International Counter Revolution: A Study of Interstate Resistance to Regime Change

Revolutions have a strong international component that is seldom examined in academic literature. It is observable that neighboring states frequently intervene in the domestic politics of countries undergoing revolutionary upheavals, actively working to impede those revolutions. Such interventions or international counter revolution responses are even more rarely examined in academic literature. Although revolutions are widely acknowledged to generate profound domestic, regional, and international transformations, their counterparts - international counter-revolutions- have garnered far less scholarly attention, even though their impact can be equally transformative. This dissertation highlights this neglected dynamic. Revolutions occur in an international structure of competing states and alliances. The outcomes and external effects of revolutions are potentially detrimental to the security and interests of the states in this international structure. Through deductive reasoning and the little literature available on the international relations of revolutions; this dissertation creates a theoretical framework for understanding international state led interventions in states which have underwent a revolution or with an ongoing revolution. The generalizable framework enables the prediction of specific states most likely to intervene against a revolution. The dissertation categorizes the ways in which such interventions manifest. The proposed theory is supported using the cases of Egypt and Tunisia during the Arab Spring, and cases of regime consolidation in Somalia after the collapse of the Barre regime.