Social Transformation and Violence: Evidence from U.S. Reconstruction

• Author: Megan A. Stewart,Karin E. Kitchens
• DOI: 10.1177/0010414021997164
• Published date: 01 September 2021
• Date: 01 September 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

2021, Vol. 54(11) 1939 –1983

https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414021997164

Comparative Political Studies

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DOI: 10.1177/0010414021997164

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Article

Social Transformation

and Violence: Evidence

from U.S. Reconstruction

Megan A. Stewart1 and Karin E. Kitchens2

Abstract

How do political actors create and institutionalize revolutionary social

transformation, and what are the consequences of their efforts? In this paper,

we provide a framework for understanding the conditions under which

revolutionary social transformation unfolds and becomes institutionalized

over time. We argue that a direct consequence of social transformation and

the institutionalization thereof, however, is violence against the revolution’s

beneficiaries which can likewise endure over the long-term. We test

our arguments using historical, county-level data on post-U.S. Civil War

Reconstruction and we supply both quantitative and qualitative evidence for

our mechanisms. We ultimately demonstrate that social transformation and

violence are often causally linked, not mutually exclusive outcomes, thereby

expanding our understanding of how social orders are created and maintained.

Keywords

civil war, conflict processes, social movements, subnational politics

How is revolutionary social transformation institutionalized, and what are

the consequences thereof? Revolutionary social and political change

occurs by destroying social and political orders then institutionalizing new

ones (Huntington, 2006, p. 266; Mondlane, 1983, p. 163; Skocpol 1979,

1American University, Washington, DC, USA

2Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Megan A. Stewart, American University, 4400 Wisconsin Avenue, Washington, DC 20016, USA.

Email: mastew@american.edu

997164CPSXXX10.1177/0010414021997164Comparative Political StudiesStewart and Kitchens

research-article2021

1940 Comparative Political Studies 54(11)

2 Comparative Political Studies 00(0)

pp. 163–164). Yet, enduring transformations of social and political orders

are rare (Tilly, 1977, p. 220) and frequently transpire over the course of

decades if not centuries (North et al., 2009, p. 27). Even among the actors

who do realize their transformative, revolutionary ambitions, the process

of consolidating such change is hardly simple or straightforward: during

the Chinese Civil War, for example, Mao Tse-Tung and the People’s

Liberation Army (PLA) implemented their revolutionary land redistribu-

tion schemes in southern China, but the changes wrought as a result of

their programs triggered a violent backlash against the PLA so intense, it

caused the PLA’s catastrophic defeat and retreat from the south of China

(Opper, 2018).

In this paper, we argue that both success toward institutionalizing revolu-

tionary social change and reactionary violence are causally intertwined. We

conceive of revolutions as bundles of interlocking political, social, and eco-

nomic programs. The objective of these programs is to alter pre-existing

social hierarchies across a broad population, typically to mitigate if not elimi-

nate status hierarchies that exist between (subjugated and oppressed) social

out-groups and (privileged and dominant) social in-groups. We identify three

conditions that, when present together, make social transformation more

likely to occur: revolutionary actors introduce programs that transfer physical

(wealth and assets) or ideational (skills, knowledge, and practices) goods to

social out-groups, revolutionaries undertake this transfer of physical or infor-

mational assets within a protected environment (supportive legal milieu or

secure space), and social out-group members who typically stand to benefit

from these programs participate in them. Social out-groups immediately cap-

italize upon the goods and information they receive from revolutionaries and

put them into use and practice, thereby disrupting the existing distribution of

power between social groups and incrementally reducing crystallized status

hierarchies.

Furthermore, social out-group behavior in response to these initial condi-

tions becomes the impetus for institutionalizing social transformation over

the long-term. By repeatedly putting assets gleaned from revolutionary pro-

grams into practice, social out-groups embed knowledge, skills, norms, and

behaviors within a broader community, such that these practices and knowl-

edge are learned and reproduced over generations. Within protected spaces

created by revolutionaries during the implementation of programs, social

out-group members establish informal and formal communal networks and

organizations. These networks serve to promote communal interests, coordi-

nate communal collective action, preserve assets from revolutionaries and

expand access to these assets within the community. Both practices and net-

works are extremely resilient to pressure and difficult to eradicate. As a result,

Stewart and Kitchens 1941

Stewart and Kitchens 3

even in the absence of protected spaces and revolutionary programs that

transfer assets to out-groups and make the initiation of social transformation

more likely, social out-group members continue to institutionalize revolu-

tionary programs.

Yet, the improvement in the lives of social out-groups and corresponding

reduction (but not necessarily elimination) of social inequities provokes

resentment and hostility among privileged in-groups toward the gainful out-

groups (Brewer, 1999; Petersen, 2002; Quillian, 1995; Smångs, 2016b; Wells,

2012). In places where reductions in social inequities are greater, this resent-

ment is more likely to manifest as political violence from privileged in-

groups who seek to maintain or reclaim their dominant status (Smångs,

2016b; Wells, 2012). Privileged in-group members are more likely to resort

to violence against social out-groups because social out-groups may be easier

targets than armed and militarized revolutionary actors, and because during

the revolutionary period, in-groups may lack access to alternative, non-

directly violent tools for exerting social control and preserving the hierarchy

over out-groups they once had. Furthermore, because social out-groups work

to institutionalize and preserve benefits over the long-term, the resentment

and violence against social out-groups correspondingly endures over the

long-term until social in-groups are wholly demobilized (sometimes annihi-

lated) by revolutionaries, or until social in-groups reclaim pre-revolutionary

levels of social control.

Thus, social transformation and violence are frequently intimately inter-

twined. Furthermore, both social changes as well as resentful violence can per-

sist over time. Indeed, Vladimir Lenin, one of history’s infamous initiators of

widespread social change, claimed that even when transformative schemes

“commence peacefully,” they nevertheless “end in furious wars” (Lenin, 1919).

We test our theory using sub-national data from Reconstruction after the

U.S. Civil War (see, e.g., Ruef, 2014).1 We select the U.S. case for three

reasons. First, Reconstruction is an example of a political actor’s attempt to

construct a new social order on the scale of a social revolution (Du Bois,

2013; Foner, 2011; Moore, 1993; Skocpol, 1995): indeed, some of

Reconstruction’s leaders understood its objectives to be revolutionary

(Shortreed, 1959, p. 77) and even communist rebel groups intent on achiev-

ing radical social transformation recognize Reconstruction as America’s

true revolution (Connell, 1993, p. 71). Second, our case selection suggests

that violence is unlikely to emerge after conflict due to a clear wartime vic-

tor (Licklider, 1995, pp. 684–685), as well as the presence of strong (Fearon

& Laitin, 2003) and accountable state institutions (Walter, 2015). Third,

pre-Reconstruction (pre-treatment) measures for social transformation

(out-group literacy) and a specific form of counter-revolutionary violence