The Gramscian concept of passive revolution: A praxiological research program

Flowing from his “philosophy of praxis,” Antonio Gramsci’s concept “passive revolution” points to a broad research program encompassing different kinds of revolutions. To develop the concept, Gramsci made two kinds of innovations. On the one hand, he broke analytically with the stagist theory of revolution prevalent when he wrote—the idea that “bourgeois revolutions” are led by the capitalist class and produce capitalist society, and that “socialist revolutions” are led by the working class and produce communism—in a way that mirrors analytic strategies in contemporary historical sociology. On the other hand, Gramsci’s own work on the concept, along with the growing body of research on passive revolutions, identifies two types of passive revolution: a mass mobilization-based one and a revolution from above-type. Considering the analytic breaks together with these types yields a conceptual map of passive revolutions and adjacent (counter)revolutionary phenomena. The map helps locate authors in the passive revolutions symposium, who highlight the importance of viewing passive revolution politically, address some of the causal mechanics of passive revolutions through case studies, and thereby contribute to the concept’s uncanny ability to gain traction from the European metropole to the postcolonial Global South.