Movement split: how the structure of revolutionary coalitions shapes revolutionary outcomes

Over the years, theorists of revolution have sought to figure out why there is such an unpredictable relationship between revolutionary challenges and revolutionary outcomes. Puzzlingly, revolutionary movements’ professed ideologies appear to quite poorly predict the scope of transformation actually entailed by revolutionary processes. Relatively conservative attempts at regime change can sometimes give way to massive social change, and seemingly radical movements may well only deliver modest and routinized institutional change. In response to this problem, political economists, theorists of collective behavior, and public choice scholars have sought to find alternative explanations for divergent revolutionary outcomes. Most famously, Gordon Tullock (1971, 1974), laid out the hypothesis that successful revolutionaries are usually less guided by a set of prospective public goods they might provide (e.g. new institutions, regimes and state formations) than they are by private rewards of participation and office holding which they might attain. This line of analysis, sometimes termed a ‘private interest’ framework, has been furthered in the public choice literature by scholars such as Silver (1974), Kurrild-Klitgaard (1997, 2004), and—most recently—Dempster et al. (2023).

Contemporaneously, sociological theorists of revolution have also offered us an array of new tools to address how pre-revolutionary states prefigure the shape of revolutionary movements, and yet have tended to stall on how the nature of revolutionary movements might in fact predict or prefigure the shape of post-revolutionary states (Goodwin, 2001; Moore, 1966; Skocpol, 1979). This question has since attracted renewed interest from scholars, who have examined how counter-revolutionary activity can either undermine revolutionary movements (Allinson, 2022; Said, 2024) or force them to build dictatorial revolutionary regimes to ensure long-running survival (Levitsky & Way, 2022). Yet, the problem remains that even before counter-revolutionary challenges set in, the stated goals of revolutionary movement leadership tend to be poorly predictive of the scope of revolutionary change a successful movement goes on to pursue (Beissinger, 2013; Beissinger et al., 2015).

Research on the political economy of seemingly ‘paradoxical’ instances of revolutionary activity and collective action has pointed toward how explanatory factors such as reward-seeking behavior and pre-existing proximity to power (Silver, 1974; Tullock, 1979, 1987), as well as changes in beliefs about the marginal cost/benefit of participation (see, e.g.: Vahabi, 2004 139–142; Leeson, 2010) may guide the hands of revolutionary leaders, followers and participants. This line of public choice research has the promise to clarify not only the motivational landscape underpinning post-revolutionary outcomes, but also the scope of institutional change likely to arise from revolutionary processes beyond the immediate question of success or failure. However, while this line of work (centering around rational choice dynamics) offers compelling arguments to explain the routinization of social revolutionary movements, it has been dubbed incapable of explaining those converse instances: where social revolution persists, or indeed emerges from an otherwise conservative revolutionary movement (Olsson-Yaozis, 2012). For this literature to deliver on its considerable potential, we also need to answer important questions of political sociology that help us better understand the context in which revolutionary actors make their calculations, namely: which types of actors within a revolutionary coalition are best positioned to determine the scope of change engendered by the revolutionary process?

In other words, we must consider the relationship between the make-up of revolutionary movement coalitions and the short-run outcomes that determine whether post-revolutionary governments pursue ‘conservative’ agendas for modest political reform, or a ‘radical’ program of social revolutionary transformation—otherwise known as ‘political’ and ‘social’ revolution respectively (Goodwin, 2001). This article investigates precisely these short-term outcomes: the set of prospective institutional changes to revolutionary states, economies and societies emerging from the transitional struggles immediately following regime overthrow. Though these initial outcomes are often only precursors to consolidated regimes or counterrevolutions, they serve to structure the conditions of longer running postrevolutionary contention¹ and the structure of regime development (See: Vahabi et al., 2020; Levitsky & Way, 2022).

So far, much of the literature on revolution from a public choice perspective has focused on either (a) the propensity of elites to initiate and carry through challenges to regimes (Kurrild-Klitgaard, 1997; Tullock, 1987,) or, more commonly (b) the basis of ordinary people’s participation in revolutionary challenges, collective behavior, and mass rebellion (Kuran, 1989; Silver, 1974; Tullock, 1971, 1974 and, adjacently, Abrams, 2023). While these avenues of research remain rich and highly important, leading scholars have noted a lack of research into why revolutions vary in the scope of their accomplishments (Kurrild-Klitgaard, 2004: 405), calling for “grander historical case studies” that speak to such problems, and account for how “political entrepreneurs may help rebels overcome the initial collective action problems” associated with a revolutionary challenge, yet also “change the dynamics of the situation” going forward (Kurrild-Klitgaard, 2004: 405). Such problems are ideal sites of interdisciplinary collaboration between scholars of public choice and political / historical sociologists, bridging debates about collective action with analyses of structure and agency. In this article, I make the case for a further important element in the causal nexus shaping revolutionary outcomes: the structure of revolutionary movement coalitions. I show how variations in revolutionary movements’ coalitional structure may bolster or curtail their capacity to agitate for certain kinds of socio-political change following the overthrow of an ancien régime. The extent of change revolutionaries are liable to undertake may be mediated by an instance of ‘movement split’: when a revolutionary movement fractures once revolutionaries’ common goal of regime overthrow is achieved, and what was once a broad quasi-negative coalition² fractures into two further tendencies.

The remainder of this article consists of three parts. First, I propose that rather than holistic, ideologically unified projects, we can understand revolutionary movements as chimeras: a tense amalgamation of an array of sub-movements with various ideological, political and social cleavages, and containing both ‘conservatives’ who favor a limited political revolution, and ‘radicals’ who seek far-reaching social revolution.³ Second, I develop the notion of ‘movement split’: an occasion when a movement’s constitutive elements fracture, altering the capacity of actors to shape revolutionary change. The principal occasion with which this article is concerned is the liminal transition period⁴ between a revolutionary situation and a post-revolutionary regime: a critical juncture common to all revolutions.

Third, employing comparative historical macro-causal analysis (Mahoney, 2004; Skocpol & Somers, 1994; Skocpol & Somers, 1994), I analyze the causal relationship between the structure of a revolutionary movement and subsequent revolutionary outcomes, comparing one classic case, the 1789 French Revolution with a more recent, disruptive case that has become a lynchpin of contemporary research: the 2011 Egyptian revolution. I detail how the structure of each society’s revolutionary movement shaped revolutionary activity during (a) the initial battles between revolutionary movements and regimes and (b) the post-revolutionary transition. I show how structural changes in each revolutionary movement following ‘movement-split’ impacted the capacity of the remaining revolutionary movement to mobilize effectively for social revolution. At these moments of ‘movement-split,’ novel adjustments to the structures of revolutionary movements occurred, leaving remaining revolutionaries with a considerably different set of capabilities than the ones with which they were able to accomplish regime overthrow, in turn drastically affecting the potential for the pursuit of social revolution. In Egypt, organizationally weak radical revolutionary leaders employed a well-organized conservative faction's mobilizing apparatus alongside a groundswell of spontaneous participation, and then lost this mobilizing potential after the movement split. Conversely, in France, radical groups' robust mobilization structures initially bolstered conservative revolutionary leaders, and went on to sustain radical revolutionary mobilization when conservative support fell away.

The force of this comparison relies on the heterogeneity of these two cases, in line with Mill’s (1843, 454) method of agreement. By comparing ‘most different’ cases, belonging to a shared conceptual category (revolution) but with highly variant contextual factors (time, space, state structure, military-state-society relations, international system), we can establish promising evidence for the generalizability of our findings to other cases in our chosen category. This method is best suited to exploratory comparisons, designed to challenge the applicability of new theoretical claims (Gerring, 2007, 141–143; Goodwin, 2001, 6)⁵. Herein, I am employing the method to convey the scope of contexts in which movement structure may be of causal relevance to our understanding of short-run revolutionary outcomes. The contrasting trajectories of France and Egypt offer a compelling empirical pairing. The French Revolution is a classic ‘social revolution’, in which regime change is followed by “rapid and fundamental social, economic and/or cultural change” (Skocpol, 1979; Goodwin, 2001, 9). The Egyptian Revolution, by contrast, is considered a ‘political revolution’, in which, despite the popular overthrow of a political regime, revolutionaries do not subsequently carry out radical social transformation (Abrams, 2021; Lawson, 2016; Ritter, 2015).

The analysis herein uncovers a common logic that transcends each case’s highly different historical and cultural context: that whichever revolutionary faction held control over the movement’s principal mobilizing apparatus at the point of movement-spit was able to influence short-term revolutionary outcomes most decisively. This finding underscores a broader principle, demonstrating how the structure of a revolutionary movement coalition may dramatically influence the scope and direction of change it pursues.

For quite some time, a distinction between ‘conservative’ and ‘radical’ revolutionary movements has been a popular feature of research on revolutions, forming a natural partner for the much older distinction between political/social revolutions (See, as of late, Beissinger, 2022; Levitsky & Way, 2022). The terms ‘conservatives’ and ‘radicals’ might seem odd in this context, as ‘conservatives’ are not typically associated with revolution, and ‘radicals’ are expected to have more extreme views. However, these terms refer to each group’s relative approach to revolutionary change, not the nature of the changes. ‘Conservatives’ constitute those revolutionaries who (regardless of their political stance) prefer leveraging existing sociopolitical structures rather than prolonging revolutions that disrupt them. They may be right-wing traditionalists, liberal reformers, left wing social democrats, or many other ideological persuasions, so long as their aims would be served by the closure of a revolutionary situation. ‘Radicals’, on the other hand, may likewise have mainstream or fringe views but are united in their belief that a major social revolution is required to achieve change. Such changes may constitute big transformations of class structures, large scale civil, ethnic, or religious reorientations, other kinds of major societal overhauls, or even a shifting, uncharted path with chaotic twists and turns.

While scholars have classically used the conservative / radical distinction to differentiate between two kinds of revolutionary movement (respectively defined by their pursuit of political or social revolution), we may more fruitfully apply this same distinction within movements. Indeed, no movement is ever monolithic, and revolutionary movements are often particularly diverse owing to their crystallization in an oppositional context (see, e.g. Beissinger, 2013). Hence, revolutionary movements usually tend to be complex quasi-negative coalitions of radical and conservative elements, both intending the downfall of the regime, but with drastically different plans for the scale of change they hope to achieve through the revolutionary process. Just as Charles Tilly (1978, 212) noted that revolutionary situations emerged with a “split between the existing polity and an effective alternative coalition,” the point of regime overthrow signals the emergence of a second split: this time between satiated conservative revolutionaries, whose political revolution has been achieved, and their radical counterparts, whose path toward social revolution has only just begun.

This breaking-apart of a movement’s radical and conservative components is what I term ‘movement split’. Such splits may occur as a consequence of the divergent revolutionary outcomes intended by each element in the revolutionary coalition. A movement’s radical component, intent on further social transformation by means of revolution, is inclined to continue agitation in order to achieve this further goal. By contrast, the conservative component of a revolutionary movement, its revolutionary goals achieved, is inclined to shift its focus away from revolution in favor of non-revolutionary political avenues, through which their preferred social or political program may be implemented.⁶

When this ‘movement split’ occurs, any separation is unlikely to be a clean break, with resources often unequally and differentially distributed between each aspect of the former revolutionary movement. Accordingly, a previously cohesive and effective revolutionary movement might find itself fundamentally crippled, unable to contend in the absence of its conservative element, which might even come to play a counter-revolutionary role, aligned with the very state power it once helped to smash. Conversely, it might be the case that even in the absence of (or in opposition to) its former partners in revolution, the remaining (radical) movement will be able to continue contention, and thereby continue revolutionary transformation.

How, then, might we begin to ascertain likely short-term revolutionary outcomes in the midst of a revolutionary process? In contexts such as Egypt and France, the stated ideological positions of the revolution’s early leaders did not resemble subsequent revolutionary outcomes. Egyptian revolutionaries often spoke of wanting to totally overhaul state and social structures, but their revolution was only a limited ‘political revolution’ in character. Meanwhile, French revolutionaries initially sought to do little but seize political power, yet initiated one of the most profound social revolutions in human history.

An ample supply of leaders and brokers play an important role in advancing the revolutionary process prior to regime overthrow by helping to build a cohesive coalition and making representations on its behalf (Selbin, 1993; Tarrow, 2022). Yet, the stated aims of revolutionary leaders only offer dubious predictive capacity of whether revolutions take a social or political route, not merely because of conflicts arising between leaders’ private incentives and the pursuit of public goods (Tullock, 1971), but more fundamentally because revolutionary movements so often fracture when regime overthrow is achieved. We can turn to the analysis of revolutionary movements’ internal structure to understand which elements are most capable of accomplishing their stated aims. Rather than asking what the leaders of the revolutionary movement wished to accomplish at the start of a revolutionary process, we can ask: what are the mobilizers within that movement prepared to support as that process matures? By analyzing the internal structure of revolutionary movements, and the extent to which different mobilizing elements are inclined toward either social or political revolution, we can achieve a better picture of which revolutionary outcomes have the greatest mobilization potential behind them, and which lack the resources to get off the ground. From this, we can ascertain the scope of institutional change a revolutionary movement is ultimately likely to advance.

Organizational biases in revolutionary movements’ internal structure help to shape subsequent revolutionary outcomes. Straightforwardly political revolutions tend to occur in situations where the ‘radical’ section of the movement loses sufficient mobilizing capacity after the movement splits following regime overthrow. Such events tend to constitute what Gordon Tullock (1971: 95) called “the common form of revolution,” in which “despotism which is overthrown …with little or no effect on the public good…. except for the change in the names of the ruling circles.” By contrast, social revolutions become possible only where the radical component of a revolutionary movement obtains or retains control over sufficient mobilizing potential to continue effective contention.⁷

This section examines how revolutionary movements took form in both Egypt and France during the initial revolutions against Mubarak and Louis XVI, and how their structure impacted upon revolutionary agitation, and facilitated regime overthrow. In each case, a key difference in the structure of each revolutionary movement is evident, with a corresponding impact on the shape of early agitation. Following Diani (2003), Oegema and Klandermans (1987), I delineate between three roles within each movement: ideological leaders, who help to shape the political content of revolutionary articulation; brokers, who develop coalitions; and mobilizers, who recruit participants. While leaders and brokers often prove pivotal in the lead-up to a mobilization phase, it is mobilizers that we most often associate with the prolonged execution of revolutionary contention (Tilly, 1978).

In Egypt, a radical revolutionary movement drew principally from three key elements: decentralized digital agitators, especially a Facebook page called ‘We Are All Khaled Saeed’; the National Association for Change (NAC); and a collection of youth activists, most recognizably the ‘April 6 Youth Movement’⁸. It was these groups that led the revolution, producing its agendas, playing host to ideological debates, and serving as emblems of the revolutionary cause. Their social revolutionary program constituted an overhaul of Egypt’s illiberal state and oligarchical social structure, and the embrace of a broader, rights-based social order that attended to the needs of large but marginalized social groups such as women, and the poor (Abrams, 2023; Telci, 2011; Teti, 2011). Among radicals, the ‘We Are All Khaled Saeed’ page served both as a signature mobilizing element, and an ideological hub. This was complemented by an offline organization: the NAC, an umbrella organization uniting various anti-regime groups, popularly understood to be the de-facto successor to the country’s prior anti-Mubarak protest movement, (Kefaya). Their efforts were supported by a small but determined body of activists from groups such as the ‘April 6 Movement’, who brokered connections between these groups and their revolutionary allies, as well as serving to organize smaller, local mobilizations.

The ‘leaderful’ qualities of Egypt’s radical movement enabled revolutionary agitation, organization and discussion in a fashion which was autonomous, multiplicitous and flexible, facilitating the rapid and widespread generation of new agendas and initiatives across an array of physically disconnected activists. This was vital in cultivating the revolutionary cause while avoiding state repression, and provided an attractive public image for spontaneous participants from beyond the movement’s own networks. However, lacking extensive mobilizing structures, radical leaders chiefly depended on the viral spread of their calls to action through an extensive social media environment, and—latterly—upsurges in spontaneous participation from Egyptians not already connected to the movement online. A small contingent of activists also engaged in in-person recruitment (such as distributing flyers or calling cell phone numbers) from time to time. Prior to the revolution’s first major mobilization on January 25th, 2011, such efforts had generally drawn paltry crowds. The dissemination and discussion of revolutionary agitation in a broader context depended on brokerage between radicals and an emergent conservative wing of the revolutionary movement, who threw their support behind the revolution in the wake of the ‘Day of Rage’ protests on January 28th. These organizations had a high degree of conventional mobilizing power, the greatest of which was held by the Muslim Brotherhood⁹. The Brotherhood played an important role in supporting revolutionary activity after January 28th, providing a resilient backbone for resistant action and protest, even while the overwhelming bulk of early revolutionary participation nonetheless arose from spontaneous participation decisions (Abrams, 2023). For the Brothers and others in the conservative wing of the movement, revolutionary change was limited to the removal of the Mubarak regime, and the election of a novel government who could take over the duties of running the country, after which further institutional change could develop outside of the bounds of the revolutionary process (Table 1)¹⁰.

In France, the revolutionary movement’s early leadership were principally concerned with winning state power. Reformist nobles and clergy, along with the newly elected leaders in the Third Estate, were clamoring for the introduction of democratic administration to France, and the transition to a constitutional monarchy. Complementing these conservative leaders was the radical section of the French revolutionary movement. Though they were not the revolutions’ early ideological leaders, radicals played a decisive role in the actual mobilization of revolutionary forces. Newspaper publishers, pamphleteers and an active political class sympathetic to the revolutionary cause came forward to defend its protagonists. Gatherings of huge crowds were organized in local neighborhoods, playing host to newspaper readings and open political meetings directed by dedicated radical revolutionaries. Between news, pamphlets, and political gatherings, France’s revolutionary movement swiftly developed an efficient mass mobilization machine: highly tuned and skillfully deployed with great effect. Even though they were acting in accordance with an agenda set by more conservative revolutionary leaders, the radical apparatus was at the core of organized mobilization (Table 2).¹¹

With each revolutionary movement having overthrown its old regime, a new set of challenges emerged for French and Egyptian revolutionaries. Following the fall of Louis XVI and Mubarak, both societies found themselves faced with the task of political reconstruction and the opportunity for social revolution. In both cases transitional regimes attempted to lead political reconstitution without major wide-ranging institutional change, largely mollifying the conservative sections of French and Egyptian revolutionary movements (which had been crucial for the initial act of regime overthrow). Meanwhile, the extant, radical revolutionary movement pursued further action in favor of social revolution, and more extensive upheavals of their country’s social, economic and political institutions.

In France, despite the departure of conservative-aligned revolutionary leaders for their new governing roles in the National Assembly, a radical revolutionary movement continued to mobilize in the successful pursuit of social revolution. By contrast, in Egypt, the radical revolutionary movement facilitated subversive resistant action in the form of protests against the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) temporary administration. Under the SCAF, the radical movement attempted to maintain agitation despite having lost considerable elements of its mobilizing apparatus. As popular excitement about the revolutionary process died down, these mobilizing efforts proved increasingly difficult to sustain without additional organizational support from established power contenders, most significantly, the Muslim Brotherhood. It quickly became clear that without the support of the movement’s conservative wing (which was swiftly transitioning into a variety of political parties and non-revolutionary organizations) the radical movement was severely crippled.

The revolutionary movement in France was initially comprised of a conservative leadership, chiefly embodied by revolutionary members of the Estates General, most particularly (but not entirely limited to) the bourgeois political agitators of the nation’s Third Estate. Conservatives sought a political revolution with the objective of establishing legislative sovereignty and—at most—a constitutional monarchy. Their stand against the French monarchy was swiftly re-enforced by an emergent radical revolutionary movement which relied on a radical press, popular gatherings, and a network of local political meetings to mobilize en-masse. These infrastructures were not only effective mobilizing apparatuses in their own right, they also excelled at converting large numbers of spontaneous participants into repeat returners. It was through the resources available to the revolutionary movement’s radical section that the initial revolution of 1789 was won.

In Egypt, radical revolutionaries initiated protest from a position of leadership online, shaping concrete demands, and planning revolutionary events. Benefiting from a great deal of revolutionary spontaneity, radical leaders successfully fostered some limited mobilizing capabilities of their own, but did not build substantial novel mobilizing structures (see: Abrams, 2023 for a detailed discussion of this phenomenon). They were also equipped with organized brokers and mobilizers in the form of activists from groups such as the April 6 Movement and the NAC. Nonetheless, outside of some genuine moments of spontaneous mass-participation, radical initiatives often leant on the mobilizing power of conservative oriented organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood.

Following the successful ousting of Louis and Mubarak from power, the French and Egyptian revolutionary movements split, with conservatives pursuing access to newly open state power, and radicals pursuing an agenda of substantive transformation. In the French case, radical control of mobilizing structures meant that mobilization could still take place, despite the departure of conservative leaders for the new National Assembly. Radical protest rapidly took form around new agendas, authored by mobilizers in the local assemblies and popular press. Because the bulk of mobilization capacity remained with French radicals, the agenda of the revolution’s conservative leaders was superseded in its capacity to determine the direction of the revolutionary process, and hence the scope of institutional change arising from it.

In Egypt, conservative dominance over mobilizing structures left a radical revolutionary leadership unable to mobilize on the scale of the ‘Eighteen Days’, except in rare circumstances where people who were not affiliated to the movement spontaneously elected to participate (Abrams, 2023). Nonetheless, conservatives were still able to benefit from radical assistance whenever they needed to defend the political advantages they had won in the revolution. This tactic was successfully employed by the Muslim Brotherhood and other Egyptian electoral challengers, which successfully drew radicals to their defense in electoral and constitutional disputes with SCAF. Together, Egypt’s revolutionaries could still unite to ward-off oppressive powers¹⁵ and preserve the gains of the country’s political revolution, yet those Egyptians seeking social revolutionary change were stranded in an inhospitable environment.

A comparative study of 1789 France and 2011 Egypt adds some weight to the notion that movement structure is an important causal factor in determining the scope and type of revolutionary change movements pursue: whether they take the ‘conservative’ route of regime overthrow, or the ‘radical’ path to social revolution. The comparison of these two contextually different cases shows that following coalitional fracture, whichever section of the movement retains a substantial plurality of mobilizing capacity is best poised to determine the extent of short-term revolutionary outcomes (at least, ceteris paribus)¹⁶. This defies the conventional logical of revolutionary analysis: to assess likely outcomes according to the apparent agenda of the revolution’s leading contingent.

With particular regard to political economists and scholars of public choice, this article calls into question the notion that those cases in which prospective social revolutions go on to pursue only ‘routinized’, political change reflect merely “the extent to which private interest calculations underly revolutionary participation,” (Silver, 1974: 70). Rather, it illustrates the necessity of accounting for a major ‘mutation’ in the revolutionary process that changes the rules of the game and the attributes of the players (Olsson-Yaozis, 2012: 515): coalitional fragmentation following regime overthrow—AKA ‘movement split’. Examining this element of revolutionary processes shows that the routinization of radical-led revolutionary movements (or the spilling over of conservative ones into social revolution) may instead be anticipated by examining the mobilization resources available to agents in the revolutionary coalition with divergent public goals. By triangulating the aggregate behavior of diversely interested mass revolutionary participants (who swell mobilization in a ‘spontaneous’ manner on which mobilizers cannot reliably depend, see e.g. Abrams, 2023), with the mobilizing capacity of differently interested radical and conservative ‘wings’ of revolutionary movement (discussed herein), we can begin to anticipate the general direction of a revolutionary outcome—toward social or political revolution. Once the dynamics of this ‘polarization phase’ have been accounted for, we can re-engage ideas about public goods and private interests to examine the sort of re-institutionalization likely to be brought about in the longer-run (Vahabi et al., 2020; 878).

I also hope that the concept of ‘movement split’ might help us begin to think about other forms of coalitional fracture beyond the radical/conservative split considered herein. Other instances of coalitional fragmentation—not discussed here—may arise in separate contexts: for example, ‘violent’ and ‘non-violent’ constituents of a revolutionary movement might fracture over a moment requiring armed confrontation. Other prospective fault-lines include national identity, religion, geography, gender, class and race, as well as specific ideological stipulations. If they are sufficiently severe or existential, these instances of fragmentation may precede the onset of regime overthrow and thus diminish the strength of a revolutionary coalition or pre-revolutionary resistance movement. Alternatively, they may come to further divide post-revolutionary regimes over time (bearing more resemblance to non-revolutionary forms of political fragmentation—see, e.g. Le Maux & Rocaboy, 2016). Indeed, even a victorious radical faction is unlikely to remain united for very long. As we see in the French case, once a pathway for social revolutionary change is established all manner of factions contend with one another to influence the precise direction of that change. Sometimes, there may even emerge fractal patterns of fragmentation, where sections of a radical movement split apart, and the victorious section—once somewhat established, might split apart one or more further times. All this is complicated by the changing ideological positions of actors who respond to developments in the revolutionary process by incorporating new ideas and by radicalizing or moderating their positions accordingly. In contrast to these more complex forms of coalitional fragmentation, the conservative/radical ‘movement split’ seems perhaps uniquely important and predictively useful in that it is expressly engendered by the revolutionary process. Regime-overthrow is a decisive part of revolution, and accordingly a break between conservatives and radicals in a revolutionary movement seems to always loom should a revolution reach such a point. Even accounting for other potential changes in political context, the capacity to survive this critical juncture remains a useful initial ‘test’ of the potential for social revolutionary change. Thus, a good heuristic for the efficacy and extent of a revolutionary cause might be to ask ‘can radicals effectively mobilize alone, or might they be able to develop this mobilizing capacity through the revolutionary process?’

Yet, the impact of movement split is certainly no causal law, and we should be hesitant about efforts to systematize it in an ironclad fashion. Sudden changes in external conditions or political context might come to shatter even the most resiliently structured movements by increasing the difficulty of further mobilization: foreign intervention often has this effect (Ritter, 2015). Similarly, progressively increasing civilian fatigue can play a role in longer-run struggles, just as short-term explosions of contention can be fueled by sudden civilian unrest (Abrams, 2023; Beissinger, 2013). Hence, there are important scope conditions we might wish to pre-emptively place on the utility of the ‘movement split’ concept. For example, we should anticipate coalitional fragmentation to potentially play a more limited role in circumstances where external players are highly active, and note that instances of spontaneous mobilization may temporarily shift events in play. Likewise, in circumstances where mass demobilization disproportionately affects particular sections of society (such as drawn out civil wars, gendered restrictions on mobilization, etc.), the effectiveness of radicals’ or conservatives’ mobilizing structures may shift dramatically. Future research on this topic may usefully investigate a further array of disruptive cases to consider such factors in-depth, and perhaps eventually to consider avenues for a more general model of revolutionary movements and revolutionary trajectories which unites an analysis of causal mechanisms relating to social and political context with internal dynamics such as movement structure.