After state-breakdown: Dynamics of multi-party conflict, violence, and paramilitary mobilization in Russia 1904--1920, Germany 1918--1934, and Japan 1853--1877---a relational, micro-sociological approach---

Based on a comparative study of protracted periods of state-breakdown in Japan (1853-1877), Russia (1904-1920), and Germany (1918-1934) with secondary and primary (archival materials and pictures) data sources, this dissertation presents a micro-interactional theory of the dynamics and patterns of revolutionary power struggles. It brings together state-breakdown theory with interactionist approaches in the literature on social movements and contentious politics plus a micro-link: Durkheimian sociology of interaction-rituals and emotions. The central theoretical arguments of the dissertation are: (1) Revolutionary conflict unfolds as a field of multiple rival organizations. State-breakdown unleashes multi-party conflict that takes the form of consolidation contests: factions mobilize in interaction with each other in a social attention space, which has room for only a limited number of groups. In their competition, factions observe each other and carve out niches; here, some succeed at creating centers of attention while others are squeezed out, i.e. become by-standers to the conflict, split, or evaporate. A faction becomes completely successful where it is able to project power across smaller sub-fields and dominate the entire field of rival positions, by taking government power and creating a monopoly of legitimate force and rituals. Revolutions finalize where a new regime makes the mobilization of major opposition emotionally impossible. (2) Niches that factions carve out are about 'embodied practices': organizational repertoires and rituals. These are the major lines in establishing identities and along which conflict unfolds; more so than differences in ideological programs. Revolution is not done by intellectual argument or competition among ideas but by embodied practice. (3) There are three niche-dimensions along which organizations align themselves: (a) how much violence they are willing to use; (b) how much they break with traditional rituals; (c) how much they emphasize organization-building. (4) Durkheimian theory of interaction-rituals gives us the dynamics of conflict: rituals generate identities and attract recruitment in the struggle over attention space, create centers of attention, and explain the process of winnowing down of multiple organizations to a dominant one. And rituals build revolutions' bandwagons, peaks in conflict, and tipping-points.