Does Reform Prevent Rebellion? Evidence From Russia’s Emancipation of the Serfs

• Author: Tricia D. Olsen,Evgeny Finkel,Scott Gehlbach
• Date: 01 July 2015
• DOI: 10.1177/0010414014565887
• Published date: 01 July 2015
• Subject Matter: Articles

Comparative Political Studies

2015, Vol. 48(8) 984 –1019

© The Author(s) 2015

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DOI: 10.1177/0010414014565887

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Article

Does Reform Prevent

Rebellion? Evidence

From Russia’s

Emancipation of the

Serfs

Evgeny Finkel1, Scott Gehlbach2,

and Tricia D. Olsen3

Abstract

Contemporary models of political economy suggest that reforms intended

to reduce grievances should curtail unrest, a perspective at odds with

many traditional accounts of reform and rebellion. We explore the impact

of reform on rebellion with a new data set on peasant disturbances in

19th-century Russia. Using a difference-in-differences design that exploits

the timing of various peasant reforms, we document a large increase in

disturbances among former serfs following the Emancipation Reform of

1861, a development counter to reformers’ intent. Our analysis suggests

that this outcome was driven by peasants’ disappointment with the reform’s

design and implementation—the consequence of elite capture in the context

of a generally weak state—and heightened expectations of what could be

achieved through coordinated action. Reform-related disturbances were

most pronounced in provinces where commune organization facilitated

collective action and where fertile soil provoked contestation over land.

1George Washington University, DC, USA

2University of Wisconsin–Madison, WI, USA

3University of Denver, CO, USA

Corresponding Author:

Scott Gehlbach, Professor of Political Science, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 110 North

Hall, 1050 Bascom Mall, Madison, WI 53706, USA.

Email: gehlbach@polisci.wisc.edu

565887CPSXXX10.1177/0010414014565887Comparative Political StudiesFinkel et al.

research-article2015

Finkel et al. 985

Keywords

revolution, democratization and regime change, East European politics,

Russia/former Soviet Union, conflict processes

Many contemporary models of political economy suggest that policy and

institutional change are driven by fear of social unrest (e.g., Acemoglu &

Robinson, 2006; Ansell & Samuels, 2010; Boix, 2003; Dunning, 2008;

Gandhi & Przeworski, 2006; Svolik, 2012). Although details differ, such

models are typically characterized by a bargaining environment in which an

excluded group has the ability to impose a costly settlement—often through

large-scale social unrest—if bargaining breaks down. Reform (policy or

institutional change intended to improve the welfare of the excluded group)

reduces the likelihood that this option is exercised—the only alternative to

elites being repression, which is itself costly.1 As summarized by Adam

Przeworski, “extensions of rights are a response of the incumbent holders of

rights to revolutionary threats by the excluded” (Przeworski, 2009, p. 292).

Although it is intuitive that reforms intended to reduce grievances should

reduce unrest, earlier important work suggests a more ambiguous relation-

ship between reform and rebellion, especially in traditional societies.

Huntington (1968), for example, suggests that reform can be either a “cata-

lyst” or “substitute” for political instability, as reform may raise expectations

among excluded groups even as it addresses long-standing grievances.

Skocpol (1979) shows how reform driven by international pressures but con-

strained by elite interests can paradoxically create the conditions for rebel-

lion, especially in the context of preexisting capacity for collective action

among the peasantry. Scott (1976), in turn, demonstrates that modernizing

reforms can undermine norms that ensure subsistence lifestyles, thus foster-

ing grievances that drive rebellion, even if such reforms increase expected

income.2

What is the impact of reform on rebellion? We provide new evidence on

this question with a novel data set of peasant disturbances in 19th-century

Russia. Our data allow us to examine the impact of a particular reform

designed to prevent social disorder: Tsar Alexander II’s emancipation of the

serfs in 1861. Long-simmering unrest among peasants bound to the nobility,

punctuated by occasional spasms of intense violence, had encouraged various

acts of peasant reform throughout the Russian Empire but never emancipa-

tion of the serfs in Russia proper. In the wake of the Crimean War, which led

to renewed peasant disturbances as well as a perception that Russia’s institu-

tions were outdated, Alexander finally declared to the Moscow nobility in

1856 that it was better to end serfdom “from above” than to wait for it to

986 Comparative Political Studies 48(8)

happen “from below.” This was more than public rhetoric: The tsar’s per-

sonal reaction to reports by members of his Secret Committee on the Peasant

Question indicate a fear of spontaneous peasant revolution (Zaionchkovskii,

1968, Chapter 2).

Our focus on Russian Emancipation represents a “most-likely” research

design (e.g., Eckstein, 1975; Gerring, 2007), in which the deck is intention-

ally stacked in favor of some theoretical prior—here, that reform reduces

unrest. In addition to the reality that preventing unrest was a primary goal of

the Emancipation Reform of 1861, there were various other factors that made

such an outcome likely. Discontent among Russian serfs (as with peasants

generally, suggests Huntington, 1968) was primarily distributive, not ide-

ational, implying that the peasantry may have been comparatively easy to

buy off.3 In addition, reform did not pose the sort of commitment problem

that would make it difficult to avoid unrest (Acemoglu & Robinson, 2006).

As we discuss below, property rights were for years after emancipation deter-

mined by land charters that were negotiated during the reform process.

Indeed, it is precisely the commitment value of the charters that led to the

contestation that we document. Finally, reform arguably led to no immediate

change in the ease of rebellion.

The utility of the Russian case can be observed by comparing it with other

instances of 19th-century reform: emancipation of the serfs in neighboring

Austria–Hungary and Prussia. As oppressive as serfdom was in those regions,

peasants were materially better off at the time of reform than they were in

Russia, with greater right to land. Peasant revolt was not the ever-present

danger that it was further east: Prussian peasants were by and large an “obedi-

ent lot” (Kieniewicz, 1969, p. 59), and “[t]he peasantry was no danger to the

Austrian state” (Link, 1974, p. 174). Consequently, reform was driven in both

Austria–Hungary and Prussia in substantial part by a desire to improve state

finances, not to prevent unrest (Blum, 1948; Eddie, 2013). Moreover, and

largely in contrast to the Russian case, reform proceeded gradually over

decades of evolution of the state apparatus (Kosáry, 1941), complicating

identification of any causal effect of reform on rebellion.

Thus, various factors skewed the distribution of likely outcomes in the

direction of reducing unrest among the Russian peasantry. Yet, as we demon-

strate with a difference-in-differences design that exploits the differential

impact of reform on serfs and “state peasants” (i.e., peasants who lived on

state lands), respectively, the immediate impact of reform was opposite to

what was intended. Unrest among former serfs accelerated sharply after the

publication of the Emancipation Manifesto in 1861, with disturbances suffi-

ciently dangerous and widespread as to provoke a large military response—

that is, repression. Even after the immediate crisis had passed, those rebellions