HIS 4189 The State, the Military, Revolts and Revolutions

Course Description:
This course will look into main issues related to the themes on state building, the military, revolts and revolutions that have a major recognition in the history of the world and focus on the conflicts between competing agents of power and changing relations between the state and society from a historical perspective.

Learning Objectives
This course is designed to give students an in depth understanding of the relationship between the military and modern state building, and the place of revolts and revolutions as responses from various dissenting social elements to state building in modern political formations.

Learning Outcomes:
At the end of this course, students should be able to:

• Trace the links between modern state, security and the role of the military as a historical entity
• Explain how various forms of dissention can affect societies in particular historical settings
• Analyse the role of society and the state as agents of power

Course Content:

1. Early forms of state and pre-modern notion of security
2. Pre-modern forms of resistance
3. Mercenary soldiers
4. The nexus between the rise of the nation state and military
5. Discipline and order in the military and the regime in power
6. The military and society
7. Warfare (pre-modern, colonial and modern)
8. Changing dimensions of security and the role of military
9. Revolutions for social change and rebelling against the regime
10. Rise of militant movements against imperialism
11. Emergence of ‘protective’ armies

Assessment:

Attendance 10%
Midterm Test or Assignment 30%
Final Exam 60%

Recommended Readings:

Arendt, H. (1990) On Revolution, London: Penguin Publications.

Black, J. (2005) Course Description to Global Military History, London & NY: Routledge.

Dewey A. Browder and Greg Kaufmann (October 2008) ‘Stability, operations and State -building: continuities and contingencies: Colloquium Report [online]
(This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defending Title 17, United States Code, and Section 101. As such, it is in the
public domain, and under the provisions of Title 17, United States Code, Section 105, it may not be copyright)
Lenin, V.I. (1917) State and revolution [online]

ලෙනින් වී අයි (1980) රාජ්‍යය සහ විප්ලවය තෝරාගත් කෘති 6 වෙළුම මොස්කව් : ප්‍රගති ප්‍රකාශක මන්දිරය
Rietjens, S. J. H. (2008) Civil Military Cooperation in Response to a Complex emergency, Leiden & Boston: Brill.
Yves-Marie Bercé (1987) Revolt and revolution in early modern Europe: An essay on the history of political violence, St. Martin’s Press.
Eric R. Wolf (1969) On Peasant Rebellions in, International Social Science Journal, John Foran (March 1993) Theories of Revolution Revisited, Sociological Theory 11:1, 1-20.
William G. Roy, (1984) “Class Conflict and Social Change in Historical Perspective”, in Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 10, pp. 483-506.

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