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Reforming to Survive: The Bolshevik Origins of Social Policies
This Element details how elites provide policy concessions when they face credible threats of revolution. Specifically, the authors discuss how the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent formation of Comintern enhanced elites' perceptions of revolutionary threat by affecting the capacity and motivation of labor movements as well as the elites' interpretation of information signals. These developments incentivized elites to provide policy concessions to urban workers, notably reduced working hours and expanded social transfer programs. The authors assess their argument by using original qualitative and quantitative data. First, they document changes in perceptions of revolutionary threat and strategic policy concessions in early inter-war Norway by using archival and other sources. Second, they code, for example, representatives at the 1919 Comintern meeting to proxy for credibility of domestic revolutionary threat in cross-national analysis. States facing greater threats expanded various social policies to a larger extent than other countries, and some of these differences persisted for decades.
- GenresHistory
75 pages, Paperback
Published January 5, 2023
58 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 8, 2025
The authors present a compelling argument that the emergence of welfare states is a direct response to (perceived) revolutionary threat. For elite groups, composed of "wealthy or politically powerful individuals with intrinsic interests in maintaining the current economic system," preserving the exact status quo is in fact a second-order interest apropos of a greater goal: stay on top.
In Norway, the tiered interests of elites, who were responding to revolutionary fears after the Labor Party joined Comintern, resulted in some otherwise baffling heel turns. Politicians and capitalists, up to 1918, staunchly opposed old-age pensions, eight-hour workdays, and electoral reforms. And then suddenly, often unanimously, they were supporting progressive legislation that threatened profits or bourgeois representation in the Storting.
On balance, Norwegian elites' concessions to the labor movement were costly, yes, but hardly sacrificial. They were part of a co-optive strategy to integrate the least threatening demands back into the existing superstructure, thus elevating reformist social democrats in the Labor Party at the expense of more radical voices. In combination with repressive tactics like illegal surveillance and strikebreaking battleships, elites by 1923 had defused the threat of a communist uprising by pretending to care. Thereafter, the Conservatives de-revised their manifestos and shelved those reforms that had not yet been implemented (e.g., pensions) for future decades.
((Today, as I work through The Norwegian Exception?, I'm grateful for how thoroughly Reforming to Survive debunks Fasting and Sørensen's claim—that post-WWI reforms stemmed from some idealistic Norwegian consensus culture. Dang, I knew that book was Civita-coded!!))
Reforming to Survive also features a robust cross-country analysis. The authors employ instrumental variable analysis (and other things I don't understand) to demonstrate that Norway was not an exception but the rule: Elites everywhere heard Rosa, and they chose the former!
In Norway, the tiered interests of elites, who were responding to revolutionary fears after the Labor Party joined Comintern, resulted in some otherwise baffling heel turns. Politicians and capitalists, up to 1918, staunchly opposed old-age pensions, eight-hour workdays, and electoral reforms. And then suddenly, often unanimously, they were supporting progressive legislation that threatened profits or bourgeois representation in the Storting.
On balance, Norwegian elites' concessions to the labor movement were costly, yes, but hardly sacrificial. They were part of a co-optive strategy to integrate the least threatening demands back into the existing superstructure, thus elevating reformist social democrats in the Labor Party at the expense of more radical voices. In combination with repressive tactics like illegal surveillance and strikebreaking battleships, elites by 1923 had defused the threat of a communist uprising by pretending to care. Thereafter, the Conservatives de-revised their manifestos and shelved those reforms that had not yet been implemented (e.g., pensions) for future decades.
((Today, as I work through The Norwegian Exception?, I'm grateful for how thoroughly Reforming to Survive debunks Fasting and Sørensen's claim—that post-WWI reforms stemmed from some idealistic Norwegian consensus culture. Dang, I knew that book was Civita-coded!!))
Reforming to Survive also features a robust cross-country analysis. The authors employ instrumental variable analysis (and other things I don't understand) to demonstrate that Norway was not an exception but the rule: Elites everywhere heard Rosa, and they chose the former!
July 30, 2025
Rasmussen and Knutsen argue that when capitalist democracies in the west perceived "revolutionary threat" in the wake of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, they responded by making concessions to their own working-classes. The authors operationalize this concept of revolutionary threat by looking at whether trade unions' were invited or connected to the Communist International, whether they frame their demands as reformist or systemic, as well as qualitative and archival documents from how private and government elites perceived worker organizing.
The political implication of the argument, I think helpfully, is that movements are strongest and most likely to win reforms not when they are reformist or domestic-oriented but rather revolutionary and internationalist/anti-imperialist.
On page 74, the authors pose a concluding question, inquiring why the Norwegian elite (their case study) relied more on reform than repression while other states choose the latter - a good opportunity to investigate how white supremacy and imperialism shape the dialectic between revolutionary threat and concession/reform/repression, especially in a US context.
The political implication of the argument, I think helpfully, is that movements are strongest and most likely to win reforms not when they are reformist or domestic-oriented but rather revolutionary and internationalist/anti-imperialist.
On page 74, the authors pose a concluding question, inquiring why the Norwegian elite (their case study) relied more on reform than repression while other states choose the latter - a good opportunity to investigate how white supremacy and imperialism shape the dialectic between revolutionary threat and concession/reform/repression, especially in a US context.
January 27, 2025
Fantastic. Note that this is a long research paper turned into a book. Through a case study from Norway and a cross-country statistical analysis, it shows that many welfare policies were enacted as a result of fear of communist revolution. The statistical modeling is very smart and robust; the case study is very convincing. More research is needed, obviously, but this is a great start. It adds an international dimension to the standard model of the emergence of the welfare state as the result of class struggle. It could also explain welfare cuts since the 90s.
July 28, 2023
More like a long research paper than a book. Likely interesting if this A) happens to be something you are interested in and B) like statistics. I am curious about the topic but not much of a numbers person.
January 31, 2024
Short case study on Norwegian politics being effected by the Bolshevik revolution and its effect on the working class movement in Norway and how in contributed to the concept of Labour-Capital peace. Unfortunately too short to be consequential.
May 14, 2024
It’s a good study but it’s really academic it’s more like a really long paper.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews