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Revolutions In The Cuban Revolution

Decent Essays

Why do revolutions occur? What actors are usually involved? This are the two central questions that both Charles Tilley and Samuel Huntington attempt to answer by examining the reoccurring patterns of armed resistance and collective violence. Huntington and Chase both claim that revolutions are rare events which occur because of modernization. However, Chase and Huntington both have very different definitions of modernization, along with different models of revolutions. Chase points to gender ideas as central to various opposition movements within the Cuban Revolution, and she highlights the road to a “revolutionary moment” in which women were pivotal (Stevens 9/18/17). Huntington’s model of revolution involves a sudden “explosion of political participation” due to modernization, and revolution occurs when the established order is unable to keep up with the demands of the newly integrated groups. I feel that Tilley provides the best model of revolutions because he does not simply attribute armed revolutions to the undefined term of “modernization,” but instead focuses on the roles of omnipresent actors involved in these revolutions (these actors being; the government, the various contenders of power, and the polity). I would argue that his argument is more logically sound because he points to a tangible sources of power, such as a government’s coercive apparatuses, as a revolutionary barrier which must be overcome with armed resistance and a strong support base in order for

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