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{{short description|Rapid and fundamental political change}}
{{Mergefrom|Revolutionary|date=September 2006}}
{{redirect|Political revolution|Trotskyist concept|Political revolution (Trotskyism)|other uses|Revolution (disambiguation)|and|Revolutions (disambiguation)}}
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In ], a '''revolution''' ({{langx|la|revolutio}}, 'a turn around') is a rapid, fundamental transformation of a society's class, state, ethnic or religious structures.<ref name="Skocpol_ssr">{{Cite book |last=Skocpol |first=Theda |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/states-and-social-revolutions/9481262B2BDA1BFFB3C9218DBD447190 |title=States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia and China |date=1979 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/cbo9780511815805|isbn=978-0-521-22439-0 }}</ref> According to ] ], all revolutions contain "a common set of elements at their core: (a) efforts to change the political ] that draw on a competing vision (or visions) of a just order, (b) a notable degree of informal or formal ], and (c) efforts to force change through noninstitutionalized actions such as ], ], strikes, or ]."<ref name="Goldstonet4">{{cite journal |last=Goldstone |first=Jack |author-link=Jack Goldstone |date=2001 |title=Towards a Fourth Generation of Revolutionary Theory |journal=] |volume=4 |pages=139–187 |doi=10.1146/annurev.polisci.4.1.139 |doi-access=free}}</ref>


Revolutions have occurred throughout human history and varied in their methods, durations and outcomes.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Stone |first=Lawrence |date=1966 |title=Theories of Revolution |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/world-politics/article/abs/theories-of-revolution/66CDA67FF55E08E0620257F0FDE14876 |journal=World Politics |language=en |volume=18 |issue=2 |pages=159–176 |doi=10.2307/2009694 |jstor=2009694 |s2cid=154757362 |issn=1086-3338}}</ref> Some revolutions started with ] or ] on the periphery of a country; others started with urban insurrection aimed at seizing the country's capital city.<ref name="Goldstonet4"/> Revolutions can be inspired by the rising popularity of certain political ], moral principles, or models of governance such as ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], or ].<ref>{{harvnb|Gunitsky|2018}}; {{harvnb|Gunitsky|2017}}; {{harvnb|Gunitsky|2021}}; {{harvnb|Reus-Smit|2013}}; {{harvnb|Fukuyama|1992}}; {{harvnb|Getachew|2019}}</ref> A regime may become vulnerable to revolution due to a recent military defeat, or economic chaos, or an affront to national pride and identity, or pervasive repression and ].<ref name="Goldstonet4" /> Revolutions typically trigger ] which seek to halt revolutionary momentum, or to reverse the course of an ongoing revolutionary transformation.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Clarke |first=Killian |date=2023 |title=Revolutionary Violence and Counterrevolution |journal=American Political Science Review |volume=117 |issue=4 |pages=1344–1360 |doi=10.1017/S0003055422001174 |issn=0003-0554 |s2cid=254907991 |doi-access=free}}</ref>
:''For other uses, see ].''


Notable revolutions in recent centuries include the ] (1765–1783), ] (1789–1799), ] (1791–1804), ] (1808–1826), ] in Europe, ] (1910–1920), ] in China in 1911, ] in Europe (including the ] and ]), ] (1927–1949), ] (mid-1950s to 1975), ] (1954-1962), ] in 1959, ] and ] in 1979, worldwide ], and ] in the early 2010s.
], ] ] during the ].]]
A '''revolution''' (from ] ''revolutia'' which means "a turn around") is a significant ] that usually occurs in a relatively short period of time. Variously defined revolutions have been happening throughout ]. They vary in terms of numbers of their participants (]), means employed by them, duration, ] and many other aspects. They may result in a ]-] in the ]-]s, or a major change in a ] or ].


== Etymology ==
Scholarly debates about what is and what is not a revolution center around several issues. Early study of revolutions primarly analyzed events in ] from ] perspective, soon however new theories where offered using explantions for more global events and using works from other ]s such as ] and ]s. Several generations of scholarly though have generated many competing theories of revolutions, gradually increasing our understanding of this complex phenomena.
The ] noun ''revolucion'' traces back to the 13th century, and the ] equivalent "revolution" to the late 14th century. The word was limited then to mean the revolving motion of celestial bodies. "Revolution" in the sense of abrupt change in a ] was first recorded in the mid-15th century.<ref>] vol Q-R p. 617 1979 Sense III states a usage, "Alteration, change, mutation", from 1400 but lists it as "rare". "c. 1450, Lydg 1196 ''Secrees'' of Elementys the Revoluciuons, Chaung of tymes and Complexiouns". The etymology shows the political meaning of "revolution" had been established by the early 15th century but did not come into common use until the 17th century.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=revolution |title=Revolution |website=Online Etymology Dictionary}}</ref> By 1688, the political meaning of the word was familiar enough that the replacement of ] with ] was termed the "]".<ref>{{cite web|first=Richard |last=Pipes |url=http://chagala.com/russia/pipes.htm |title=A Concise History of the Russian Revolution |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110511130014/http://chagala.com/russia/pipes.htm |archive-date=11 May 2011}}</ref>


==Etymologies== == Definition ==
"Revolution" is now employed most often to denote a change in social and political institutions.<ref name="Goldstonet3">{{cite journal |last=Goldstone |first=Jack |author-link=Jack Goldstone |date=1980 |title=Theories of Revolutions: The Third Generation |journal=] |volume=32 |issue=3 |pages=425–453 |doi=10.2307/2010111 |jstor=2010111 |s2cid=154287826}}</ref><ref name="Forantorr">{{cite journal |last=Foran |first=John |author-link=John Foran (sociologist) |date=1993 |title=Theories of Revolution Revisited: Toward a Fourth Generation |journal=] |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=1–20 |doi=10.2307/201977 |jstor=201977}}</ref><ref name="Kroeber">{{cite journal |last=Kroeber |first=Clifton B. |date=1996 |title=Theory and History of Revolution |journal=] |volume=7 |pages=21–40 |doi=10.1353/jwh.2005.0056 |s2cid=144148530 |number=1}}</ref> ] offers two definitions. First, a broad one, including "any and all instances in which a state or a political regime is overthrown and thereby transformed by a popular movement in an irregular, extraconstitutional or violent fashion". Second, a narrow one, in which "revolutions entail not only ] and ], but also more or less rapid and fundamental social, economic or cultural change, during or soon after the struggle for state power".{{sfn|Goodwin|2001|p=9}}
The word derives from ] ''revolutio''- "a revolving," from ] ''revolvere'' "turn, roll back". It entered ], from ] ''révolution'', in ], originally only applied to ]. Only circa ] was it being used to mean " instance of great change in affairs"; the presently dominant political meaning is first recorded ], again following ], and was especially applied to the expulsion of the ] king ] in ] and transfer of sovereignty in Britain to ] and ]. ''Revolutionary'' as a ] is first attested ], from the ].<ref name="word">. Last accessed on 27 October 2006</ref>


Jack Goldstone defines a revolution thusly:
==Political and socioeconomic revolutions==
<blockquote>" an effort to transform the political institutions and the justifications for political authority in society, accompanied by formal or informal mass mobilization and noninstitutionalized actions that undermine authorities. This definition is broad enough to encompass events ranging from the ] to the ]. At the same time, this definition is strong enough to exclude coups, revolts, civil wars, and rebellions that make no effort to transform institutions or the justification for authority."<ref name="Goldstonet4" /></blockquote> Goldstone's definition excludes peaceful transitions to ] through ] or ], as occurred in ] after the death of ], or in ] and ] after the demise of their ]s.<ref name="Goldstonet4" /> Early scholars often debated the distinction between revolution and civil war.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Billington |first=James H. |date=1966 |title=Six Views of the Russian Revolution |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/world-politics/article/abs/six-views-of-the-russian-revolution/F41844384239517497C9A8AC94A70E4C |journal=World Politics |language=en |volume=18 |issue=3 |pages=452–473 |doi=10.2307/2009765 |jstor=2009765 |s2cid=154688891 |issn=1086-3338}}</ref> They also questioned whether a revolution is purely political (i.e., concerned with the restructuring of government) or whether "it is an extensive and inclusive social change affecting all the various aspects of the life of a society, including the economic, religious, industrial, and familial as well as the political".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Yoder |first=Dale |date=1926 |title=Current Definitions of Revolution |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2765544 |journal=American Journal of Sociology |volume=32 |issue=3 |pages=433–441 |doi=10.1086/214128 |jstor=2765544 |issn=0002-9602}}</ref>
] was a leader in the ]...]]


== Types ==
Perhaps most often, the word 'revolution' is employed to denote a ]-] in the ]-]s.<ref name="Goldstonet3">], "Theories of Revolutions: The Third Generation'', '']'' 32, 1980:425-53</ref><ref name="Forantorr">], "Theories of Revolution Revisited: Toward a Fourth Generation", '']'' 11, 1993:1-20</ref><ref name="Kroeber">], ''Theory and History of Revolution'', ] 7.1, 1996:21-40</ref> ] gives two definitions of a revolution. Broader, where revolution is 'any and all instances in which a state or a political ] is overthrown and therby transformed by a popular ] in an irregular, extraconstitutional and/or violent fashion'; and narrower, in which 'revolutions entail not only ] and regime change, but also more or less rapid and fundamental social, economic and/or cultural change, during or soon after the struggle for ] ]'.<ref name="NOWO:9">Goodwin, op.cit., p.9</ref> ] defines them as 'an effort to transform the political institutions and the justifications for political authority in society, accompanied by formal or informal mass mobilization and noninstitutionalized actions that undermine authorities.<ref name="Goldstonet4">Jack Goldstone, "Towards a Fourth Generation of Revolutionary Theory", '']'' 4, 2001:139-87</ref>
There are numerous typologies of revolution in the social science literature.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Grinin |first1=Leonid |last2=Grinin |first2=Anton |last3=Korotayev |first3=Andrey |title=20th Century revolutions: characteristics, types, and waves |journal=] |date=2022 |volume=9 |issue=124 |doi=10.1057/s41599-022-01120-9 |doi-access=free}}</ref> ] differentiated between:
* sudden and violent revolutions that seek not only to establish a new political system but to overhaul an entire society, and;
* slow and relentless revolutions that involve sweeping transformations of the entire society and may take several generations to bring about (such as changes in religion).<ref>{{cite book| first=Roger |last=Boesche |author-link=Roger Boesche |title=Tocqueville's Road Map: Methodology, Liberalism, Revolution, and Despotism |publisher=] |date=2006 |isbn=0-7391-1665-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fLL6Bil2gtcC&pg=PA87 |pages=87-88}}</ref>


] were essentially ]s and democratic and liberal in nature, with the aim of removing the old ] structures and creating independent ].]]
Political and socioeconomic revolutions have been studied by many ], particularly ]s, ]s and ]s. Among the leading scholars in that area have been or are ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ] and ], to name just a few.<ref name="NOWO:5">], ''No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements, 1945-1991'', Cambridge University Press, 2001, ISBN 2001, p.5</ref>
One of the ] typologies divides revolutions into:
] was a leader in the ].]]
* pre-capitalist
* early ]
* bourgeois
* ]
* early ]
* ]<ref>{{cite journal|first=J. |last=Topolski |title=Rewolucje w dziejach nowożytnych i najnowszych (xvii-xx wiek) |language=pl |trans-title=Revolutions in modern and recent history (17th-20th century) |journal=Kwartalnik Historyczny |volume=LXXXIII |date=1976 |pages=251–267}}</ref>


], a modern scholar of revolutions, differentiated between:
] differentiates four 'generations' of scholarly research dealing with revolutions.<ref name="Goldstonet4"/> The scholars of the first generation such as ], ] or ], were mainly ] in their approach and their explanations of the phenomena of revolutions was usually related to ], such as Le Bon's ] theory.<ref name="Goldstonet3"/>
* ] (a top-down seizure of power), e.g., ]
* ]
* ], and
* "great revolution" (a revolution that transforms economic and social structures as well as political institutions, such as the ] of 1789, ] of 1917, or ] in 1979).<ref>{{cite book|first=Charles |last=Tilly |author-link=Charles Tilly |title=European Revolutions, 1492-1992 |publisher=] |date=1995 |isbn=0-631-19903-9 |pages=}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tau.ac.il/dayancenter/mel/lewis.html |first=Bernard |last=Lewis |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070429144545/http://www.tau.ac.il/dayancenter/mel/lewis.html |archive-date=29 April 2007 |title=Iran in History |website=Moshe Dayan Center, ]}}</ref>


] identified six forms of revolution:
Second generation theorists sought to develop detailed theories of why and when revolutions arise, grounded in more complex ] theories. They can be divided into three major approaches: ], ] and ]. The works of ], ], ], ], ] and ] fall into the first category. They followed theories of ] and ] and saw the cause of revolution in the state of mind of the masses, and while they varied in their approach as to what exactly caused the people to revolt (ex. ], ] or ]), they agreed that the primary cause for revolution was the widespraed fustration with socio-political situation. The second group, composed of academics such as ], ], ], ], ], ], followed in the footsteps of ] and the ] theory in sociology; they saw society as a system in equilibrium between various resources, demands and subsystems (political, cultural, etc.). As in the psychological school, they differed in their definitions of what causes disequilibrium, but agreed that it is a state of a severe disequilibrium that is responsible for revolutions. Finally, the third group, which included writers such as ], ], ] and ] followed the path of ] and looked at ] and ]. Those theories sees events as outcomes of a ] between competing ]s. In such a model, revolution happen when two or more groups cannot come to terms within a normal ] process traditional for a given ], and simoultanesly possess resources enough to employ ] in pursuing their goals.<ref name="Goldstonet3"/> The second generation theorists saw the devolopment of the revolutions as a two-step process; first, some ] results in present situation being different from the past, second, the new situation creates an opportunity for a revolution to occur. In that situation an event that in the past would not be sufficient to cause a revolution (ex. a war, a riot, a bad harest), now is sufficient - however if authorities are aware of the danger, they can still prevent a revolution (through ] or ]).
* rural revolution
* urban revolution
* coup d'état, e.g., ]
* revolution from above, e.g., ]'s ] of 1958
* revolution from without, e.g., the Allied invasions of ] in 1943 and of ] in 1945
* revolution by osmosis, e.g., the gradual ] of several countries.{{sfn|Katz|1997|p=4}}


] in ]. The development of the ] propelled the ] in Britain and the world. The steam engine was created to pump water from ]s, enabling them to be deepened beyond ] levels.|alt=]]
Many of such early studies of revolutions usually concentrated on the four classic ']', seen as famous and uncontroversial examples fitting virtually all definitions of revolutions: the ] (1688), the ] (1789–1799), the ] and ] (1927-1949).<ref name="Goldstonet4"/> In time, scholars begun analyze hundreds of other events as revolutions (see ]), and differences in definitions and approaches gave rise to new definitions and explantions. Theories of the second generation have been criticized for their limited geographical scope, difficulty in ] verification, as well as that while they may explain some particular revolutions, they did not explain why revolutions did not occur in other societies in very similar situations.
These categories are not mutually exclusive; the ] began with an urban revolution to depose the Czar, followed by a rural revolution, followed by the ] coup in November. Katz also cross-classified revolutions as follows:
* Central: countries, usually ], which play a leading role in a ]; e.g., the ], ], ] since 1979{{sfn|Katz|1997|p=13}}
* Aspiring revolutions, which follow the Central revolution
* subordinate or puppet revolutions
* rival revolutions, in which a former alliance is broken, such as ], and ].


A further dimension to Katz's typology is that revolutions are either against (anti-monarchy, anti-dictatorial, anti-communist, anti-democratic) or for (pro-fascism, pro-communism, pro-nationalism, etc.). In the latter cases, a transition period is generally necessary to decide which direction to take to achieve the desired form of government.{{sfn|Katz|1997|p=12}} Other types of revolution, created for other typologies, include ] or ] (inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aim to replace ] with ]); failed or abortive revolutions (that are not able to secure power after winning temporary victories or amassing large-scale mobilizations); or violent vs. ]s. The term ''revolution'' has also been used to denote great changes outside the political sphere. Such revolutions, often labeled ]s, are recognized as major transformations in a society's culture, philosophy, or technology, rather than in its ].<ref>{{cite book|first=Irving E. |last=Fang |title=A History of Mass Communication: Six Information Revolutions |publisher=] |date=1997 |isbn=0-240-80254-3 |pages=xv}}</ref> Some social revolutions are global in scope, while others are limited to single countries. Commonly cited examples of social revolution are the ], ], ], and ]. These revolutions also fit the "slow revolution" type identified by Tocqueville.<ref>{{cite book|last=Murray |first=Warwick E. |author-link=Warwick Murray |title=Geographies of Globalization |publisher=] |date=2006 |isbn=0-415-31800-9 |pages=}}</ref>
The criticism of the second generation led to the raise of the third generation of theories, with writers such as ], ], ] and others expanded on the old ] ] approach, turning attention to rural agrarian-state conflicts, state conflicts with autonomous ] and the impact of interstate ] and ] competition on domestic ]. Particulary Skocpol's '']'' became one of the most widely recognized works of the third generation; Skocpol defined revolution as "rapid, basic transformations of society's state and class structures...accompanied and in part carried through by class-based revolts from below", attributing revolutions to a conjunction of multiplie conflicts involving state, elites and the lower classes.<ref name="Goldstonet4"/>


== Studies of revolution ==
From the late 1980s a new body of scholary work begun questioning the domiance of the theories of the third generation. The old theories were also dealt a significant blow by new revolutinary events that could not be easily explain by them. The ] and ] of 1979, the 1986 ] in ] and the ] in Europe in 1989 saw multi-class coalitions toppled seemingly powerful regims amidt popular demonstrations and mass strikes in ]. Defining revolutions as mostly European violent state versus people and ]s conflicts was no longer sufficient. The study of revolutions thus evolved in three directions. First, some researchers are applying previous or updated ] theories of revolutions to events beyond the previously analyzed mostly European conflicts. Second, scholars called for greater attention to conscious ] in the form of ] and ] in shaping revolutionary ] and objectives. Third, analysts of both revolutions and ] realized that those phenomena have much in common, and a new 'fourth generation' literature on ] has developed that attempts to combine insights from the study of social movements and revolutions in hopes of understanding both phenomena.<ref name="Goldstonet4"/>
] with ] message on a house wall. Four letters have been written backwards and with a different color so that they also form the word ].]]{{Main|Social revolution}}


], 14 July 1789 during the ].]]
It should be noted that while revolutions encompass events ranging from ] to the ], they exclude ], ], ] that make no effort to transform institutions or the justification for authority (such as ]'s ] of 1926 or ]), as well as peaceful transitions to ] through institutional arrangements such as ] and ], as in ] after the death of ].<ref name="Goldstonet4"/>
], leader of the ].]]
], leader of the ].]]
], leader of the Chinese ] in 1911.]]
], a group of military officers and civil officials, who staged the ]]]


Political and socioeconomic revolutions have been studied in many ], particularly ], ] and ].<ref name="NOWO:5">{{cite book|first=Jeff |last=Goodwin |author-link=Jeff Goodwin |title=No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements, 1945-1991 |publisher=] |date=2001 |pages=5}}</ref> Scholars of revolution differentiate four generations of theoretical research on the subject of revolution.<ref name="Goldstonet4" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Beck |first=Colin J. |date=2018 |title=The Structure of Comparison in the Study of Revolution |url=https://osf.io/x8bf7/download |journal=Sociological Theory |language=en-US |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=134–161 |doi=10.1177/0735275118777004 |issn=0735-2751 |s2cid=53669466}}</ref> Theorists of the first generation, including ], ], and ], were mainly descriptive in their approach, and their explanations of the phenomena of revolutions were usually related to ], such as Le Bon's ] theory.<ref name="Goldstonet3" /> The second generation sought to develop detailed frameworks, grounded in ] theory, to explain why and when revolutions arise. Their work can be divided into three categories: psychological, sociological and political.<ref name="Goldstonet3" />
===Types of political and socioeconomic revolutions===
Some popular types of revolutions as discussed in social science literature include:
*] - revolutions that transform economic and social structures as well as political institutions, such as the ] of 1789 or ]
*] - revolutions that change only ]
*] - revolutions that involve autonomous lower-class revolts,
*] or ] - sweeping reforms carried out by elites who directly control mass mobilization
*] or ] - revolutions inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace ] with ]
*] or ] - revolutions that fail to secure power after temporary victories or large-scale mobilization


The writings of ], Ivo K. Feierbrand, Rosalind L. Feierbrand, James A. Geschwender, ], and Denton E. Morrison fall into the first category. They utilized theories of ] and ] to link the cause of revolution to the state of mind of the masses. While these theorists varied in their approach as to what exactly incited the people to revolt (e.g., modernization, recession, or discrimination), they agreed that the primary cause for revolution was a widespread frustration with the socio-political situation.<ref name="Goldstonet3"/>
==Cultural, intellectual, philosophical and technological revolutions==
<!--please list only events which are named 'revolutions'-->
] in ]. The development of the ] propelled the Industrial Revolution in ] and the world. The steam engine was created to ] water from ]s, enabling them to be deepened beyond ] levels.]]
]'' became one of the symbols of the ].]]
The term revolution has been used to describe ]s in areas not primarily related to ]. They are usually recognized as having transformed in society, culture, philosophy and technology much more than ]s. Such revolutions include, in alphabetical order:
*]s, which include:
**] (perhaps 10000 years ago), which formed the basis for human civilization to develop. It is commonly reffered to as the 'First Agricultural Revolution'.
**] (1945- ), the use of industrial fertilizers and new crops greatly increases the world's agricultural output. It is commonly reffered to as the 'Second Agricultural Revolution'.
**] (1990s-), the use of ]tically modified plants and animals. It is sometimes reffered to as the 'Third Agricultural Revolution'.
**] (18th century), which spurred urbanisation and consequently helped launch the ].
**] (18th century), which led to the so-called ].
* ] - a period of spiritual awakening in American history from 1964 to 1984
* ] - a struggle for power within the Communist Party of China, which grew to include large sections of Chinese society and eventually brought the People's Republic of China to the brink of civil war, and which lasted from 1966 to 1976
* ] - the sweeping changes brought about by computing and communication technology during the latter half of the 20th Century
* ] - the major shift of technological, socioeconomic and cultural conditions in the late 18th and early 19th century that began in Britain and spread throughout the world
** ] (1871–1914)
* ] - a series of economic events from the second half of the 15th century to the first half of the 17th, the price revolution refers most specifically to the high rate of inflation that characterized the period across Western Europe
* ] - a period of rapid change in Quebec, Canada, in the 1960s
* ] - a fundamental transformation in scientific ideas around 16th century
* ] - a change in sexual morality and sexual behavior throughout the Western world, from 1960s till today


The second group, composed of academics such as ], ], ], ], Edward A. Tiryakian, and Mark Hagopian, drew on the work of ] and the ] theory in sociology. They saw society as a system in equilibrium between various resources, demands, and subsystems (political, cultural, etc.). As in the psychological school, they differed in their definitions of what causes disequilibrium, but agreed that it is a state of severe disequilibrium that is responsible for revolutions.<ref name="Goldstonet3"/>
==See also==

{{wikiquote}}
The third group, including writers such as ], ], ], and ], followed a ] path and looked at ] and ]. Those theories view events as outcomes of a ] between competing ]. In such a model, revolutions happen when two or more groups cannot come to terms within the current ]'s normal ] process, and when they possess the required resources to employ force in pursuit of their goals.<ref name="Goldstonet3"/>
{{wiktionary}}

* ] - revolutions named after colors, plants etc. in the period after the Cold War, mainly in post-communist societies
The second-generation theorists regarded the development of revolutionary situations as a two-step process: "First, a pattern of events arises that somehow marks a break or change from previous patterns. This change then affects some critical variable—the cognitive state of the masses, the equilibrium of the system, or the magnitude of conflict and resource control of competing interest groups. If the effect on the critical variable is of sufficient magnitude, a potentially revolutionary situation occurs."<ref name="Goldstonet3"/> Once this point is reached, a negative incident (a war, a riot, a bad harvest) that in the past might not have been enough to trigger a revolt, will now be enough. However, if authorities are cognizant of the danger, they can still prevent revolution through reform or repression.<ref name="Goldstonet3"/>

In his influential 1938 book '']'', historian ] established a convention by choosing four major political revolutions—], ], ], and ]—for comparative study.<ref>{{cite book |first=Crane |last=Brinton |author-link=Crane Brinton |title=] |edition=revised |location=New York |publisher=Vintage Books |date=1965 |orig-date=1938}}</ref> He outlined what he called their "uniformities", although the ] deviated somewhat from the pattern.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Armstrong |first1=Stephen |last2=Desrosiers |first2=Marian |title=Helping Students Analyze Revolutions |journal=Social Education |volume=76 |issue=1 |url=https://www.socialstudies.org/system/files/publications/articles/se_760138.pdf |date=January 2012 |pages=38–46}}</ref> As a result, most later comparative studies of revolution substituted ] in their lists, but they continued Brinton's practice of focusing on four.<ref name="Goldstonet4"/>

In subsequent decades, scholars began to classify hundreds of other events as revolutions (see ]). Their expanded notion of revolution engendered new approaches and explanations. The theories of the second generation came under criticism for being too limited in geographical scope, and for lacking a means of empirical verification. Also, while second-generation theories may have been capable of explaining a specific revolution, they could not adequately explain why revolutions failed to occur in other societies experiencing very similar circumstances.<ref name="Goldstonet4"/>

The criticism of the second generation led to the rise of a third generation of theories, put forth by writers such as ], ], Jeffrey Paige, and others expanding on the old ] ] approach. They turned their attention to "rural agrarian-state conflicts, state conflicts with autonomous elites, and the impact of interstate economic and military competition on domestic political change."<ref name="Goldstonet4"/> In particular, Skocpol's '']'' (1979) was a landmark book of the third generation. Skocpol defined revolution as "rapid, basic transformations of society's state and class structures ... accompanied and in part carried through by class-based revolts from below", and she attributed revolutions to "a conjunction of multiple conflicts involving state, elites and the lower classes".<ref name="Skocpol_ssr"/>

] and most of the events of the ] in Europe, 1989, were sudden and peaceful.]]
In the late 1980s, a new body of academic work started questioning the dominance of the third generation's theories. The old theories were also dealt a significant blow by a series of revolutionary events that they could not readily explain. The ] and ]s of 1979, the 1986 ] in the ], and the 1989 ] in Europe, Asia and Africa saw diverse opposition movements topple seemingly powerful regimes amidst popular demonstrations and ] in ]s.<ref name="Forantorr"/><ref name="Goldstonet4"/>

For some historians, the traditional paradigm of revolutions as ]-driven conflicts centered in Europe, and involving a violent state versus its discontented people, was no longer sufficient to account for the multi-class coalitions toppling dictators around the world. Consequently, the study of revolutions began to evolve in three directions. As Goldstone describes it, scholars of revolution:
#Extended the third generation's structural theories to a more heterogeneous set of cases, "well beyond the small number of 'great' social revolutions".<ref name="Goldstonet4"/>
#Called for greater attention to conscious ] and contingency in understanding the course and outcome of revolutions.
#Observed how studies of social movements—for women's rights, labor rights, and U.S. civil rights—had much in common with studies of revolution and could enrich the latter. Thus, "a new literature on 'contentious politics' has developed that attempts to combine insights from the literature on social movements and revolutions to better understand both phenomena."<ref name="Goldstonet4"/>

The fourth generation increasingly turned to quantitative techniques when formulating its theories. Political science research moved beyond individual or comparative case studies towards large-N statistical analysis assessing the causes and implications of revolution.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Leroi |first1=Armand M. |last2=Lambert |first2=Ben |last3=Mauch |first3=Matthias |last4=Papadopoulou |first4=Marina |last5=Ananiadou |first5=Sophia |last6=Lindberg |first6=Staffan I. |last7=Lindenfors |first7=Patrik |title=On revolutions |journal=] |date=2020 |volume=6 |issue=4 |doi=10.1057/s41599-019-0371-1 |doi-access=free}}</ref> The initial fourth-generation books and journal articles generally relied on the ] on ].<ref>{{cite web|title=PolityProject |url=https://www.systemicpeace.org/polityproject.html |website=Center for Systemic Peace |access-date =17 February 2016}}</ref> Such analyses, like those by A. J. Enterline,<ref>{{cite journal|title=Regime Changes, Neighborhoods, and Interstate Conflict, 1816-1992 |journal=] |date=1 December 1998 |issn=0022-0027 |pages=804–829 |volume=42 |issue=6 |doi=10.1177/0022002798042006006 |language=en |first=A. J. |last=Enterline |s2cid=154877512}}</ref> ],<ref>{{cite book|title=Domestic sources of global change |last=Maoz |first=Zeev |publisher=] |year=1996 |location=Ann Arbor, MI}}</ref> and Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder,<ref>{{cite book|title=Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies go to War |last1=Mansfield |first1=Edward D. |publisher=] |year=2007 |last2=Snyder |first2=Jack}}</ref> identified a revolution by a significant change in the country's score on Polity's autocracy-to-democracy scale.

Since the 2010s, scholars like Jeff Colgan have argued that the Polity data series—which evaluates the degree of democratic or autocratic authority in a state's governing institutions based on the openness of executive recruitment, constraints on executive authority, and political competition—is inadequate because it measures democratization, not revolution, and doesn't account for regimes which come to power by revolution but fail to change the structure of the state and society sufficiently to yield a notable difference in the Polity score.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Measuring Revolution |journal=Conflict Management and Peace Science |date=1 September 2012 |issn=0738-8942 |pages=444–467 |volume=29 |issue=4 |doi=10.1177/0738894212449093 |language=en |first=Jeff |last=Colgan |s2cid=220675692}}</ref> Instead, Colgan offered a new data set to single out governments that "transform the existing social, political, and economic relationships of the state by overthrowing or rejecting the principal existing institutions of society."<ref>{{Cite web|title=Data - Jeff D Colgan |url=https://sites.google.com/site/jeffdcolgan/data |website=sites.google.com |access-date=17 February 2016}}</ref> This data set has been employed to make empirically based contributions to the literature on revolution by finding links between revolution and the likelihood of international disputes.

Revolutions have been further examined from an anthropological perspective. Drawing on Victor Turner's writings on ritual and performance, ] suggested that revolutions can be understood as "liminal" moments: modern political revolutions very much resemble rituals and can therefore be studied within a process approach.<ref name="Thomassen">{{cite journal|last=Thomassen |first=Bjorn |author-link=Bjorn Thomassen |title=Toward an anthropology of political revolutions |journal=Comparative Studies in Society and History |year=2012 |volume=54 |issue=3 |pages=679–706 |doi=10.1017/s0010417512000278 |s2cid=15806418 |url=https://rucforsk.ruc.dk/ws/files/38613537/Notes_towards_an_Anthropology_of_Political_Revolutions.pdf}}</ref> This would imply not only a focus on political behavior "from below", but also a recognition of moments where "high and low" are relativized, subverted, or made irrelevant, and where the micro and macro levels fuse together in critical conjunctions. Economist ] raised a note of caution about revolutionary change, how it "is never as revolutionary as its rhetoric would have us believe".<ref name="North_book">{{cite book |last1=North |first1=Douglass C. |title=Transaction Costs, Institutions, and Economic Performance |url=https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/pnabm255.pdf|date=1992 |publisher=ICS Press |location=San Francisco |page=13 |isbn=978-1-558-15211-3 |via=U.S. Agency for International Development}}</ref> While the "formal rules" of laws and constitutions can be changed virtually overnight, the "informal constraints" such as institutional inertia and cultural inheritance do not change quickly and thereby slow down the societal transformation. According to North, the tension between formal rules and informal constraints is "typically resolved by some restructuring of the overall constraints—in both directions—to produce a new equilibrium that is far less revolutionary than the rhetoric."<ref name="North_book" />

== See also ==
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* ] * ]
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==References== == References ==
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</div>


=== Bibliography ===
==External links==
* {{Cite book |last=Fukuyama |first=Francis |author-link=Francis Fukuyama |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=azRfjououTAC |title=The End of History and the Last Man |date=1992 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0-140-13455-1 |language=en}}
* , containing histories of revolutionary movements throughout the world.
* {{Cite book |last=Getachew |first=Adom |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J3OYDwAAQBAJ |title=Worldmaking After Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination |date=2019 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0-691-17915-5 |language=en}}
*
* {{Cite book |last=Gunitsky |first=Seva |date=2017 |url=https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691172330/aftershocks |title=Aftershocks |publisher=] |isbn=978-0-691-17233-0}}
* Michael Barker, , 1 November 2006.
* {{Cite journal |last=Gunitsky |first=Seva |date=2018 |title=Democratic Waves in Historical Perspective |journal=] |language=en |volume=16 |issue=3 |pages=634–651 |doi=10.1017/S1537592718001044 |issn=1537-5927 |s2cid=149523316}}
* {{Citation |last=Gunitsky |first=Seva |date=2021 |title=Great Powers and the Spread of Autocracy Since the Cold War |work=Before and After the Fall: World Politics and the End of the Cold War |pages=225–243 |editor-last=Bartel |editor-first=Fritz |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/before-and-after-the-fall/great-powers-and-the-spread-of-autocracy-since-the-cold-war/D7F3EC6F0C4B41F5742693AB13DE28AD |publisher=] |doi=10.1017/9781108910194.014 |isbn=978-1-108-84334-8 |s2cid=244851964 |editor2-last=Monteiro |editor2-first=Nuno P.}}
* {{cite book |last=Katz |first=Mark N. |author-link=Mark N. Katz |title=Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves |publisher=] |date=1997 |isbn=978-0-312-17322-7}}
* ] (1906), ''''. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., Ltd.
* {{Cite book |last=Reus-Smit |first=Christian |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/individual-rights-and-the-making-of-the-international-system/A915E13F20DDBD0F5FEE91A59D7C827A |title=Individual Rights and the Making of the International System |date=2013 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0-521-85777-2 |doi=10.1017/cbo9781139046527}}


== Further reading ==
<!--Categories-->
* Beissinger, Mark R. 2022. ''The Revolutionary City: Urbanization and the Global Transformation of Rebellion''. Princeton University Press
]
* Beissinger, Mark R. (2024). "". ''World Politics.''
* {{cite journal|last=Beck |first=Colin J. |date=2018 |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0735275118777004?journalCode=stxa |title=The Structure of Comparison in the Study of Revolution |journal=Sociological Theory |volume=36 |number=2 |pages=134–161|doi=10.1177/0735275118777004 |s2cid=53669466 }}
* Goldstone, Jack A. (1982). "". ''Annual Review of Sociology''. '''8''': 187–207
* {{cite book|editor-last=Ness |editor-first=Immanuel |title=The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest: 1500 to the Present |location=Malden, MA |publisher=] |date=2009 |isbn=978-1-405-18464-9}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Strang |first=David |date=1991 |title=Global Patterns of Decolonization, 1500-1987 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2600949 |journal=International Studies Quarterly |volume=35 |issue=4 |pages=429–454 |doi=10.2307/2600949 |jstor=2600949 |issn=0020-8833}}


== External links ==
<!--Other languages-->
{{Wiktionary|Revolution}}
{{Wikiquote}}
* ] (1963). . ''On Revolution''. Penguin Classics. New Ed edition: February 8, 1991. {{ISBN|0-14-018421-X}}.


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Latest revision as of 00:41, 18 January 2025

Rapid and fundamental political change "Political revolution" redirects here. For Trotskyist concept, see Political revolution (Trotskyism). For other uses, see Revolution (disambiguation) and Revolutions (disambiguation).

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In political science, a revolution (Latin: revolutio, 'a turn around') is a rapid, fundamental transformation of a society's class, state, ethnic or religious structures. According to sociologist Jack Goldstone, all revolutions contain "a common set of elements at their core: (a) efforts to change the political regime that draw on a competing vision (or visions) of a just order, (b) a notable degree of informal or formal mass mobilization, and (c) efforts to force change through noninstitutionalized actions such as mass demonstrations, protests, strikes, or violence."

Revolutions have occurred throughout human history and varied in their methods, durations and outcomes. Some revolutions started with peasant uprisings or guerrilla warfare on the periphery of a country; others started with urban insurrection aimed at seizing the country's capital city. Revolutions can be inspired by the rising popularity of certain political ideologies, moral principles, or models of governance such as nationalism, republicanism, egalitarianism, self-determination, human rights, democracy, liberalism, fascism, or socialism. A regime may become vulnerable to revolution due to a recent military defeat, or economic chaos, or an affront to national pride and identity, or pervasive repression and corruption. Revolutions typically trigger counter-revolutions which seek to halt revolutionary momentum, or to reverse the course of an ongoing revolutionary transformation.

Notable revolutions in recent centuries include the American Revolution (1765–1783), French Revolution (1789–1799), Haitian Revolution (1791–1804), Spanish American wars of independence (1808–1826), Revolutions of 1848 in Europe, Mexican Revolution (1910–1920), Xinhai Revolution in China in 1911, Revolutions of 1917–1923 in Europe (including the Russian Revolution and German Revolution), Chinese Communist Revolution (1927–1949), decolonization of Africa (mid-1950s to 1975), Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962), Cuban Revolution in 1959, Iranian Revolution and Nicaraguan Revolution in 1979, worldwide Revolutions of 1989, and Arab Spring in the early 2010s.

Etymology

The French noun revolucion traces back to the 13th century, and the English equivalent "revolution" to the late 14th century. The word was limited then to mean the revolving motion of celestial bodies. "Revolution" in the sense of abrupt change in a social order was first recorded in the mid-15th century. By 1688, the political meaning of the word was familiar enough that the replacement of James II with William III was termed the "Glorious Revolution".

Definition

"Revolution" is now employed most often to denote a change in social and political institutions. Jeff Goodwin offers two definitions. First, a broad one, including "any and all instances in which a state or a political regime is overthrown and thereby transformed by a popular movement in an irregular, extraconstitutional or violent fashion". Second, a narrow one, in which "revolutions entail not only mass mobilization and regime change, but also more or less rapid and fundamental social, economic or cultural change, during or soon after the struggle for state power".

Jack Goldstone defines a revolution thusly:

" an effort to transform the political institutions and the justifications for political authority in society, accompanied by formal or informal mass mobilization and noninstitutionalized actions that undermine authorities. This definition is broad enough to encompass events ranging from the relatively peaceful revolutions that toppled communist regimes to the violent Islamic revolution in Afghanistan. At the same time, this definition is strong enough to exclude coups, revolts, civil wars, and rebellions that make no effort to transform institutions or the justification for authority."

Goldstone's definition excludes peaceful transitions to democracy through plebiscite or free elections, as occurred in Spain after the death of Francisco Franco, or in Argentina and Chile after the demise of their military juntas. Early scholars often debated the distinction between revolution and civil war. They also questioned whether a revolution is purely political (i.e., concerned with the restructuring of government) or whether "it is an extensive and inclusive social change affecting all the various aspects of the life of a society, including the economic, religious, industrial, and familial as well as the political".

Types

There are numerous typologies of revolution in the social science literature. Alexis de Tocqueville differentiated between:

  • sudden and violent revolutions that seek not only to establish a new political system but to overhaul an entire society, and;
  • slow and relentless revolutions that involve sweeping transformations of the entire society and may take several generations to bring about (such as changes in religion).
Revolutions of 1848 were essentially bourgeois revolutions and democratic and liberal in nature, with the aim of removing the old monarchical structures and creating independent nation-states.

One of the Marxist typologies divides revolutions into:

Charles Tilly, a modern scholar of revolutions, differentiated between:

Mark Katz identified six forms of revolution:

A Watt steam engine in Madrid. The development of the steam engine propelled the Industrial Revolution in Britain and the world. The steam engine was created to pump water from coal mines, enabling them to be deepened beyond groundwater levels.

These categories are not mutually exclusive; the Russian Revolution of 1917 began with an urban revolution to depose the Czar, followed by a rural revolution, followed by the Bolshevik coup in November. Katz also cross-classified revolutions as follows:

A further dimension to Katz's typology is that revolutions are either against (anti-monarchy, anti-dictatorial, anti-communist, anti-democratic) or for (pro-fascism, pro-communism, pro-nationalism, etc.). In the latter cases, a transition period is generally necessary to decide which direction to take to achieve the desired form of government. Other types of revolution, created for other typologies, include proletarian or communist revolutions (inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aim to replace capitalism with communism); failed or abortive revolutions (that are not able to secure power after winning temporary victories or amassing large-scale mobilizations); or violent vs. nonviolent revolutions. The term revolution has also been used to denote great changes outside the political sphere. Such revolutions, often labeled social revolutions, are recognized as major transformations in a society's culture, philosophy, or technology, rather than in its political system. Some social revolutions are global in scope, while others are limited to single countries. Commonly cited examples of social revolution are the Industrial Revolution, Scientific Revolution, Commercial Revolution, and Digital Revolution. These revolutions also fit the "slow revolution" type identified by Tocqueville.

Studies of revolution

R E V O L U T I O N, graffiti with political message on a house wall. Four letters have been written backwards and with a different color so that they also form the word Love.
Main article: Social revolution
The storming of the Bastille, 14 July 1789 during the French Revolution.
George Washington, leader of the American Revolution.
Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.
Sun Yat-sen, leader of the Chinese Xinhai Revolution in 1911.
Khana Ratsadon, a group of military officers and civil officials, who staged the Siamese Revolution of 1932

Political and socioeconomic revolutions have been studied in many social sciences, particularly sociology, political science and history. Scholars of revolution differentiate four generations of theoretical research on the subject of revolution. Theorists of the first generation, including Gustave Le Bon, Charles A. Ellwood, and Pitirim Sorokin, were mainly descriptive in their approach, and their explanations of the phenomena of revolutions were usually related to social psychology, such as Le Bon's crowd psychology theory. The second generation sought to develop detailed frameworks, grounded in social behavior theory, to explain why and when revolutions arise. Their work can be divided into three categories: psychological, sociological and political.

The writings of Ted Robert Gurr, Ivo K. Feierbrand, Rosalind L. Feierbrand, James A. Geschwender, David C. Schwartz, and Denton E. Morrison fall into the first category. They utilized theories of cognitive psychology and frustration-aggression theory to link the cause of revolution to the state of mind of the masses. While these theorists varied in their approach as to what exactly incited the people to revolt (e.g., modernization, recession, or discrimination), they agreed that the primary cause for revolution was a widespread frustration with the socio-political situation.

The second group, composed of academics such as Chalmers Johnson, Neil Smelser, Bob Jessop, Mark Hart, Edward A. Tiryakian, and Mark Hagopian, drew on the work of Talcott Parsons and the structural-functionalist theory in sociology. They saw society as a system in equilibrium between various resources, demands, and subsystems (political, cultural, etc.). As in the psychological school, they differed in their definitions of what causes disequilibrium, but agreed that it is a state of severe disequilibrium that is responsible for revolutions.

The third group, including writers such as Charles Tilly, Samuel P. Huntington, Peter Ammann, and Arthur L. Stinchcombe, followed a political science path and looked at pluralist theory and interest group conflict theory. Those theories view events as outcomes of a power struggle between competing interest groups. In such a model, revolutions happen when two or more groups cannot come to terms within the current political system's normal decision-making process, and when they possess the required resources to employ force in pursuit of their goals.

The second-generation theorists regarded the development of revolutionary situations as a two-step process: "First, a pattern of events arises that somehow marks a break or change from previous patterns. This change then affects some critical variable—the cognitive state of the masses, the equilibrium of the system, or the magnitude of conflict and resource control of competing interest groups. If the effect on the critical variable is of sufficient magnitude, a potentially revolutionary situation occurs." Once this point is reached, a negative incident (a war, a riot, a bad harvest) that in the past might not have been enough to trigger a revolt, will now be enough. However, if authorities are cognizant of the danger, they can still prevent revolution through reform or repression.

In his influential 1938 book The Anatomy of Revolution, historian Crane Brinton established a convention by choosing four major political revolutions—England (1642), Thirteen Colonies of America (1775), France (1789), and Russia (1917)—for comparative study. He outlined what he called their "uniformities", although the American Revolution deviated somewhat from the pattern. As a result, most later comparative studies of revolution substituted China (1949) in their lists, but they continued Brinton's practice of focusing on four.

In subsequent decades, scholars began to classify hundreds of other events as revolutions (see List of revolutions and rebellions). Their expanded notion of revolution engendered new approaches and explanations. The theories of the second generation came under criticism for being too limited in geographical scope, and for lacking a means of empirical verification. Also, while second-generation theories may have been capable of explaining a specific revolution, they could not adequately explain why revolutions failed to occur in other societies experiencing very similar circumstances.

The criticism of the second generation led to the rise of a third generation of theories, put forth by writers such as Theda Skocpol, Barrington Moore, Jeffrey Paige, and others expanding on the old Marxist class-conflict approach. They turned their attention to "rural agrarian-state conflicts, state conflicts with autonomous elites, and the impact of interstate economic and military competition on domestic political change." In particular, Skocpol's States and Social Revolutions (1979) was a landmark book of the third generation. Skocpol defined revolution as "rapid, basic transformations of society's state and class structures ... accompanied and in part carried through by class-based revolts from below", and she attributed revolutions to "a conjunction of multiple conflicts involving state, elites and the lower classes".

The fall of the Berlin Wall and most of the events of the Autumn of Nations in Europe, 1989, were sudden and peaceful.

In the late 1980s, a new body of academic work started questioning the dominance of the third generation's theories. The old theories were also dealt a significant blow by a series of revolutionary events that they could not readily explain. The Iranian and Nicaraguan Revolutions of 1979, the 1986 People Power Revolution in the Philippines, and the 1989 Autumn of Nations in Europe, Asia and Africa saw diverse opposition movements topple seemingly powerful regimes amidst popular demonstrations and mass strikes in nonviolent revolutions.

For some historians, the traditional paradigm of revolutions as class struggle-driven conflicts centered in Europe, and involving a violent state versus its discontented people, was no longer sufficient to account for the multi-class coalitions toppling dictators around the world. Consequently, the study of revolutions began to evolve in three directions. As Goldstone describes it, scholars of revolution:

  1. Extended the third generation's structural theories to a more heterogeneous set of cases, "well beyond the small number of 'great' social revolutions".
  2. Called for greater attention to conscious agency and contingency in understanding the course and outcome of revolutions.
  3. Observed how studies of social movements—for women's rights, labor rights, and U.S. civil rights—had much in common with studies of revolution and could enrich the latter. Thus, "a new literature on 'contentious politics' has developed that attempts to combine insights from the literature on social movements and revolutions to better understand both phenomena."

The fourth generation increasingly turned to quantitative techniques when formulating its theories. Political science research moved beyond individual or comparative case studies towards large-N statistical analysis assessing the causes and implications of revolution. The initial fourth-generation books and journal articles generally relied on the Polity data series on democratization. Such analyses, like those by A. J. Enterline, Zeev Maoz, and Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder, identified a revolution by a significant change in the country's score on Polity's autocracy-to-democracy scale.

Since the 2010s, scholars like Jeff Colgan have argued that the Polity data series—which evaluates the degree of democratic or autocratic authority in a state's governing institutions based on the openness of executive recruitment, constraints on executive authority, and political competition—is inadequate because it measures democratization, not revolution, and doesn't account for regimes which come to power by revolution but fail to change the structure of the state and society sufficiently to yield a notable difference in the Polity score. Instead, Colgan offered a new data set to single out governments that "transform the existing social, political, and economic relationships of the state by overthrowing or rejecting the principal existing institutions of society." This data set has been employed to make empirically based contributions to the literature on revolution by finding links between revolution and the likelihood of international disputes.

Revolutions have been further examined from an anthropological perspective. Drawing on Victor Turner's writings on ritual and performance, Bjorn Thomassen suggested that revolutions can be understood as "liminal" moments: modern political revolutions very much resemble rituals and can therefore be studied within a process approach. This would imply not only a focus on political behavior "from below", but also a recognition of moments where "high and low" are relativized, subverted, or made irrelevant, and where the micro and macro levels fuse together in critical conjunctions. Economist Douglass North raised a note of caution about revolutionary change, how it "is never as revolutionary as its rhetoric would have us believe". While the "formal rules" of laws and constitutions can be changed virtually overnight, the "informal constraints" such as institutional inertia and cultural inheritance do not change quickly and thereby slow down the societal transformation. According to North, the tension between formal rules and informal constraints is "typically resolved by some restructuring of the overall constraints—in both directions—to produce a new equilibrium that is far less revolutionary than the rhetoric."

See also

References

  1. ^ Skocpol, Theda (1979). States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia and China. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511815805. ISBN 978-0-521-22439-0.
  2. ^ Goldstone, Jack (2001). "Towards a Fourth Generation of Revolutionary Theory". Annual Review of Political Science. 4: 139–187. doi:10.1146/annurev.polisci.4.1.139.
  3. ^ Stone, Lawrence (1966). "Theories of Revolution". World Politics. 18 (2): 159–176. doi:10.2307/2009694. ISSN 1086-3338. JSTOR 2009694. S2CID 154757362.
  4. Gunitsky 2018; Gunitsky 2017; Gunitsky 2021; Reus-Smit 2013; Fukuyama 1992; Getachew 2019
  5. Clarke, Killian (2023). "Revolutionary Violence and Counterrevolution". American Political Science Review. 117 (4): 1344–1360. doi:10.1017/S0003055422001174. ISSN 0003-0554. S2CID 254907991.
  6. OED vol Q-R p. 617 1979 Sense III states a usage, "Alteration, change, mutation", from 1400 but lists it as "rare". "c. 1450, Lydg 1196 Secrees of Elementys the Revoluciuons, Chaung of tymes and Complexiouns". The etymology shows the political meaning of "revolution" had been established by the early 15th century but did not come into common use until the 17th century.
  7. "Revolution". Online Etymology Dictionary.
  8. Pipes, Richard. "A Concise History of the Russian Revolution". Archived from the original on 11 May 2011.
  9. ^ Goldstone, Jack (1980). "Theories of Revolutions: The Third Generation". World Politics. 32 (3): 425–453. doi:10.2307/2010111. JSTOR 2010111. S2CID 154287826.
  10. ^ Foran, John (1993). "Theories of Revolution Revisited: Toward a Fourth Generation". Sociological Theory. 11 (1): 1–20. doi:10.2307/201977. JSTOR 201977.
  11. Kroeber, Clifton B. (1996). "Theory and History of Revolution". Journal of World History. 7 (1): 21–40. doi:10.1353/jwh.2005.0056. S2CID 144148530.
  12. Goodwin 2001, p. 9.
  13. Billington, James H. (1966). "Six Views of the Russian Revolution". World Politics. 18 (3): 452–473. doi:10.2307/2009765. ISSN 1086-3338. JSTOR 2009765. S2CID 154688891.
  14. Yoder, Dale (1926). "Current Definitions of Revolution". American Journal of Sociology. 32 (3): 433–441. doi:10.1086/214128. ISSN 0002-9602. JSTOR 2765544.
  15. Grinin, Leonid; Grinin, Anton; Korotayev, Andrey (2022). "20th Century revolutions: characteristics, types, and waves". Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. 9 (124). doi:10.1057/s41599-022-01120-9.
  16. Boesche, Roger (2006). Tocqueville's Road Map: Methodology, Liberalism, Revolution, and Despotism. Lexington Books. pp. 87–88. ISBN 0-7391-1665-7.
  17. Topolski, J. (1976). "Rewolucje w dziejach nowożytnych i najnowszych (xvii-xx wiek)" [Revolutions in modern and recent history (17th-20th century)]. Kwartalnik Historyczny (in Polish). LXXXIII: 251–267.
  18. Tilly, Charles (1995). European Revolutions, 1492-1992. Blackwell Publishing. pp. 16. ISBN 0-631-19903-9.
  19. Lewis, Bernard. "Iran in History". Moshe Dayan Center, Tel Aviv University. Archived from the original on 29 April 2007.
  20. Katz 1997, p. 4.
  21. Katz 1997, p. 13.
  22. Katz 1997, p. 12.
  23. Fang, Irving E. (1997). A History of Mass Communication: Six Information Revolutions. Focal Press. pp. xv. ISBN 0-240-80254-3.
  24. Murray, Warwick E. (2006). Geographies of Globalization. Routledge. pp. 226. ISBN 0-415-31800-9.
  25. Goodwin, Jeff (2001). No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements, 1945-1991. Cambridge University Press. p. 5.
  26. Beck, Colin J. (2018). "The Structure of Comparison in the Study of Revolution". Sociological Theory. 36 (2): 134–161. doi:10.1177/0735275118777004. ISSN 0735-2751. S2CID 53669466.
  27. Brinton, Crane (1965) . The Anatomy of Revolution (revised ed.). New York: Vintage Books.
  28. Armstrong, Stephen; Desrosiers, Marian (January 2012). "Helping Students Analyze Revolutions" (PDF). Social Education. 76 (1): 38–46.
  29. Leroi, Armand M.; Lambert, Ben; Mauch, Matthias; Papadopoulou, Marina; Ananiadou, Sophia; Lindberg, Staffan I.; Lindenfors, Patrik (2020). "On revolutions". Palgrave Communications. 6 (4). doi:10.1057/s41599-019-0371-1.
  30. "PolityProject". Center for Systemic Peace. Retrieved 17 February 2016.
  31. Enterline, A. J. (1 December 1998). "Regime Changes, Neighborhoods, and Interstate Conflict, 1816-1992". Journal of Conflict Resolution. 42 (6): 804–829. doi:10.1177/0022002798042006006. ISSN 0022-0027. S2CID 154877512.
  32. Maoz, Zeev (1996). Domestic sources of global change. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
  33. Mansfield, Edward D.; Snyder, Jack (2007). Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies go to War. MIT Press.
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  37. ^ North, Douglass C. (1992). Transaction Costs, Institutions, and Economic Performance (PDF). San Francisco: ICS Press. p. 13. ISBN 978-1-558-15211-3 – via U.S. Agency for International Development.

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