Goldstone et al. (2022) Introduction. Changing Yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events (original) (raw)
Related papers
2022
The 21st century has witnessed a considerable and increasing number of political revolutions around the world. This contradicts the popular belief of many experts in the 1970s that revolutions occurred mainly in monarchies and empires. Instead, the revolutions of this century have several new characteristics, which call for a renewed analysis of the subject. This handbook offers a comparative perspective on the new wave of revolutions of the last decade. Presenting case studies on the color revolutions, the Arab revolutions of 2010–2011, and the global wave of revolutions in 2013–2018 that spanned regions ranging from Africa to the Caucasus, it offers a better understanding of the varied forms, features, and historical backgrounds of revolutions, as well as their causes. Accordingly, it highlights recent revolutions in their historical and world-systems contexts. The handbook is divided into seven parts, the first of which examines the history of views on revolution and important aspects of the theory of revolution. The second part analyzes revolutions within long-term historical trends and in their world-system contexts. In turn, the third part explores specific major revolutionary waves in history. The fourth part analyzes the first revolutionary wave of the 21st century (2000–2009), the so-called color revolutions, while the fifth discusses the second wave – the Arab Spring (2010–2013) – as an important turning point. The sixth part is dedicated to analyzing revolutions and revolutionary movements beyond the Arab Spring and some revolutionary events from the third wave that began in 2018. The seventh and final part offers forecasts on the future of revolutions. Given its scope, the book will appeal to scholars and students from various disciplines interested in historical trends, sociopolitical change, contentious politics, social movements, and revolutionary processes involving both nonviolent campaigns and political violence. "Once again, this volume demonstrates the kind of open-minded, systematic analysis that the field of revolutionary studies requires." (Prof. George Lawson, Department of International Relations, Australian National University Canberra)
Revolutions: a twenty-first-century perspective
Third World Quarterly, 2020
We held the ‘Revolutions’ conference in 2017 to commemorate the Russian Revolution and redeem the actual record of revolutions in the Third World for the left. A quarter-century after the demise of the USSR, we found liberal capitalist triumphalism unwarranted. Two of the most important expectations to which it gave rise – that the world had become unipolar and that it would enjoy a peace dividend – remained unfulfilled. Instead, the world became multipolar and the West, led by the United States, engaged in unprecedented economic and military aggression against countries that contested its power. If this were not enough, social unrest and explosions in the First World as well as the Third underlined the relevance of revolutions. To trace their lineage, we recall capitalism’s intimate relation with revolution. It has needed revolutions to usher it into history and to usher it out. In addition to revolutions against developed capitalism, we also underline how important and necessary revolutions against nascent capitalism in various parts of the world have been. The contributions in this volume explore different parts of this lineage and vivify revolutions for our time.
Revolutions: An Insight into a Five Centuries' Trend
Social Evolution & History, 2018
The year 2017 marked not only the hundredth anniversary of the Revolution of 1917, but also the 500 th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation in Germany. It was just the Reformation that gave start to modern revolutions in Europe and the world. In the first part of the article we analyze the course of transformation of revolutions within historical process , in particular, how their world-historical role, the social bases, revolutionary ideologies, practices, and information technologies they applied have changed over the centuries. Then we show the important changes that occurred in revolutionary practice and the very understanding of the essence of revolution due to great revolutions. In the second part of the article we highlight some issues related to the theory of revolution, in particular, he defines the types of revolutions starting from religious to modernizing revolutions, and also points some important conditions for the revolutionary outbreak. In conclusion, we consider how and why the revolutions have been increasingly used as a geopolitical weapon. The year 2017 marked not only the hundredth anniversary of the Revolution of 1917, but also the 500 th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation in Germany. 1 We think that it was just the Reformation that produced the onset of modern revolutions in Europe and the world. 2 This explains the title of the article. In its first part we analyze the transformation vectors of revolutions within historical process, in particular, how the social bases, revolutionary ideologies, practices, and applied information technologies have changed over the centuries. While considering these aspects we also consider various points related to the theory of revolution. In the second part we deal with some additional aspects of the theory of revolution. In conclusion, we focus on how and why revolutions have been increasingly used as a geopolitical weapon.
Contention, 2017
John Dunn, FBA, is emeritus professor of political theory at King's College, University of Cambridge. His work on revolution began in 1972 with the publication of his landmark volume, Modern Revolutions: An Introduction to the Analysis of a Political Phenomenon. A second edition was published in 1989, and the volume has since been translated into several foreign languages. Alongside revolution, Dunn's thought has examined questions of regime collapse, reconstruction, the political trajectories of modern states, and the emergence and significance of democracy. His work lies at the intersection of history, political theory, and sociology. In the interview, Dunn offers a categorization of revolution as a distinctly bounded historical phenomenon that has not persisted into the twenty-first century. "The Epoch of Revolution," he argues, begins with 1789 and had definitively ended by 1989. After the Epoch of Revolution, Dunn argues, we now confront a more enduring and generic phenomenon: regime collapse.
Revolution and democracy in the twenty first century // Cross-Cultural Research 2024
Cross-Cultural Research, 2024
In this article, we analyze an inverted U-shaped relationship between the type of regime (on the autocracy-democracy scale) and the risks of revolutionary destabilization. Anocracies tend to be more vulnerable to revolutionary destabilization than full autocracies or full (consolidated) democracies. We also point to a strong positive association between the weakening of autocracies and the risks of revolutionary destabilization that exist among full autocracies. In addition, full autocracies moving towards democracy and transitioning to partial autocratic rule are at increased risk of revolutionary destabilization, which explains why the current global spread of democracy is associated with an upswing rather than a downswing in revolutionary activity. Finally, strong forms of revolutionary destabilization are quite possible in cases of deconsolidation of consolidated democracy, which additionally suggests that the era of revolutions will not end in the foreseeable future. Thus, we propose a general theory on the effect of regime type on revolutionary destabilization and address inconsistencies among various studies regarding the impact of the regime on revolutionary instability. The conducted research also allows us to contribute to the answer to the question posed by many researchers of revolutions at the end of the last century – will the era of revolutions end with the global spread of democracy? Our analysis suggests that if this happens someday, it will not be in any foreseeable future.
20th Century revolutions: characteristics, types, and waves
PLOS ONE, 2022
The 20th century revolutionary process had a big impact on the World System and significantly changed its entire configuration. However, there are essential gaps in terms of theoretical approaches, in particular, in terms of the typology of revolutions. Moreover, there is clearly insufficient research related to qualitative and quantitative analysis and consideration of the revolutions of the 20th century in their entirety. This article aims to fill those gaps by pursuing three main goals: (1) comparison of revolutions of the 20th and 19th centuries, highlighting the important characteristics of the former; (2) classification of revolutions of the 20th century; (3) identification of the main revolutionary waves of the 20th century and their essential characteristics.