Revolution from above (book)

Revolution from Above: Military Bureaucrats and Development in Japan, Turkey, Egypt, and Peru is a sociological book written by Ellen Kay Trimberger, published in 1978 by Transaction Books. Trimberger outlines several criteria for what she calls "revolution from above" and attempts to explicate this social phenomenon's emergence developed through a comparative historical analysis. Most of the book is dedicated to explaining the Meiji Restoration in Japan and the Turkish War of Independence. The theory is then extended to include the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 and Peru's 1968 coup led by Velasco. Trimberger's contribution is significant with regard to sociological theories of the state significant insofar as it departs from the Marxist conception of the state as merely a political superstructure built on an economic base.

Trimberger outlines five characteristics which make a case a "revolution from above" (p. 3):

Trimberger departs from the Marxian theories of the state as simply the political "superstructure" on top of the economic "base", or the more substantive theory of "relatively autonomy" as described by Nicos Poulantzas.

Instead, Trimberger has a theory of the state in which the state is more autonomous, with its actors acting without regard to dominant class interests. Trimberger sees the state as "relatively autonomous" when military and civil bureaucrats are not recruited from dominant classes and when they do not form social and economic ties with these classes after their ascension to high office. These state bureaucrats become "dynamically autonomous" during periods of crisis, in which they take measures to destroy the existing economic and class order. They act independently of the existing class structures.

Furthermore, she outlines five criteria for the emergence of a revolution from above. The criteria are later revised to include only four after incorporating the Egyptian and Peruvian cases.

The five criteria are the following (p. 41-43):

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