ABSTRACT
The key factor moving the debate forward between Theda Skocpol and dissenters from what we may think of as the orthodoxy she established was not agreement but, rather, changing circumstances. The Iranian Revolution, the Nicaraguan Revolution, and revolutions throughout the world following the end of the colonial period, have challenged scholars to "broaden their scope of comparative studies beyond the classical revolutions of Europe". In the 1980s and 1990s, States and Social Revolutions inspired other works of macro-comparative history. Wickham-Crowley uses Boolean algebra—a method allowing analysis to be conducted according to logical principles—to examine the "necessary" and "sufficient" underlying causes of revolution, and to determine which configuration of causes leads to revolutionary change. Jack Goldstone suggests that, for a revolution to succeed, the military elite must be alienated from the state apparatus, a wide swath of people must mobilize, and international support must either withdraw or intervene to prevent the government from using the full force at its disposal.
