ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the practical utility of the approach: how useful the concepts of institutionalization and consolidation are for investigating other phenomena related to transition and transformation, especially transitions to socialism and revolutions in progress. Yet the exploration of the role played by individuals is absent from most social science theorizing about change and revolution. The transmission of revolutionary ideas, ideals, and learning merits far more attention than it has received in the study of revolution to date. The chapter also considers four cases of modern Latin American revolutions: Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Grenada. Although considerably fewer than during the 1960s and 1970s, a variety of revolutionary movements remain throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. The revolutionary process in El Salvador has attracted a great deal of attention from scholars since the early 1980s. In some ways Peru's situation does resemble that of El Salvador.
