Organizational CaseClaim Cited
The movement that overthrew Fulgencio Batista joined armed insurgents, urban organizers, students, workers, civic opponents, and a wider public around an anti-dictatorial promise of constitutional government, national sovereignty, land reform, and social justice. Its unity was powerful enough to defeat the regime but too open-ended to settle how plural authority would survive victory.
How can a broad liberation coalition convert opposition to dictatorship into durable, plural rules for authority after victory?
Organizational CaseClaim Cited
Iran's 1978–79 revolution brought religious networks, bazaar communities, students, workers, secular nationalists, liberals, and leftists into mass opposition to monarchy, repression, inequality, and foreign dependence. The coalition could coordinate around the Shah's removal and Ayatollah Khomeini's symbolic leadership without agreeing on the authority structure that 'independence, freedom, Islamic government' would create.
How can a heterogeneous movement coordinate against autocracy without allowing shared opposition to conceal incompatible post-victory constitutions?