ABSTRACT
In the first half of the 1980s, Skocpol further pursued this research agenda before turning to other areas in political science. First, she formed a network of researchers in order to organize comparative historical analysis as a discipline (see Munck and Snyder 2007, 670-672, 699). This organizational work resulted in, among other things, the book Vision and Method in Historical Sociology (1984). Second, she made a heroic effort to describe the methodological strategies used in the field (Skocpol and Somers 1980; Skocpol 1984b; 1984c), arguing in this connection for the logic of comparative control. Third, Skocpol was the driving force behind the renaissance of state theory in the 1980s. Together with Peter B. Evans and Dietrich Rueschemeyer, she published a book in 1985 with the rather telling title, Bringing the State Back In. Skocpol’s state theory is a good place to begin this chapter, as it runs like a common thread throughout her theory on social revolutions.
