The Long and Short of It: A Processual and Eventful Theory of Political Consolidation

Jen Triplett, University of Colorado, Boulder

Events like revolutions are short occurrences with long consequences. In this paper, I make the case for understanding revolutions not just as eventful moments of rupture but also as ongoing processes with contingent and reversible paths. To do so, I introduce a framework of gradated events—primary, secondary, and tertiary—building on Sewell’s definition of events. Whereas primary events usher in structural transformations, secondary events are subsequent happenings that can either deepen or challenge the changes initiated by the primary event. Tertiary events comprise secondary ones and draw attention to how actors navigate them. Based on close interpretive analysis of political speeches, print media, and archival materials, I illustrate the framework through an analysis of the months leading up to the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. I examine Castro’s decision to declare a state of emergency and call the nation to war footing on December 31, 1960 (a tertiary event), roughly three and a half months prior to the Bay of Pigs invasion (a secondary event) and two years after coming to power (a primary event). In addition to being a relatively obscure blip in post-1959 Cuban history, this declaration of emergency and the mass military mobilization that ensued are analytically useful episodes for conceptualizing revolutions as both events and processes. Such an approach—one that is both diachronic and synchronic, considering both the long and the short of it—illuminates not how people make revolution but, rather, what they do with a revolution once they have made one.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 161. Theories of Consolidation, Legislative Politics, and Illiberal Contexts