Which of the following has had the most direct impact on the outbreak of revolutions

2.1. Revolution: from institutional vacuum to institutional innovation

10According to Commons, the institution is “collective action in restraint, liberation, and expansion of individual action.” [1934/1961, p. 73]. Undoubtedly, revolution is a collective action. But can it be pigeonholed as “institution”? Advocates of a comprehensive definition of institution [7] who replace the term “social” with “institutional”, and reduces all forms of social relationships to institutional relationships, might describe revolution as a particular form of institution. But it is hard to consider revolution as an institution, since the very existence of a revolution implies the lack of state authority, different degrees of anarchy, or an institutional vacuum. Reviewing the experience of revolutions in the ex-Socialist countries, Janos Kornai wrote: “Many people had the naïve idea that the elimination of central planning and bureaucratic coordination would be followed immediately and automatically by the appearance and operation of market coordination. In fact, there is a curious “no man’s land”, where bureaucratic coordination no longer applies and market coordination does not yet apply, and economic activity is impeded by disintegration, lack of coordination, and anarchy.” ( [1995], p. 178).

11That is true, a revolution ushers in a period of “no man’s land” during which the old rules lose their power to maintain the old order but the nascent rules are still too weak to establish a new one. This situation is often characterized as a “dual” power. Furet also defines the French revolution in these terms: “The revolution represents the moment when the old tipped over towards the new and thus also the abolition of the former and the arrival of the latter.” ( [1998], p. 55). Hence, revolution is a collective action but not an institution that may be better defined as a repeated collective action or an order. In fact, institution is not merely a collective action, it is rather a repeated collective action. As North ( [1988], p. 15) aptly noted: “By institutions, I mean the humanly devised constraints on repeated human interactions, that is, the rules of the game-both formal and informal norms of behavior and the way they are enforced.” (Emphases are added) [8]. Institutions are “repeated” human interactions and that explains why they can make the outcome of these interactions predictable to some extent without eliminating uncertainties. Revolution is not a repeated collective action, it is a singular event, and that is why it is unpredictable and irreducible to any type of institutions, although there are institutions such as political parties that play an important role in revolutions [9].

12The revolutions against the Soviet system also demonstrated the importance of fundamental institutional change. Kornai underlined this point in his analysis regarding the difference between “reform” and “revolution”: “While reform yields important changes, it retains the fundamentals of the system concerned. Revolution, on the other hand, changes the fundamentals radically, so bringing about a change of system” (Kornai [1991], p. 50). By “fundamentals”, Kornai means the three first blocks of major institutions, i.e., politics and ideology, property ownership, and the predominant coordination mechanism. Applying this approach to the Soviet system, it implies that reform (for example perestroika initiated by Gorbatchev in Russia) did not undermine those fundamental blocks, whereas revolution required the end of undivided political power by the Communist Party, the termination of the state as the main property owner, and, accordingly, the replacement of bureaucratic coordination with market coordination.

13To put it differently, reform aimed at major changes in the ex-Soviet system, whereas revolution started a transformation that ultimately shifted the country in question away from socialism. Thus, the difference between reform and revolution did not lie in the speed or in the method of transformation: “The distinction is not that a reform is peaceful and a revolution violent and bloody. The process of reform may also be induced by bloody uprisings, and those impeding it may use violence against the reformers; a revolution, on the other hand, may take place without bloodshed. The difference lies in how superficial or deep the change is. To use a Hegelian expression here, revolution brings a qualitative change” (Kornai [1991], p. 51). Of course, in terms of Kornai’s value judgments, the most attractive form of revolution is peaceful, similar to what happened in Prague during the “Velvet Revolution” [10].

2.2. Revolutions as scream

14In Hirshleifer’s [2001] terminology, conflict stems from the “dark side” of self-interest. “We think of conflicts in terms of family quarrels, separations, and divorce, or racial discrimination and race riots, or industrial disputes and strikes, or political conflict and revolution, or international conflict and war. These things we think of on the whole as bad, as tending to go too far and to get out of hand.” (Boulding [1962], p. 306-307). But why all kinds of conflicts should be considered as “dark side of self-interest” or as bad things? Are social conflicts necessarily bad?

15In the economic literature, Hirschman is one of the exceptions in identifying the positive or productive dimension of the social conflict. He [1970, 1974] suggested that voice or non-violent conflictual activity of employees (strikes, protestation, etc.) might be a source of efficiency in an enterprise. Hirschman’s starting point was the insufficiency of market coordination and especially the limits of the “exit” mechanism. He introduced “voice” as a complementary mechanism to overcome this insufficiency. While “exit” belongs to economics, “voice” is political action par excellence. He compared these two “correcting mechanisms” ( “exit” and “voice”) and argued that market failure is not limited to the presence of externalities. Where “exit” does not do a good job of stirring up management and restoring efficiency, “voice” can replace it. In other words, “voice” or conflictual activity within the existing rules is not necessarily counterproductive. It may contribute to improve economic efficiency, and should be thus classified as a corrective reform mechanism. This theory can be applied to advocacy in civil rights movements and also participatory democracy. Hirschman derives the positive dimension of social conflict from its ability to improve the existing institutions.

16Despite its richness, Hirschman’s concept of voice is ambiguous because he confuses, in our understanding, two different kinds of voice: 1) voice within the existing rules, e.g., a protest or a reformist movement within a political regime or an organization; and 2) voice against the existing rules, for example civil disobedience, coup d’état or revolution (Vahabi [2016], p. 162-164). While voice within the existing rules can be opposed to exit in terms of abandoning the existing rules or organization, voice against the existing rules cannot clearly be opposed to exit, because in this case the frontiers between voice and exit become blurred. In other words, voice within the existing rules comes within the scope of Hirschman’s dichotomy of voice versus exit, whereas voice against the existing rules escapes this dichotomy and cannot be opposed to exit.

17Voice against the existing rules requires that actors also take a particular kind of exit, e.g., not remaining among loyalists and joining the opposition or the opponents. But this exit is not synonymous with emigration, because it implies active participation to overthrow the existing order. It is not a reform within the existing rules, but a revolution against them to introduce new rules causing institutional innovation. This explains why Hirschman has never distinguished between these two different meanings of voice; such a clarification would have undermined his theoretical framework in terms of the dichotomy between voice and exit.

18In our opinion, a third category should be added to Hirschman’s [1970, 1974] dichotomy of “voice” versus “exit” – “scream”, which is defined as voice against the existing rules. Revolution (in all its violent and non-violent types such as the Velvet Revolutions in ex-socialist countries) is a form of “scream”, whereas political emigration (voting by foot) is “exit” and political reform (like Gorbachev’s reform in the 1980s) is “voice” (Vahabi [2004], p. 88-97). The use of “scream” for institutional innovation could sometimes improve economic efficiency when discontent cannot be voiced. On the other hand, “scream” can be avoided if “voice” becomes possible. Leslie Stephen, the critic, essayist, and an advocate of reform in England had persuasively argued that, once in parliament, that is, “out in the open”, the workers’ representatives would become domesticated and even divided. Put differently, the vote delegitimizes more direct, intense, and “expressive forms of political action that are both more effective and more satisfying.” (Hirschman [1982], p. 117).

19To sum up, Hirschman’s concept of voice is not directly about revolution as a particular kind of conflict, but conflict within the existing rules in general. He insists upon conflict as a corrective or positive mechanism under certain circumstances notably when exit is not efficacious. In this way, he relates conflict to rule enforcement or institutional change. But is institutional change necessarily mediated by “conflict” or can it be carried out through bargaining process?

3.1. Political Coase theorem and elite revolutions

22What is the consequence of applying the PCT to revolutions or revolutionary activity? Borrowing upon Clausewitz’s [2006/1827] distinction between “absolute” war and battle, the PCT is consistent with a type of revolution that comes within the scope of battle. A battle is a limited confrontation that can lead to a compromise among adversaries. If a revolution is used as a credible threat in an intra-elite conflict resulting in a new deal among them, then that revolution is compatible with the PCT. However, if the revolution is an “absolute” or “total” war against tyranny or an obsolete social order implying a war to the end, targeting the complete destruction of the enemy’s military might, its political system or even its culture, then it is not compatible with the PCT.

23In rational conflict theory [12], war is regarded as part of the bargaining process to achieve peace. Accordingly, some of the advocates of rational conflict theory interpreted Clausewitz’s “total” or “absolute” war as a war that never happens in reality (Sánchez-Pagés [2009]). The only type of war that was assumed to be “rationally conceivable” was Clausewitz’s “battle” (limited confrontation). Applying this theoretical framework to revolutions will result in a distinction between two types of revolutions: a revolution “from below” versus an “elite” revolution (Skocpol and Trimberger [1977- 1978]), or “color” revolutions versus “radical” revolutions (Goldstone [2009]).

24Despite their terminological differences, all these distinctions pertain to a fundamental difference between a revolution led by elites from above that is “a revolution without revolution” (Adamson [1980], p. 186) like the British Glorious Revolution of 1688 or the Neapolitan revolution of 1799, and a revolution involving popular masses, particularly workers and the poor on the French model. The former is compatible with a limited confrontation and the latter with a total war.

25Trimberger [1972, 1977, 1978] conceptualized the concept of “elite revolutions” with regard to Meiji Restoration (1868) in Japan and the Ataturk Revolution (1919-23) in Turkey. These two revolutions, which marked the overthrow of a traditional regime in violent civil war, abolished the economic and social base of the old order, and created a modern nation-state committed to rapid industrialization, were unusual in two respects: (1) the revolutionary leaders were themselves members of the ruling stratum, holding high status and office in the old regime; and (2) revolutionary conflict and change were contained primarily within elite institutions and did not involve mass participation. According to Skocpol and Trimberger [1977-1978], this type of revolution was an alternative model compared to “mass-based social revolutions from below” that has been defined by Skocpol [1976a, b, 1979] as a sudden, basic transformation of a society’s political and socioeconomic (including class) structure, accompanied and in part effectuated through class upheavals from below such as French, Russian and Chinese revolutions. While we distinguish theoretically these two types of revolutions, it should not be forgotten that in practice one can transform into the other, and there is no insurmountable barrier between them.

26A similar distinction between “color” and “radical” revolutions was suggested by Goldstone [2009]. His “radical” revolutions are the same as what Skocpol depicted as mass revolutions from below, and it can be characterized as “sudden detonations of popular energy and social change” ( [2009], p. 18). By contrast, “color” revolutions can be described as elite-led “negotiated revolutions” [13] with a rather “nationalist” than class-orientation in which the change of regime is not through revolutionary activities of popular masses. They cover both recent and older examples. The recent ones began in the 1980s: the yellow revolution in the Philippines, the velvet revolution in Czechoslovakia, the orange revolution in Ukraine, the rose revolution in Georgia, the cedar revolution in Lebanon, and the tulip revolution in Kyrgyzstan. According to Goldstone ( [2009], p. 19): “Interestingly, the color revolutions were not the first revolutions to exhibit this behavior. The Netherlands’ revolution against Spain (1566), the British Glorious Revolution of 1688, the American Revolution (1776), the Japanese Meiji Restoration of 1868, and the Chinese Republican Revolution of 1911 are usually seen as anomalous events by scholars of revolution, often treated as not truly revolutions at all because they lacked the terrorizing violence and authoritarian outcomes of more typical major revolutions.”

27The way Goldstone characterizes “color revolution” is disputable. First, what has been called “color” revolutions often goes beyond the “elite” versus “mass” revolutions. They may be pigeonholed as a different category blurring the frontiers of “mass” and “elite” revolutions. While they have often been the outcome of a “compromise” between contending forces and may be described conciliatory and “negotiated” revolutions, they are neither instigated by a fraction of the old ruling class nor by mass revolutions aiming at destroying the old state machinery. Second, the expression “color” revolution often conflates different types of revolutions. For example, upheavals in Czechoslovakia and Poland were prepared from below undermining fundamental institutions of the Soviet type regimes, whereas revolutions in Ukraine and Romania were more limited in questioning renovating those institutions. Finally, “color” revolutions specific to the Eastern European countries and its extension to other regions such as Lebanon by Goldstone needs more justification. Despite these objections, “color” revolutions are relevant to our discussion since they lend credence to a “negotiated” revolution.

28For the advocates of the PCT, elites and not masses are driving forces of institutional change since they can resolve free-rider problem. According to North ( [1981], p. 31-32) [14], the free-rider problem may explain the stability of states throughout history: rulers are motivated to initiate institutional innovation, but collective action by masses is hindered. The stability of political regimes throughout history is thus enlightened by the impossibility of “concerted revolutionary action” (Buchanan [1979], p. 69). But if free-rider problem shuns masses from bringing institutional change, where does this institutional change come from? According to North et al. [2009], this can only stem from elites who can resolve collective action problem. In their theoretical framework, the transition from “the limited access order or natural states” [15] to “open access order” is initiated by the elites and can be summarized as a change of elites’ personal privileges to an impersonal intra-elite arrangement, and then to non-elite full participation (North et al. [2009], p. 25-27). This explains why revolution is not considered as an appropriate means for institutional change unless it is used by elites to cut a deal among themselves or with the ruler. A revolution involving masses for total destruction of ruling structure is either impossible or a disaster. However, a color or “negotiated” revolution avoiding class struggle is a salient illustration of efficacious institutional change.

29Exploring the impact of the 1688 Revolution on institutional change, North and Weingast [1989] attribute a central role to the intra-elite conflict and compromise. The revolution was a means of bargaining between the Crown as the power-holder on the one hand, and the wealth-holders notably the big merchants controlling the Parliament, on the other. Economic and political elites could find an arrangement so that the King could not unilaterally alter the terms of agreements and credibly commit to the intra-elite impersonal rules. Two points should not be disregarded in explaining why this “negotiated” revolution became possible. First, the lack of a standing army: “It is clear, however, that the opposition would have been unlikely to succeed, had the English Crown, like its French or Spanish counterpart, had a standing army with which to quell the initial uprising” (North and Weingast [1989], p. 814). The absence of a standing army should be explained in its turn by a number of wars and riots during the seventeenth century particularly the quest over the army’s control by the Parliament or the King during 1641-42 that finally led to the New Model Army by the radicals (Goldstone [2009], p. 26). Moreover, while much has been made of the Dutch invasion of November 1688, the depth of popular support for the revolution should not be underestimated. “As William prepared his fleet, vast sums of money poured into his coffers from the English merchant community and the English gentry-sums significantly larger than England’s yearly intake from customs revenue.” (Pincus [1998], p. 54). Without preceding civil wars and popular support, the elite revolution of 1688 could not succeed. Masses cannot be disregarded in the preparation of the British Glorious Revolution.

30Another major problem with North et al. [2009] interpretation of the British Revolution is the role of masses in the post-1688 period. While the revolution placed the power into the hands of a Parliament which represented merchants and landowners with an interest toward sale for the market, propertyless classes had not even had the right to vote. What was the driving force of democratization process in England? Why could the poor and politically disfranchised win universal suffrage? As Acemoglu and Robinson [2006] have pointed out, this process cannot be explained without considering workers’ Chartist movement and the threat of mass revolution: “Beginning in 1832, the British political elites made a series of strategic concessions aimed at incorporating the previously disenfranchised into politics because the alternative was seen to be social unrest, chaos, and possibly revolution.” ( [2006], p. 350). Here again, the role of masses cannot be assumed away in the post-1688 democratization process: they imposed the universal suffrage on the elite. North et al. ( [2009], p. 26) oppose this idea by assuming that universal suffrage is also an outcome of elites’ motivation to secure impersonal inter-elite rights: “When elites create greater open access to political and economic organizations for themselves, they sometimes have incentives to expand access along several different margins into the non-elite population.” (Emphases are added). Once again, the problem is that “sometimes” entirely depends on the mass actions and not elites’ initiative.

3.2. The Glorious Revolution: Great Demarcation between Sovereignty and Property

31While the 1688-89 was dominantly considered an elite Revolution “from above”, the originality of Commons interpretation was to assess the institutional change stemming from such type of revolution in light of the labor interest. This explains why Commons differentiated two different types of “private property”: 1) despotism as “private property”; 2) the labor’s right of private property over its product. While North and Weingast [1989] as well as their critics such as Hodgson [2017] [16] have argued about the absence or presence of “secure property rights” for wealth-holders before the revolution, Commons followed Locke in underlining the importance of the revolution with respect to property rights of the labor (on the difference between Commons and North, see Broda [2020]).

32Regarding the first type of property rights, Commons ( [1899-1900/1965], p. 356) noted that “A despotism is not a state. It is private property. Law is the criterion of a state, but the arbitrary, transient commands of a despot are not laws. It is the capriciousness of private property that evokes the state.” The state was the Crown’s private property before the 1688-89 Revolution, it was transformed into Sovereign power by the revolution. As he explained in Sociology: Syllabus: “Sovereignty involves three conceptions: coercion, order and right. These together constitute the state. Absolutism, despotism [is] not a true state.” (Quoted by Dorfman [1965], p. iv).

33For Commons, while private property originates with the emergence of self-consciousness and scarcity, it is a social relation based on coercion [17]. “The theory of absolutism made the will of the sovereign the sole law of the land, and the fiction arose that custom itself was law only on the ground that “what the King allowed he commanded.” Thus, in the rise of absolutism with the Tudors in England and Louis XIV in France we have reached the culmination of the natural evolution of private property.” (Commons [1899- 1900/1965], p. 168). While “the natural evolution of private property” has achieved its culmination before the revolution, the property rights of labor over its product had no meaning. This brought Commons to quote John Locke who “was the spokesman of a Revolution that changed England from Feudalism to Capitalism.” ( [1934/1961], p. 51).

34In his Chapter II, on “Method I. John Locke”, Commons ( [1934/1961], Vol. 1) pointed out that Locke united Law, Economics, and Ethics in a single concept, Labor. The issue arose in his justification of the revolution of 1689. It was against the doctrine of a divine right of political power that Locke set up the “natural right of life, liberty, and property”, derived from the right of labor to its own product: “Locke set forth the labor theory of value, not mainly as a foundation for economics, but mainly as a justification of a revolution that supplanted rights of sovereigns by rights of property.” (Ibid, p. 52).

35The same was true of Locke’s idea of the “sanctity of property”. For him, the rights of labor to its own product was sacred and not the private property rights in general. However, Commons acknowledged the changing nature of property rights that had nothing eternally sacred: “The meaning of property has greatly changed from the time when Locke personified the customs of the frugal, laborious farmers, the master mechanics, and the merchants, as a divine command of unchanging nature and reason, to the time when property is absentee control over laborers and customers throughout the world by a legalized credit and corporate system of management and a world-scarcity of opportunities. Locke’s appeal to heaven was his justification of the Revolution of 1689 against the divine right of Kings over the subjects. The Philadelphia manufacturers’ appeal to heaven in 1922 is their justification of a divine right of property owners over their employees.” (Commons, Ibid, p. 51). For this recent period, Commons [1899-1900/1965] insisted on “the right of employment” as a “property right of the worker”.

36The 1688 revolution was the end of despotism as “private property”, and the establishment of the sovereignty on the one hand, and the declaration of the sanctity of property rights of labor on the other. These two institutional changes were inseparable, since “it was not until the revolution of 1688 that subordinate classes achieved a recognized permanent right of participation in shaping the royal will. Sovereignty is a daily flow of coercion, and not the mere promise of a King to do and not to do so and so. Sovereignty, therefore, requires definite enduring constitutional organs for its daily exercise. Magna Charta did not adequately provide these.” (Commons [1899-1900/ 1965], p. 357).

37A parallel can be made with the French revolution regarding the great demarcation between “property” and “sovereignty” as suggested by Blaufarb [2016]. The revolution abolished privately owned forms of power, such as feudalism, seigneurialism, and venal public office, and dismantled the Crown domain, thus making the state purely sovereign. On the other hand, property was defined by rules specific to itself, not by extraneous political factors. This, in short, confirmed the autonomy of the sphere of property.

4.1. Specific characteristics of mass revolutions

40Three specific characteristics of mass revolutions are as follows.

41

1. The first one is that they “attack on all older institutions”. A mass revolution is not just a populist movement mobilized by fascists to save “order” (army, bureaucracy, church and Fuhrer). Mass revolutions challenge the power of church and more or less destroy the bureaucratic and military apparatuses of the state. Revolution in its modern sense means the political awakening of masses by and large, and their self-government. Unless anarchy is understood as chaos and mayhem, it can be conceived of a society without a state but not without rules (Hirshleifer [1995]). This self-government is based on new forms of direct democracy or popular power in which executive and legislative powers are not separated. The communes in French revolutions of 1789 and 1871, the Soviets in the Russian Revolutions of 1905, 1917 and German Revolution of 1918; the workers’ committees and commissions in the Spanish civil war 1936-1938 provide some illustrations of this new type of power. Although these new forms of power were either crushed by the old regime or degenerated later into centralized bureaucratic states (Furet [1980/2006]; Goldstone [2009]; Brown [2015]), they originated new institutions such as a national revolutionary army of citizens/soldiers, modern bureaucratic administration, and national sovereignty (Jones [2006]). Moreover, they all ushered in a new era of mass politics, invention of tradition, non-governmental mass associations, free press, and political parties (Hobsbawm [1994]; Hobsbawm and Terence [1988]).
2. Mass revolutions contain a substantial class-based component in their anti-regime oppositional efforts. Their target is not only national liberation from colonialism, national unification or liberty from tyranny, but also the elimination of privileges and socio-economic inequalities between the poor and the rich. Concretely speaking, this class orientation had at least two major implications: (i) A peasant revolution such as France during 1790- 1792: using violence to destroy feudalism in the countryside by expropriating aristocratic landlords and distributing their land without indemnification among peasants (Markoff [2006]; Plack [2015]). (ii) Redistributive policies in favor of the poor, as for example the Directoire decisions in support of sans culottes during the French revolutionary wars, or the 1871 Paris Commune’s initiatives for la sociale (Vahabi, Batifoulier and Da Silva [2020]).
3. Mass revolutions follow an intensifying pattern of polarization between the “moderate” and “radical” oppositional groups after the regime change. This is often described as a “permanent revolution” in which the anti-regime phase (national or democratic) is followed by further polarization towards a class-oriented revolution aiming at destroying or redistributing the assets of an entire class or ruling group.

4.2. Patterns of institutional innovation in elite and mass revolutions

42The patterns of institutional innovation are radically different in elite and mass revolutions. In an elite revolution, old institutional forms are maintained while new content is gradually added to them. The rupture between the old and new institutions are hardly perceptible, and the institutional innovation is incrementally carried out so that an institutional vacuum is shunned. In this type of revolution, the institutional innovation is like Schumpeterian technological change in which there is no leaps but a continuous process of coevolution of de-institutionalization and re-institutionalization. In this sense, an elite revolution is a “revolution without a revolution”. Its specific feature is the participation of a fraction of the old ruling class or group in leading the revolution. The perspicacity, flexibility, and ability of this fraction of dominant group to compromise at the right time (not too late, i.e. before the outburst of popular actions) with the new rising classes and groups is the key to avoid mass revolutions. The revolution is “negotiated” from above and the leadership is partly secured by at least a part of previous ruling classes. An elite revolution is a “voice” that eschews the outburst of “scream”, but it strongly hinges upon the leading qualities of the old ruling group and class. The British aristocracy in 1688 was particularly capable of avoiding “scream” by playing the role of mediator in preparing the ascendancy of the British bourgeois class. The French aristocracy lacked these qualities, and the 1789 was the outcome of “scream” instead of “voice”.

43A mass revolution marks a qualitative leap and ushers in a period of institutional vacuum. The de-institutionalization precedes re-institutionalization. Mass revolutions are marked by active involvement of masses in politics, and the emergence of a multitude of grass root organizations. However, elites are not absent in mass revolutions. They play a key role in organizing and leading the revolution. In fact, the indeterminacy of leadership is the major issue of mass revolutions in contrast to elite revolutions. A mass revolution like the 1979 Iranian revolution may result in establishing a theocratic Shiite state (Velayat faqih) due to the hegemony of traditional Shiite clergy [18]. The indeterminacy of mass revolutions is much higher than elite revolutions since it involves masses at a large scale. Mass revolutions are organic or “spontaneous”; they are not invented by conspirators, political parties, or even particular classes. There are specific political and economic conditions that result in a “revolutionary situation”. What, generally speaking, are the symptoms of a revolutionary situation? Lenin provides a comprehensive response to this question:

44“We shall certainly not be mistaken if we indicate the following three major symptoms: (1) when it is impossible for the ruling classes to maintain their rule without any change; when there is a crisis, in one form or another, among the “upper classes”, a crisis in the policy of the ruling class, leading to a fissure through which the discontent and indignation of the oppressed classes burst forth. For a revolution to take place, it is usually insufficient for “the lower classes not to want” to live in the old way; it is also necessary that “the upper classes should be unable” to live in the old way; (2) when the suffering and want of the oppressed classes have grown more acute than usual; (3) when, as a consequence of the above causes, there is a considerable increase in the activity of the masses, who uncomplainingly allow themselves to be robbed in “peace time”, but, in turbulent times, are drawn both by all the circumstances of the crisis and by the “upper classes” themselves into independent historical action. Without these objective changes, which are independent of the will, not only of individual groups and parties but even of individual classes, a revolution, as a general rule, is impossible. The totality of all these objective changes is called a revolutionary situation.” (Lenin [1915/1974], p. 212-213).

45A mass revolution emerges organically on the basis of a rejection platform unanimously accepted by all the opposing forces [19]. This organic process evolves endogenously in a similar way as a Veblenian “selective adaptation” (Veblen [1899/1994]) including three elements: variation, inheritance and selection of the fittest [20]. In this case, 1) the “unity phase” starts with the de-institutionalization process; 2) the variation or differentiation phase entails “polarization” among “moderate” and “revolutionary” forces and their survival struggle; 3) the selection of the fittest or “domination” phase during which new institutions are born. The “fittest” social groups are selected according to their politico-military capabilities and not necessarily their economic efficiency. The revolutionary forces might be economically unsupported by social groups that have economic power but lack the politico-military forces. The new institutions generated as a result of survival struggle of the “fittest” might be economically inefficient, but in the long term their survival requires economic support. Herein lies the fourth phase of the evolution: re-institutionalization phase or “restoration” during which a compromise is sought between the two groups of politico-military and economically fittest social groups to secure a sustainable political and economic order.

46After presenting our theoretical framework of mass revolutions, we explain the four phases of de-institutionalization and re-institutionalization processes.

5.1. First Phase: de-institutionalization [1789]

61In 1789, the situation in France was revolutionary in the sense defined in section 3. The working classes suffered more than usual because of a succession of bad harvests, but also of the taxes decided by the King to finance the American revolutionary war (Labrousse [1990]). The “subsistence crisis” resulted in multiple revolts in a context where a considerable part of the economic and political elite of the country challenged the feudal order. As an ascending class, the bourgeoisie wanted to conquer the share of political power corresponding to its economic importance as summarized by the lawyer Antoine Barnave: “a new distribution of wealth prepares for a new distribution of power” (Barnave [1843/1988], p. 52). For the bourgeoisie, a change in political power could make it possible to impose on the clergy and the nobility a part of the tax (from which they were previously excluded), and to implement economic reforms favoring the market economy detrimental to the feudal economy. Other groups within the aristocracy wanted a reform of feudal institutions, such as the lower clergy, close to the people or the nobility sensitive to liberal ideas. The Estates General were convened at the request of the feudal lords who refused to pay the tax and contested the absolutism of the King.

62If the situation was revolutionary, the French revolution could not be an elite revolution similar to Britain. Albert Soboul clearly depicts the attachment of the aristocracy to the feudal order: “At a time of social and institutional crisis, the years preceding 1789 saw the unfolding of a serious political crisis, motivated by the financial powerlessness of the monarchy and its inability to reform: each time a reforming minister wanted to reform the state, the aristocracy stood up to defend its privileges” ( [1982], p. 117). The French aristocracy was distinguished by its constant refusal to compromise with the bourgeoisie.

63However, the abolition of privileges was not only the product of the revolutionary emulation of representatives drawn from the bourgeoisie. As McPhee [2013a] points out, at the time of the convocation of the Estates General, the deputies did not think about the revolution. It was the peasant revolts that catalyzed the struggle. The French revolution was not only in the cities, and particularly by Parisians. It was also in the countryside where rural violence was expressed against the lords. By demanding food and drink, the insurgents also attacked seigneurial symbols as shown by Markoff ( [2006], p. 247) in his long list of violence in the countryside.

64The violence was directed against feudal institutions. It expressed a fight against the existing rules falling under the “scream” rather than the “voice”. The peasants’ collective engagement in the revolution was very broad when they could lose. The issue of the free riding and the classic problem of collective action that would condemn any mass revolution was lifted by a common belief in the value of a successful revolution (Olsson-Yaouzis [2012]). This peasant violence galvanized the legislator at the same time as revolutionary measures fueled peasant revolts to lead to the destruction of feudal institutions.

65The de-institutionalization was also the product of the rejection of any compromise by the aristocracy.

66The nobility refused the third state, representing the vast majority of the population [24], the vote by head after the convocation of the Estates General in 1788. Voting by order (each order discussed in a separate chamber and voted as one body separately from others) was to the advantage of the privileged majority (nobility and clergy against third estate), and thus in support of the status quo. That was the beginning of the disobedience of the representatives of the third estate against the King, who gradually succeeded in proclaiming the National Constituent Assembly with the help of some deputies of privileged orders on July 9, 1789. When the King decided to resort to force to punish the actions of the third state, the latter called for the constitution of a Parisian militia (composed exclusively of elements of the bourgeoisie [25]), but it also appealed to the popular classes aspiring just as much as the end of the Ancien Régime.

67The Assembly abolished feudal privileges on the night of August 4. Although largely formal, this abolition led to the legal destruction of the Ancien Régime: end of privileges, particularisms, an equal footing in taxing. The declaration of human rights of August 26 launch the legal reconstruction of society by promoting both the concept of freedom and equality.

68These initial events clearly showed a mechanism that was at work permanently during the revolutionary period: faced with an aristocracy incapable of compromise, the bourgeoisie was forced to rely on the urban and rural working classes around a common agenda defined negatively: the end of the Ancien Régime. The double condition of the negative agenda (section 3.2) was regularly met: a) a tacit agreement on political and economic priority: finish first with the aristocracy (not necessarily the King), that is to say with feudal rights and the society of order; b) a hope of greater gain through destructive activity than through production. In the situation of subsistence and financial crisis of 1789, both for the working classes and for the bourgeoisie, the hope of gaining from overthrowing (or radically reforming) the regime was superior to productive activity (keeping the status quo).

5.2. Second phase: polarization (1790-1793)

69After the events of July 1789, except for a minority close to the bourgeoisie, the aristocracy spent its time preparing for the counter-revolution. The third estate, was divided because of the opposition to the positive agenda for rebuilding society. The ambivalence of the concepts of freedom and equality gave way to contradictory alternative futures. The construction of a positive agenda ran up against different positions regarding the levels of democratization and economic liberalism. This is why the Revolution remained very unstable. If the bourgeois majority sought common ground with the aristocracy, the latter refused to accept a compromise. This situation explained the failure of the 1791 Constitution and the path to the radicalization of Year II.

70The moderate called “Girondins” were dominant in the assembly. To avoid the counterrevolution, they engaged in compromising with the nobility as illustrated by the Constitution of September 3, 1791 (Tackett [2006]). Although the King’s power was subordinated to the wishes of the elected officials, the King led diplomacy (without the right to declare war), and had a suspensive veto. On the aristocratic side, following the abolition of privileges the dominant feudal rights were abolished without compensation (right of justice, mortmain, serfdom, corvée, toll right, market, hunting and fishing rights taxes, etc.). But the feudal contracting party rights were declared redeemable (cens, champarts, annual fee, etc.). The purchase price was so high, that the aristocracy’s economic dominance over the peasantry remained massive. Clergy was worst affected because the tithe was suppressed, and its property was partly sold to finance the state debt (this was the origin of the creation of the assignats). Nevertheless, the law of July 12, 1790 instituted the civil constitution of the clergy that created a legal space for religion within the state (unrelated to the coming dechristianization). The constitution granted suffrage only to the wealthy (bourgeois or aristocrats) and ranked citizens according to their ability to pay for having access to political rights: passive citizens, active citizens, electors, and deputies.

71Thus, the bourgeoisie did not attack primarily the economic resources of the aristocracy, but its political prerogatives. This explains why it could enforce its economic liberalism: laissez-faire, laissez-passer. The bourgeoisie intended to impose its conception of property. This led to a whole series of reforms: freedom of culture, freedom of production (destruction of corporations; Allarde’s decree of March 1791), freedom of work (prohibition of coalitions to increase the price of labor; Le Chapelier law of June 1791 to ban corporations), freedom of trade (free movement within the national territory as well as for export, of grains and other goods by abolition of customs and dissolution of commercial companies), freedom of banking and financial activities.

72These measures were carried mainly by “La Gironde” which was opposed to “La Montagne”, considering itself as the spokesman of the masses. The bourgeoisie as a whole had some common interests. The democratization of society was limited by the right of property. The constitution of 1791 only granted the active citizen status to those who could buy it, thereby removing those from power who could jeopardize property. The Montagnards were favorable to political equality in order to defeat the counter-revolution, but economically they advocated property against the sans-culottes and the clubs like the enragés and cordeliers (Jessenne [2012]; Hermann-Mascard [1991]; Margairaz [1991]).

73However, the value of the assignat fell steadily, the tax revenues were insufficient, and the subsistence crisis deepened, fueling the discontent of the popular classes. They also began to suffer from the removal of Ancien Régime protection in the new laissez-faire paradigm.

74The situation was also dramatic politically since the vast majority of the aristocracy refused the Revolution. Since July 1789, many nobles emigrated and organized the struggle against the new social order by relying on European monarchies to restore the Ancien Régime (Pillnitz declaration, Brunswick manifesto, etc.). The King showed great unwillingness to validate the laws and even organized his flight in June 1791. While the people lost confidence in the King, the Girondins’ policy protected him and supported the aristocracy against the aspirations of the masses. They backed the shooting of the field of March on July 17, 1791, when the popular classes manifested their will to sanction the King following his failed flight from Varennes.

75The War started on April 20, 1792 with a series of military defeats. The French army was particularly disorganized due to the emigration of many noble officers. The Assembly proclaimed the “fatherland in danger” on July 11, 1792; the Brunswick manifesto was known in Paris on August 1. In this context of imminent danger for the revolution and fear of the “aristocratic conspiracy”, the masses of the people again entered the scene and jostled the Girondins’ agenda: the enlargement of the National Guard to passive citizens, the establishment of the Paris Insurrectional Commune (composed of sans-culottes), and the foundation of universal suffrage for electing the Convention.

76The Girondins’ policy could only be maintained as long as military successes accumulated. However, from March 1793 it was the defeats that accumulated, thereby reinforcing the economic and political crisis which had not yet found an answer. The crisis strengthened the advocates of the radical fraction of the bourgeoisie (the Montagnards). Between betrayals (like that of General Dumouriez) and the uprising in Vendée, the policy of compromise was a failure leading to the Montagnard power.

77The events led the Convention to adopt the solutions of a command economy and terror supported by the Montagne: revolutionary tribunal, surveillance committees, repression against the emigrants, committee of public safety, forced course of the assignat, departmental maximum of grains and flour, forced loan from the rich. These decisions were fought by the Girondins, now in the minority, who cried out against dictatorship, but supported by a popular insurrection of the Parisian sans-culottes (mainly on May 31 and June 2). The Montagnards arrested the Girondins deputies for being guilty of leniency towards the monarchy. The attempt to establish a compromise between aristocracy and bourgeoisie failed.

5.3. Third phase: hegemony (1793-1794)

78With the advent of the Montagne Convention, the French Revolution entered in its hegemonic phase or permanent revolution. The Montagnard objectives were to win the war against the European monarchies, and to destroy the internal counter-revolution. Unlike the Girondins, they did not want to compromise with the aristocracy, and were ready to completely liquidate the masters of the Ancien Régime. Like the Girondins, the Montagnards defended the interests of the bourgeoisie, and refused to completely adhere to the popular aspirations. They refused the sans-culottes proposals, in particular with regard to property and democracy. Mass revolution involves an active participation of the masses, but they do not lead the revolution day by day.

79The period of hegemony of the Montagne during the revolution can be summed up in three logically articulated pillars: citizen warfare, command economy and terror. With the threatening counter-revolution, the Montagne invented the citizen warfare in the sense that war was waged by citizens defending their economic and political freedoms. Military and civic victory then presupposed a high level of control over economic activity, the refusal of which by the rich was sanctioned by terror. The collapse of a single pillar would imply the end of this hegemony.

80In order to save the revolution and win the war, the Montagne had to radicalize the democratization of society, in particular by opening the army to citizens. With “levée en masse”, every Frenchman became a soldier. Conscription was an illustration of the deinstitutionalization of the previous military organization, and military power (Blanning [1986]). It paved the way for the democratization of the army and for meritocratic promotion, as the case of Bonaparte demonstrated. The revolution completely crushed the feudal army, and replaced it by a national army. The number of soldiers increased to one million men, made up of both volunteers and those drawn from levée en masse. The cadres were gradually replaced, and the principle of electing commanding officers (as in the National Guard) was generalized on February 21, 1793 (only the generals were appointed by the executive).

81The citizen army was national and democratic: soldiers were invited to attend clubs and read the press. The soldier-citizen did not fight a particular enemy, but fought for the end of privileges. Viewed by Robespierre as “the people’s war against tyranny, and not that of the Court” (cited by Leuvers [2014], p. 220), citizen warfare gradually became a mean for unifying the people (Belissa [2012]) by presenting itself as a war against privileges to terminate feudalism (Forest [2002], Markoff [2006]). To protect the revolution against “the party of the foreigner”, the soldier had to become a citizen but the citizen soldier had to benefit from the advantages of the nation. The target of the “Patriotic assistance” was the combatant. The scarcer the resources, the more the regime favored combatants (and veterans), and their dependents such as war widows (Brown [2013]).

82The social support for citizen war was explained by the deepening of the political and economic rights of the masses, both based on the command economy. For mobilizing the army and winning the victories, it was necessary to resolve the arming and supply issues. Command economy could secure the material existence of the army, and satisfy certain popular aspirations (Woronoff [1991]). The laws regarding requisitions, price control, nationalization, etc. were all closely related to the war requirements. By taking control of the state apparatus, the Montagne bourgeoisie enacted the “maximum” law in 1793 which imposed a maximum price for grain in each department. Fixing administrative prices for foodstuffs was accompanied by the regulation of the firewood trade, and even requisitions (Woronoff [1991]). Social regulations were, however, subordinated to the liberalization of the economy which was thwarted by exceptional events provoked by the war (Antonetti [1991]). By refusing religious charity, the revolution developed “benevolent” aid in the form of pensions for a broad spectrum of recipients (Brown [2013]).

83The Constitution of Year II enshrined the access of passive citizens to the status of full citizens. It instituted direct universal suffrage, the referendum, and it strictly subordinated the action of the ministers to the national representation. The declaration of rights in the preamble was also more ambitious than that of 1789: the rights to work, assistance, education, insurrection and public happiness. The constitution extended rights, and gave more substance to the concepts of freedom and equality. Civil rights, like social measures, were however limited by property rights. The revolutionaries did not follow the radicalism of the sans-culottes who asked to limit drastically the property rights to redistribute wealth [26].

84In the mind of the Montagne, terror was the consequence of the struggle against enemies of the revolution, as well as against opponents of war economy measures (speculators, manipulators, etc.). The citizen army of the Montagne Convention accumulated successes both on the external borders, and against internal threats (Vendeans, Chouans [27]). However, the discrepancy between the political power acquired by the Montagnards / sans-culotte alliance, on the one hand, and its economic base, on the other, was too large to stabilize the political situation for revolutionaries. Terror allowed for a time to overcome contradictions but, torn apart between the Gironde and the sans-culottes, the Montagnards lost their support among both groups. This resulted the fall of Robespierre (called Thermidor’s event).

5.4. Fourth phase: reinstitutionalization (1794-1799)

85The end of the Montagne Convention corresponded to the beginning of the restoration phase during which the new institutions were gradually consolidated. The Girondin bourgeoisie regained power, and revitalized its concept of property, and political organization. “White terror” replaced the “Montagne terror”, and the aristocracy regained strength. Still trapped between aristocracy and sans-culottes, the bourgeoisie was forced at the end of the period to switch to the military dictatorship to ensure the consolidation of the new institutions.

86Switching backward was expressed in many ways: the inheritance laws of 1790 and 1793 stipulated equal footing for children regarding the inheritance, but the introduction of some sort of parental discretion precluded the advantage granted to girls (McPhee [2013b]). The dechristianization which had accelerated since 1792 was stopped: in addition to a softer approach to the refractories, and the temptation of armistice with the Chouans, the civil contract that had finished with the religious authority on the marriage was weakened. The church partially regained its influence on family matters (Desan [2013]).

87At the same time, the return of economic freedom was expressed by undermining the requisitions, administrative prices and nationalizations. Trade was liberalized for both imports and exports. This contributed to the fall in the value of the assignat, and to runaway inflation which could only cause popular anger. During the winter of 1794-1795, the famine caused the last popular insurrections. But, having learned the lessons of year II, the new regime exerted a strong repression: death penalty against the seditious, distribution of weapons for the bourgeois’ militias, prohibition of carrying arms among the most radical sections, etc.

88The stabilization of the regime needed a constitutional renewal. The constitution of year III legally enshrined the Republic of owners, and for this reason was a step backward compared to 1789. Article 1 of the declaration of rights was abandoned (men are born free and equal in rights). The only equality proclaimed was civil equality. Unlike the previous ones, the constitution defined precisely what property was in its limitlessness. Democracy became censal again. As wars became more clearly wars of conquest, the citizen army changed its spirit: instead of defending the revolution, the soldiers were now valuing the conquering warlord. This context favored the notoriety of generals, like Bonaparte. The 18th Brumaire of Napoleon Bonaparte ended the Revolution, and initiated the imperial period. After 10 years of Revolution, the urban and rural masses could not reap the fruits of their engagement by improving their living standards. War spread across Europe, and economic resources were diverted from other types of investment. But should one deduce that the revolution produced no positive institutional and economic impact?

89The clearest positive impact of the French Revolution was the partial destruction of the aristocracy and feudal institutions. With the gradual radicalization of the revolution and the aristocracy’s refusal to compromise, feudal rights were completely abolished. The state’s and the clergy’s assets as well as those of the emigrants were sold to finance the Revolution. If one can doubt the efficiency of the use of these funds, it is clear that the reallocation of resources and the removal of personal servitudes contributed to economic and political dynamism in the 19th century. The nobility of robe was also affected by the end of the venality of the offices. The end of feudal institutions had a major outcome: the great demarcation between Sovereignty and Property as designed by the Lyonnais magistrates: “On one side should be the sovereign state, divested of its holdings but guaranteeing the property of persons, while on the other should be society, defined by inviolable, individual property-holding. The continuity with the Night of August 4th—and the sixteenth-century jurists whose dream of demarcation informed it—is clear.” (Blaufarb [2016], p. 217).

90The revolution has been exported beyond borders: Belgium, Amsterdam, right bank of the Rhine, Savoy, Nice, Catalonia, Switzerland, etc. The institutions of the French Revolution (civil code, equality before the law, questioning of aristocratic privileges, etc.) were imposed on other countries by producing positive externalities. Acemoglu et al. [2011] showed a positive link between the number of years of French occupation in Germany, and economic growth as proxied by urbanization after 1850. It was the radicalism of the French revolution that brought about the transformation of institutions in France and outside of France (Boix [2003]).

91The most important outcome of the political takeover of the bourgeoisie concerns the liberalization of the economy and the application of laissez-faire, laissez-passer where the regulations of the old regime prohibited innovation in the production and circulation of wealth. This freedom was, however, a double-edged sword since the ban on corporations and workers’ coalitions (unionism) greatly contributed to the suffering of the urban masses. More broadly, the revolution built the very possibility of an internal market. The abolition of internal customs and other rights of way contributed to the economic unification of the territory.

92If in banking, there were continuities between the Ancien Regime and the revolution, the creation of the Banque de France at the beginning of 1800 characterized the desire to develop rent-seeking behavior by bankers (Rouanet [2019]). However, the central bank had the right to refuse to mint money to meet the needs of the Treasury (Plessis [1991]).

93The unification of languages and the use of metric measures were part of this movement. The situation favored the modernization of the peasantry. If only a tiny fraction of poor peasants could acquire land, the sale of old regime goods and liberalization (of grain cultivation, trade, etc.) allowed the new owners to innovate and develop their properties. The advent of the Empire buried the bourgeois hopes of suffrage by census (access to the vote depends on whether or not one paid taxes). But, on the economic level, the revolution was profoundly bourgeois, since the owners’ economic activity was now freed from the political and economic shackles of the old regime.

94The French revolution also helped modernize the state. Among the state reforms, the end of the venality of offices was symbolic, because it epitomized the transition from a conception of state administration based on economic power to one based on merit (Pinsard and Tadjeddine [2019]). Revolutionary events led to the secularization of the state, and the separation of the state from the church. The judicial administration was modified in order to reinforce the separation of powers. Taxation were completely redesigned around the idea of tax equality (no exemption as under the old regime). It was uniformized all over the territory, and was simplified (less different contributions).