Revolution, Not As Easy As I Thought

Good Evening Class,

What I learned from the reading tonight is that revolution is a lot more complicated than I originally thought. Maybe it's because I'm American so my first instinct is to think about the American Revolution which in comparison seems so cut and dry. There was a little tumble with the Articles of Confederation but once we got rid of that it all seemed liked smooth sailing. However, after reading about the revolutions is Latin America I got a pretty good idea about why revolutions are so complex.

For one, deciding on a form of government doesn't always go smoothly. For example, Venezuela and Chile drafted and rejected nine different constitutions between 1811-1833. Additionally, many regions in Latin America weren't accustomed to aspects of politics like elections, political parties, or factions. This goes back to our class discussion about what makes a revolution work. While colonies in Latin America were successful at overthrowing their government, the aftermath left people not knowing how to form the government they might have wanted. For instance, because democracy was so chaotic, dictatorship seemed like the better alternative due to the rise military officials made during the wars for independence. Regionalism also threatened the national governments. Overall, post-revolution Latin America was one big political experiment with no desired outcome. So my preconception that all you needed to get through a revolution was a set of goals was pretty off base. Putting it into perspective now, rebuilding a government is wildly more complicated than it seems, especially when the people trying to rebuild it aren't politically experienced with elected legislatures or municipal governments. Without prior knowledge everything is basically a shot in the dark to see what works.

Another interesting component of the revolutions I found interesting was the role of religion. Conflicts began between whether there should be separation of church and state or if the Catholic Church would continue to dominate political life post revolution. Whenever I think of revolutions politically I generally tend to think about upheaving one government for a new more favored one. I'd never considered the role of the church, which actually makes a lot of sense as pre-19th century the church had a lot of control over politics. So I wonder if religion plays as an important role in post revolution regions as before. Where in France it determined the monarchy which was then revolted against, and in the US was the separated from the state once the Constitution was made.

There is obviously much more that complicates a revolution, but these were two components that struck me in particular. Hopefully you all learned as much as I did tonight!

Stay in school,
Alex out.