ABSTRACT
I argue in this chapter that state-centered theoretical approaches comprise some of the most powerful analytic tools that are currently available to analysts of social revolutions. By contrast, fashionable post-structuralist conceptions of power simply beg too many fundamental questions. Certain types of cultural analyses, as we shall see, as well as the recent turn to “civil society,” are somewhat more useful. But state-centered approaches are even more helpful for resolving the key puzzles that are distinctive to the study of social revolutions.1 (Throughout, I refer to state-centered approaches in the plural, because-as I shall detail-there is no single statist perspective or argument, but several overlapping ones.) Of course, state-centered analysis, like any theoretical tradition, has its blindspots and limitations, which I shall also address. Fortunately, these limitations point the way toward a more powerful synthetic perspective on revolutions and collective action.
