Master's Thesis · Political Economy
Abstract
Why do some revolutions transform society while others fail to produce lasting institutional change? This paper argues that one shortcoming in the theoretical advancement of revolutionary theory lies in the absence of neutral-transformation criteria that provide analytical utility for comparatively studying revolutions. This paper proposes education curriculum change as one such measure that is ideologically neutral and comparable across different types of revolutions, acting as an indicator of the Ideological State Apparatus identified by Althusser. Drawing on revolutionary theory, critical juncture theory, and Bayat, this paper seeks to bridge the gap in revolutionary theory by advancing revolutionary ideology as an explanatory factor of transformation within the educational curriculum. Using Beissinger's revolutionary dataset and V-Dem curriculum measures, the paper analyses 134 revolutionary episodes between 1952 and 2014 through cross-national regression models. The results indicate that revolutionary ideology significantly predicts curriculum transformation, but only when revolutionaries take power. Conditional on regime change, Leftist and Democratic revolutionary ideologies exhibit positive effects on curriculum transformation. Islamist revolutionary ideology shows the same pattern, though the sample contains only six such episodes. Ethnic revolutionary ideology exhibits no robust relationship with curriculum transformation. The findings suggest that the transformational effect observed may not necessarily be explained by ideological content as much as ideological depth, coherence, and the willingness of revolutionaries to compete for power. Broadly, this study advances curriculum transformation as a long-term outcome measure through which revolutionary change can be assessed.
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