Everything about Revolution totally explained
A
revolution (from the
Latin revolutio, "a turnaround") is a significant
change that usually takes place in a long period of time.
Aristotle described two types of political revolution:
- Complete change from one constitution to another
- Modification of an existing constitution.
Revolutions have occurred throughout human history and vary widely in terms of methods, duration, and motivating ideology. Their results include major changes in culture, economy, and socio-political institutions.
Scholarly debates about what does and doesn't constitute a revolution center around several issues. Early studies of revolutions primarily analyzed events in
European history from a
psychological perspective, but more modern examinations include global events and incorporate perspectives from several
social sciences, including
sociology and
political science. Several generations of scholarly thought on revolutions have generated many competing theories and contributed much to the current understanding of this complex phenomenon.
Political and socioeconomic revolutions
Perhaps most often, the word 'revolution' is employed to denote a change in
socio-
political institutions.
Jeff Goodwin gives two definitions of a revolution. A broad one, where revolution is "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 and/or violent fashion"; and a narrow one, in which "revolutions entail not only
mass mobilization and
regime change, but also more or less rapid and fundamental social, economic and/or cultural change, during or soon after the struggle for
state power."
Jack Goldstone 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.
Political and socioeconomic revolutions have been studied in many
social sciences, particularly
sociology,
political sciences and
history. Among the leading scholars in that area have been or are
Crane Brinton,
Charles Brockett,
Farideh Farhi,
John Foran,
John Mason Hart,
Samuel Huntington,
Jack Goldstone,
Jeff Goodwin,
Ted Roberts Gurr,
Fred Halliday,
Chalmers Johnson,
Tim McDaniel,
Barrington Moore,
Jeffery Paige,
Vilfredo Pareto,
Terence Ranger,
Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy,
Theda Skocpol,
James Scott,
Eric Selbin,
Charles Tilly,
Ellen Kay Trimbringer,
Carlos Vistas,
John Walton,
Timothy Wickham-Crowley and
Eric Wolf.
Jack Goldstone differentiates four 'generations' of scholarly research dealing with revolutions. In time, scholars began to analyze hundreds of other events as revolutions (see
list of revolutions and rebellions), and differences in definitions and approaches gave rise to new definitions and explanations. The theories of the second generation have been criticized for their limited geographical scope, difficulty in
empirical verification, as well as that while they may explain some particular revolutions, they didn't explain why revolutions didn't occur in other societies in very similar situations.}}
There are many different
typologies of revolutions in social science and literature. For example, classical scholar
Alexis de Tocqueville differentiated between 1)
political revolutions 2) sudden and violent revolutions that seek not only to establish a new political system but to transform an entire society and 3) slow but sweeping transformations of the entire society that take several generations to bring about (ex.
religion). One of several different
Marxist typologies divides revolutions into pre-capitalist, early bourgeois, bourgeois, bourgeois-democratic, early proletarian, and socialist revolutions.
Charles Tilly, a modern scholar of revolutions, differentiated between a
coup, a top-down seizure of power, a
civil war, a
revolt and a "great revolution" (revolutions that transform economic and social structures as well as political institutions, such as the
French Revolution of 1789,
Russian Revolution of 1917, or
Islamic revolution of Iran). Other types of revolution, created for other typologies, include the
social revolutions;
proletarian or
communist revolutions inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace
capitalism with
communism);
failed or
abortive revolutions (revolutions that fail to secure power after temporary victories or large-scale mobilization) or violent vs.
nonviolent revolutions. One of the most recent, if perhaps not the most serious of typologies, divides revolutions by color - referring the type of recent revolutions known as the
color revolutions (or flower revolutions).
The term revolution has also been used to denote great changes outside the political sphere. Such revolutions are usually recognized as having transformed in
society,
culture,
philosophy and
technology much more than
political systems; they're often known as
social revolutions. Some can be global, while others are limited to single countries. One of the classic examples of the usage of the word revolution in such context is the
industrial revolution (note that such revolutions also fit the "slow revolution" definition of Tocqueville).
List of revolutions
For a list of revolutions see:
List of revolutions and rebellions
List of fictional revolutions and coupsFurther Information
Get more info on 'Revolution'.
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