The anthropology of political revolutions

The study of political revolutions has until recently been the reserve of political scientists, political sociologists, and historians. In fact, sociology started with SaintSimon and Comte, and one of their central claims was that, with the Revolution, France had arrived at a crucial moment of transition. Their work focused on the historical process leading to this juncture, and on the solution that would end the crisis (Szakolczai 2009: 144). However, in recent years, and closely related to the “Arab Spring” and the worldwide political upheavals that have seen the day after 2011, a small but growing number of anthropologists have begun to focus more systematically on political revolutions as cultural processes.