexico 2. The Religious Origins of Elite Participation: Class Coalitions and Religiously Motivated Peasant Rebellions in Mexico, Zimbabwe, and India 3. The Political and Economic Origins of Elite Participation: Peasant Rebellions in Colonial India and Revolutionary Mexico 4. The Economic Origins of Warlord Support for Peace: Postrevolutionary Mexico 5. Class, Religion, and Power: The Elite Origins of Postcolonial India 6. International Capital and State Formation: British Mediation and the Creation of Zimbabwe Conclusion: A New Research Agenda for Politics in Agrarian Societies References Index