Misplaced Pages

#691308

51-571: A revolution is a drastic political change that usually occurs relatively quickly. For revolutions which affect society, culture, and technology more than political systems, see social revolution . Revolution may also refer to: Revolution 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

102-417: 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,

153-501: 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

204-465: 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,

255-676: A majority of the population supported it. After the first weeks, the movement fell apart and some factions became violent. The number of protesters and support of the population decreased. Governments can promote mass mobilization to support the causes they promote. Many governments attempt to mobilize the population to participate in elections and other voting events. In particular, it is important for political parties in any country to be able to mobilize voters in order to gain support for their party, which affects voter turnout in general. Nazi Germany applied mass mobilization techniques to win support for their policies. The Nazi Party mobilized

306-412: 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

357-833: 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 (1775–1783), 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

408-508: Is also used to acquire hard currency . Participating in mobilization campaigns is mandatory and failure to appear may result in penalties. However, for some, it is possible to bribe themselves out of the duty. The effect of social media on mass mobilization can both be negative and positive. Cyberoptimists believe social media make protests easier to organize. Political ideas spread quickly on social media and everyone can participate in online political actions. Ruijgruk identified four mechanisms

459-599: 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

510-455: 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

561-880: The Arab world that began on 18 December 2010. Rulers were forced from power in Tunisia , Egypt , Libya , and Yemen ; civil uprisings erupted in Bahrain and Syria ; major protests broke out in Algeria , Iraq , Jordan , Kuwait , Morocco , and Oman ; with minor protests in Lebanon , Mauritania , Saudi Arabia , and Western Sahara . Clashes at the borders of Israel in May 2011, as well as protests by Arab minority in Iranian Khuzestan, were also inspired by

SECTION 10

#1732772583692

612-532: The Russian Revolution and German Revolution ), Chinese Communist Revolution (1927–1949), decolonization of Africa (mid-1950s to 1975), Cuban Revolution in 1959, Iranian Revolution and Nicaraguan Revolution in 1979, worldwide Revolutions of 1989 , and Arab Spring in the early 2010s. The French noun revolucion traces back to the 13th century, and the English equivalent "revolution" to

663-614: 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

714-459: 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." Mass mobilization The process usually takes

765-490: The "slow revolution" type identified by Tocqueville. 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

816-488: The 'silent majority', the people who did support the war, to organize counter protests supporting the war. Yellow vests movement is a social movement originated in Paris. The protests started when president Emmanuel Macron announced a fuel tax increase. Protesters saw this as a tax on the working class, the people in the countryside who have to drive to work. At first, the movement was successful. A lot of people joined and

867-617: 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

918-455: 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

969-476: The USSR in significant part was associated with the decline of nonviolent mobilization contesting interrepublican borders." During the 1870s, the "populists" or " nihilists ", the proponents of a Russian variant of anarchism , organized the so-called "pilgrimages to the people", which involved small groups of members of the urban, petit bourgeois intelligentsia going into small villages to persuade peasants of

1020-419: The cause, so they are less likely to go to a physical protest. Social media is also used by states in order to check society. Authoritarian states use social media to track and punish activists and political opponents. There are several ways to do this. State led internet providers can use a monopoly position to provide information about internet behaviour to secret services. These providers can also shut down

1071-498: 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

SECTION 20

#1732772583692

1122-655: The cycle, there was an increase in the deliberate use of violence against others. But this increase was a function of the decline of mass protest, not of its extension. Indeed, deliberate targeted violence did not become common until 1972-3, when all the other forms of collective action had declined." All of which leads him to forcefully conclude that "organized violence was the product of demobilization." Donatella della Porta , in her comparative analysis of political violence and cycles of protest in Italy and Germany between 1960 and 1990, maintains that "when mass mobilization declined,

1173-417: The declining phase of the collective action cycle is a result of the competition that arises among different sectors of the social movement. Together they formed a theory stating that as mass mobilisation winds down, political violence rises in magnitude and intensity. In his study of the wave of mass protests that took place in Italy between 1965 and 1975, Sidney Tarrow stated that "[i]n the final stages of

1224-427: 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

1275-478: 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

1326-572: 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,

1377-404: 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

1428-493: The form of large public gatherings such as mass meetings , marches, parades , processions and demonstrations . Those gatherings usually are part of a protest action . Mass mobilization is often used by grassroots -based social movements , including revolutionary movements , but can also become a tool of elites and the state itself. In a study of over 200 violent revolutions and over 100 nonviolent campaigns, Erica Chenoweth has shown that civil disobedience is, by far,

1479-471: The internet helps mobilizing people in authoritarian regimes . Cyberpessimists point to the effect these online actions have. By liking or sharing a political post, someone might think they are politically active, but they are not really doing anything effective. This useless activism, or slacktivism does not contribute to the overall goal of the social movement. It also increases the collective action problem . Someone might think they already contributed to

1530-462: The internet if the government faces mass mobilization, what happened in the Arab Spring . To organise out of sight of authorities, people use encrypted online messaging services such as WhatsApp or Telegram . Virtual private networks may also be used. DARPA Network Challenge Tag Challenge The Arab Spring was a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests occurring in

1581-417: 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 ". "Revolution" is now employed most often to denote

Revolution (disambiguation) - Misplaced Pages Continue

1632-406: 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

1683-472: The most powerful way of affecting public policy. The study identified that an active participation of around 3.5% of a population will ensure serious political change. Activist and researcher Kyle R Matthews has questioned the applicability of these findings, which conern regime change, to other kinds of movements, such as Extinction Rebellion. Social movements are groups that protest against social or political issues. Different social movements try to make

1734-617: The movement to solve this problem. Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War . During the Vietnam war, supporters and opponents of the war mobilized for protests. Social movements against the war were groups of students or veterans. These groups did not believe the war was justified and that the United States had to pull out the troops stationed there. To counter these protests, president Richard Nixon addressed

1785-488: The movements went back to more institutional forms of collective action, whereas small groups resorted to more organized forms of violence." Mark R. Beissinger, in his study on cycles of protest and nationalist violence in the Soviet Union between 1987 and 1992, also detects this pattern, but in this case violence takes the form of ethnic communal conflict rather than terrorism. As he says, "the rise of violence in

1836-445: 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

1887-509: 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

1938-465: 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

1989-550: 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

2040-508: The political". There are numerous typologies of revolution in the social science literature. Alexis de Tocqueville differentiated between: One of the Marxist typologies divides revolutions into: Charles Tilly , a modern scholar of revolutions, differentiated between: Mark Katz identified six forms of revolution: These categories are not mutually exclusive; the Russian Revolution of 1917 began with an urban revolution to depose

2091-428: The population with mass meetings, parades, and other gatherings. These events appealed to the people's emotions . North Korea frequently employs mass mobilization to convince its people to publicly express loyalty around important events and holidays . Mobilization is also used to acquire a workforce for tasks such as construction, farm work, keeping public places clean, and urgent disaster relief. Mass mobilization

Revolution (disambiguation) - Misplaced Pages Continue

2142-464: 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

2193-464: The public and politicians aware of different social problems. For social movements it is important to solve collective action problems . When social movements protest for something in the interest of the whole society, it is easier for the individual to not protest. The individual will benefit the outcome, but will not risk anything by participating in the protest. This is also known as the free-rider problem . Social movements must convince people to join

2244-418: The regional Arab Spring. The protests shared techniques of mostly civil resistance in sustained campaigns involving strikes, demonstrations, marches, rallies, as well as the use of social media to organise, communicate, and raise awareness in the face of state attempts at repression and Internet censorship . According to Donatella della Porta and Sidney Tarrow , the mechanism that produces violence in

2295-458: 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)

2346-411: 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

2397-408: 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

2448-462: 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

2499-455: The struggle for state power". Jack Goldstone defines a revolution thusly: "[Revolution is] 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

2550-617: 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: 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

2601-413: 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". In the late 1980s, a new body of academic work started questioning

SECTION 50

#1732772583692
#691308