Papers by Marc Mulholland
Journal of Historical Sociology, 2016
This article argues that sociologically informed studies of revolution tend to underestimate the ... more This article argues that sociologically informed studies of revolution tend to underestimate the importance of counter‐revolution and ‘reaction’ in generating radicalisation. Revolutions are inherently political. Most accounts recognise this, but emphasise the executive organs of state – such as monarch, cabinet or ministers – at the expense of the intermediary ‘technicians of power’. Revolutions, however, typically seek to refashion an entire technocracy of power, and in so doing struggle against embedded and powerful sites of reaction. Central to the dynamic of revolution is the ‘purge’ of the technocracy of power. As governing structures are not easily transformed at a stroke, revolutions may be seen as punctuating long processes of struggle. Historically, the governing apparatus has been most effectively revolutionised under conditions of military occupation. The thesis is illustrated here by a narrative of revolution in Europe from the English Civil War to the Liberation of the...
Working Paper, 2019
It has become a commonplace to describe the period 1913 to 1923 in Ireland as a 'Revolution'. Thi... more It has become a commonplace to describe the period 1913 to 1923 in Ireland as a 'Revolution'. This working paper queries whether such a shorthand is altogether appropriate. Ten 'norms' of revolution are applied to the Irish case: '(1) State breakdown under pressure of international events; (2) The eruption of the masses into the political arena; (3) Class conflict; (4) Mutual radicalisation of revolution and reaction; (5) Moderation to radicalisation in leadership; (6) Coercion to create constituencies; (7) Purging of the state apparatus; (8) Significant transformation in the mode of production or at least property allocation; (9) The establishment of new norms so that the revolution is a foundational moment and a chasm exists with the past.' While it would be churlish to deny revolutionary aspects to the Irish experience it is perhaps better thought of as a "small international war".
Dublin Review of Books, 2019
As ultimately revealed by Hobsbawm’s self-defeating political interventions as a communist public... more As ultimately revealed by Hobsbawm’s self-defeating political interventions as a communist public intellectual in the 1980s, any class-based socialist perspective that tried to reconcile itself with the all-pervasive bourgeois triumphalism of the age, rather than simply defy it, could only result in something along the lines of the political managerialism that was the Blairite ‘Third Way’. Certainly Hobsbawm’s autobiographical reflections on the century (1998), which made a virtue of his lonely voice of chorus, are likely to last longer in the canon. He lived long enough, however, to witness, and ironically appreciate, the renewed crisis of capitalism that set in from 2008.
More an essay inspired by than a review. Published by Dublin Review of Books, September 2014.
Historical Journal
In August 1914, as war broke out, socialist parties across Europe offered support to their own go... more In August 1914, as war broke out, socialist parties across Europe offered support to their own governments. The Socialist International was shattered. This rush to defencism has traditionally been seen as a volte face in which the International’s frequent protestations in favour of peace and international working-class solidarity were suddenly abandoned. The collapse has been variously ascribed to socialist helplessness, betrayal or ideological incoherence. This article examines the International’s attitudes to war and peace as developed and espoused in the decades before 1914, and finds that the decisions of the constituent socialist parties in 1914 were understandable within this context. Socialists were not abandoning past ideals, but putting them into practice. The circumstances of modern war, however, made traditional distinctions - between aggressor and defensive belligerents, and between ‘progressive’ and ‘reactionary’ nations - difficult to maintain. For some socialists, this meant that socialists of every country had justification in rallying to their nation’s defence. For Lenin and the Bolsheviks, however, if no capitalist country could be considered innocent, then all must be guilty.
The fate of hereditary elites in modern society has been an unhappy one -smashed by revolution -u... more The fate of hereditary elites in modern society has been an unhappy one -smashed by revolution -unless they could swap their careful cultivation of distinction between themselves and the multitude with its very opposite: a contrived identity of interests through the ages. Curiously, the catholic lords had achieved this, only to be deposed by greater odds. Their conquerors the 'Protestant Ascendancy' attempted the same in the eighteenth century, but failed. Their 'Patriotic' identification with 'the Irish' lacked conviction. A minority lurched towards the most radical solution in the 1790s -an Enlightenment repudiation of recent Irish history as unserviceable and its wholesale replacement with revolutionary republicanism in the French style. The vast majority of the Ascendancy rejected this as utopianism of the purest water. Their counter-revolutionary drive carried to a successful conclusion the crushing of Irish revolution in 1798. But from this point virtually all hope of winning leadership of the Irish 'nation' dissipated, and the Irish landed elite submitted to the humiliation of acting as England's 'garrison class'. As democracy loomed in Ireland, their fate-in the long run at any rate -was sealed.
http://tcbh.oxfordjournals.org/content/23/2/302.full War and Peace: Ireland Since the 1960s. By C... more http://tcbh.oxfordjournals.org/content/23/2/302.full War and Peace: Ireland Since the 1960s. By Christine Kinealy. Reaktion Books, London, 2010. 414 pp. ISBN 978-1-86189-779-4, £25. Christine Kinealy has built an impressive reputation through her writings on the Great Irish Famine of 1845 to 1850. During the years of cataclysmic potato crop failure, the government of the United Kingdom permitted the export of food from the country. This has long been held up as an example of callous British indifference to Irish suffering and evidence of animosity to Irish nationalism. (It took a British
writes Jonathan Sperber in this splendid new biography, was -a true and loyal friend, but a vehem... more writes Jonathan Sperber in this splendid new biography, was -a true and loyal friend, but a vehement and hateful enemy.‖ To be in his small circle was to feel part of something historic, but also to be exposed to constant critical scrutiny. Once he feared for his political reputation, Marx let no politesse hold him back. One close colleague, Karl Liebknecht, remembered Marx as -the most accessible of men … cheerful and amiable in personal relations.‖ It was as well, perhaps, that Liebknecht remained unaware of Marx's sniping remarks about him in private letters. Marx's closest friendship was with Friedrich Engels, a man many found to be extremely off-putting in person: strongheaded, rather vain and arrogant. It may be that his buddy relationship with Engels's licensed Marx to ditch responsible leadership and blow off steam, and their mutual correspondence is certainly full of unedifying abuse of almost everyone they knew. But it is Marx's ability to inspire loyalty and awed respect that comes through most clearly from the recollections of those who knew him.
Irish Political Studies, 2010
Unionist Movement in the 1960s and Ulster Vanguard in the 1970s. Abstract: The origins of neo-lib... more Unionist Movement in the 1960s and Ulster Vanguard in the 1970s. Abstract: The origins of neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism may be found in the 1960s, when radical conservatives orientated towards the young and idealised the middle-class as the primary agent of modernity. In Northern Ireland, a struggle for the soul of the Young Unionist Movement pitted a liberal anti-sectarianism against a neo-conservative belief in unionist destiny. The triumph of the latter contributed to the collapse of Ulster Unionist moral authority to govern the nationalist constituency of Northern Ireland.
Analyses of the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland tend to underplay the influence of political ... more Analyses of the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland tend to underplay the influence of political strategy in the 1970s, preferring to emphasise militarism. Similarly, the persistence of militarism in the 1980s is often obscured by the attention paid to a 'new' republican political orientation. This article seeks to draw attention to the IRA's evolving attitude to the 'problem' of Ulster unionism, and its various interpretations of the likely efficacy of violence throughout the period. Republicanism is best understood as a deeply rooted working class ethno-nationalist movement interacting closely with the other agents of the Northern Ireland conflict: constitutional nationalism, unionism and the British government. 'Armed struggle' became a declining asset for republicanism as it came to be seen less as a form of 'popular guerrilla warfare' and more as 'terrorism'.
This article follows on from a piece by the present author that attempted to explain why Marx tho... more This article follows on from a piece by the present author that attempted to explain why Marx thought that proletarians have a tendency towards socialist preference formation. My first intention here is to establish that the historical evidence of Marx's time and since lends weight to Marx's hypothesis that workers, due to their reliance upon labour-power as the form of subsistent property peculiar to their class, incline towards support for socialisation of their mode of subsistence. My second intention is to sketch the interaction over time of labour-power as a property-form and the imperatives of capital. Finally, I seek to understand capitalist crises in this context. The title borrows from Flora Tristan's Union ouvrière.
Publication Information: Book Title: Northern Ireland at the Crossroads: Ulster Unionism in the O... more Publication Information: Book Title: Northern Ireland at the Crossroads: Ulster Unionism in the O'Neill Years, 1960-9. Contributors: Marc Mulholland - author. Publisher: Macmillan. Place of Publication: Basingstoke. Publication Year: 2000. Page Number: iii.
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Papers by Marc Mulholland