Explain the word revolution

In political science, a revolution (Latin: revolutio, ‘a turn around’) is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due to perceived oppression (political, social, economic) or political incompetence.^[1]

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, usually in response to perceived overwhelming autocracy or plutocracy.

Scholarly debates about what does and does not constitute a revolution center on 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.

Notable revolutions in recent centuries include the creation of the United States through the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), the French Revolution (1789–1799), the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804), the Spanish American wars of independence (1808–1826), the European Revolutions of 1848, the Russian Revolution in 1917, the Chinese Revolution of the 1940s, the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the Iranian Revolution in 1979, and the European Revolutions of 1989.

Etymology

The word «revolucion» is known in French from the 13th century, and «revolution» in English by the late fourteenth century, with regard to the revolving motion of celestial bodies. «Revolution» in the sense of representing abrupt change in a social order is attested by at least 1450.^[2][3] Political usage of the term had been well established by 1688 in the description of the replacement of James II with William III. This incident was termed the «Glorious Revolution».^[4]

Types

There are many different typologies of revolutions in social science and literature.

Alexis de Tocqueville differentiated between:

• political revolutions, sudden and violent revolutions that seek not only to establish a new political system but to transform an entire society, and;
• slow but sweeping transformations of the entire society that take several generations to bring about (such as changes in religion).^[5]

One of several different Marxist typologies^[6] divides revolutions into:

• pre-capitalist
• early bourgeois
• bourgeois
• bourgeois-democratic
• early proletarian
• socialist

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

• coup d’état (a top-down seizure of power)
• civil war
• revolt, and
• «great revolution» (a revolution that transforms 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).^[7][8]

Mark Katz^[9] identified six forms of revolution;

• rural revolution
• urban revolution
• Coup d’état, e.g. Egypt, 1952
• revolution from above, e.g. Mao’s Great leap forward of 1958
• revolution from without, e.g. the allied invasions of Italy, 1944 and Germany, 1945.
• revolution by osmosis, e.g. the gradual Islamization of several countries.

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

• Central; countries, usually Great powers, which play a leading role in a Revolutionary wave; e.g. the USSR, Nazi Germany, Iran since 1979.^[10]
• Aspiring revolutions, which follow the Central revolution
• subordinate or puppet revolutions
• rival revolutions, e.g. communist Yugoslavia, and China after 1969

A further dimension to Katz’s typology^[11] is that revolutions are either against (anti-monarchy, anti-dictatorial, anti-communist, anti-democratic) or for (pro-fascism, communism, nationalism etc.). In the latter cases, a transition period is often necessary to decide on the direction taken.

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.

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 are often known as social revolutions.^[12] 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, Scientific Revolution or the Commercial Revolution. Note that such revolutions also fit the «slow revolution» definition of Tocqueville.^[13]
A similar example is the Digital Revolution.

Political and socioeconomic revolutions

Perhaps most often, the word «revolution» is employed to denote a change in social and political institutions.^[14][15][16] Jeff Goodwin gives two definitions of a revolution. 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 and/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 and/or cultural change, during or soon after the struggle for state power.^[17]

Jack Goldstone defines a revolution as

an effort to transform the political institutions and the justifications for political authority in society, accompanied by formal or informal mass mobilization and non-institutionalized actions that undermine authorities.^[18]

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 Trimberger, Carlos Vistas, John Walton, Timothy Wickham-Crowley, and Eric Wolf.^[19]

Scholars of revolutions, like Jack Goldstone, differentiate four current ‘generations’ of scholarly research dealing with revolutions.^[18] The scholars of the first generation such as Gustave Le Bon, Charles A. Ellwood, or Pitirim Sorokin, were mainly descriptive in their approach, and their explanations of the phenomena of revolutions was usually related to social psychology, such as Le Bon’s crowd psychology theory.^[14]

Second generation theorists sought to develop detailed theories of why and when revolutions arise, grounded in more complex social behavior theories. They can be divided into three major approaches: psychological, sociological and political.^[14]

The works 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 followed theories of cognitive psychology and frustration-aggression theory 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 (e.g., modernization, recession, or discrimination), they agreed that the primary cause for revolution was the widespread frustration with socio-political situation.^[14]

The second group, composed of academics such as Chalmers Johnson, Neil Smelser, Bob Jessop, Mark Hart, Edward A. Tiryakian, and Mark Hagopian, followed in the footsteps 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 a severe disequilibrium that is responsible for revolutions.^[14]

Finally, the third group, which included writers such as Charles Tilly, Samuel P. Huntington, Peter Ammann, and Arthur L. Stinchcombe followed the path of political sciences and looked at pluralist theory and interest group conflict theory. Those theories see 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 a normal decision making process traditional for a given political system, and simultaneously have enough resources to employ force in pursuing their goals.^[14]

The second generation theorists saw the development of the revolutions as a two-step process; first, some change results in the 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 (e.g., a war, a riot, a bad harvest), now is sufficient; however, if authorities are aware of the danger, they can still prevent a revolution through reform or repression.^[18]

Many such early studies of revolutions tended to concentrate on four classic cases: famous and uncontroversial examples that fit virtually all definitions of revolutions, such as the Glorious Revolution (1688), the French Revolution (1789–1799), the Russian Revolution of 1917, and the Chinese Revolution (also known as the Chinese Civil War) (1927–1949).^[18] In his The Anatomy of Revolution, however, the Harvard historian Crane Brinton focused on the English Civil War, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Russian Revolution.^[20]

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 did not explain why revolutions did not occur in other societies in very similar situations.^[18]

The criticism of the second generation led to the rise of a third generation of theories, with writers such as Theda Skocpol, Barrington Moore, Jeffrey Paige, and others expanding on the old Marxist class conflict approach, turning 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. Particularly Skocpol’s States and Social Revolutions 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 multiple conflicts involving state, elites and the lower classes.^[18]

From the late 1980s, a new body of scholarly work began questioning the dominance of the third generation’s theories. The old theories were also dealt a significant blow by new revolutionary events that could not be easily explained by them. The Iranian and Nicaraguan Revolutions of 1979, the 1986 People Power Revolution in the Philippines and the 1989 Autumn of Nations in Europe saw multi-class coalitions topple seemingly powerful regimes amidst popular demonstrations and mass strikes in nonviolent revolutions.

Defining revolutions as mostly European violent state versus people and class struggles conflicts was no longer sufficient. The study of revolutions thus evolved in three directions, firstly, some researchers were applying previous or updated structuralist theories of revolutions to events beyond the previously analyzed, mostly European conflicts. Secondly, scholars called for greater attention to conscious agency in the form of ideology and culture in shaping revolutionary mobilization and objectives. Third, analysts of both revolutions and social movements realized that those phenomena have much in common, and a new ‘fourth generation’ literature on contentious politics has developed that attempts to combine insights from the study of social movements and revolutions in hopes of understanding both phenomena.^[18]

Further, social science research on revolution, primarily work in political science, has begun to move beyond individual or comparative case studies towards large-N empirical studies assessing the causes and implications of revolution. Initial studies generally rely on the Polity Project’s data on democratization.^[21] Such analyses, like those by Enterline,^[22] Maoz,^[23] and Mansfield and Snyder,^[24] identify revolutions based on regime changes indicated by a change in the country’s score on Polity’s autocracy to democracy scale. More recently, scholars like Jeff Colgan have argued that Polity, which measures 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 fails to 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 Polity score.^[25] Instead, Colgan offers a new data set on revolutionary leaders which identifies governments that «transform the existing social, political, and economic relationships of the state by overthrowing or rejecting the principal existing institutions of society.»^[26] This most recent data set has been employed to make empirically-based contributions to the literature on revolution by identifying links between revolution and the likelihood of international disputes.

Revolutions have also been approached from anthropological perspectives. Drawing on Victor Turner’s writings on ritual and performance, Bjorn Thomassen has argued that revolutions can be understood as «liminal» moments: modern political revolutions very much resemble rituals and can therefore be studied within a process approach.^[27] This would imply not only a focus on political behavior «from below», but also to recognize moments where «high and low» are relativized, made irrelevant or subverted, and where the micro and macro levels fuse together in critical conjunctions.

Economist Douglass North argued that it is much easier for revolutionaries to alter formal political institutions such as laws and constitutions than to alter informal social conventions. According to North, inconsistencies between rapidly changing formal institutions and slow-changing informal ones can inhibit effective sociopolitical change. Because of this, the long-term effect of revolutionary political restructuring is often more moderate than the ostensible short-term effect.^[28]

While revolutions encompass events ranging from the relatively peaceful revolutions that overthrew communist regimes to the violent Islamic revolution in Afghanistan, they exclude coups d’état, civil wars, revolts, and rebellions that make no effort to transform institutions or the justification for authority (such as Józef Piłsudski’s May Coup of 1926 or the American Civil War), as well as peaceful transitions to democracy through institutional arrangements such as plebiscites and free elections, as in Spain after the death of Francisco Franco.^[18]

See also

Lists of revolutions

• List of revolutions and rebellions

References

Bibliography

• Katz, Mark N. (1997). Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves. St Martin’s Press. ISBN 978-0312173227.

Further reading

• Beck, Colin J. (2018). «The Structure of Comparison in the Study of Revolution». Sociological Theory. 36 (2): 134–161. doi:10.1177/0735275118777004. S2CID 53669466.
• Ness, Immanuel, ed. (2009). The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest: 1500 to the Present. Malden, MA: Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-4051-8464-9.
• Popovic, Srdja (2015). Blueprint for Revolution: How to use rice pudding, Lego men, and other nonviolent techniques to galvanize communities, overthrow dictators, or simply change the world. New York: Spiegel and Grau. ISBN 978-0-8129-9530-5.
• Perreau-Sausine, Emile (Spring 2005). «Les libéraux face aux révolutions : 1688, 1789, 1917, 1933» [Liberals facing revolutions: 1688, 1789, 1917, 1933]. Commentaire (in French). pp. 181–193.

External links

• Arendt, Hannah (1963). IEP.UTM.edu. On Revolution. Penguin Classics. New Ed edition: February 8, 1991. ISBN 0-14-018421-X.

Last Update: Jan 03, 2023

This is a question our experts keep getting from time to time. Now, we have got the complete detailed explanation and answer for everyone, who is interested!

Asked by: Dr. Chadrick Kihn V

Score: 5/5
(37 votes)

In political science, a revolution is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due to perceived oppression or political incompetence.

What is a revolution easy definition?

2a : a sudden, radical, or complete change. b : a fundamental change in political organization especially : the overthrow or renunciation of one government or ruler and the substitution of another by the governed.

What is revolution in short answer?

“revolution” refers to a movement, often violent, to overthrow an old regime and effect. complete change in the fundamental institutions of society.

What does the word revolution mean in history?

In the fields of history and political science, a revolution is a radical change in the established order, usually the established government and social institutions. … Because the objective of revolutions is to upturn established order, the characteristics that define them reflect the circumstances of their birth.

What is non example of revolution?

: not revolutionary: such as. a : not of, relating to, or constituting a revolution a nonrevolutionary era Even by nonrevolutionary standards, riots in England were not all that riotous, as another historian has observed.—

36 related questions found

What is a revolution? Revolutions are the great turning points of history. A revolution is a tumultuous and transformative event that attempts to change a nation, a region or society – and in some cases even the world.

Common features

Revolutions vary in their motives and their aims. Some, like the American Revolution, seek to overthrow and replace the political order. Others, like the Russian and Chinese revolutions, also seek radical social and economic change.

Revolutions do share common features, however. One is that they are fast-moving. In a short time, often just a few years, a revolution can bring about significant change and upheaval.

Most revolutions are driven by people and groups inspired by hope, idealism and dreams of a better society. These revolutionaries attempt to change or overthrow the old order while the old order strives to maintain its power. The outcomes are confrontation, conflict, disruption and division, which can lead to war, violence and human suffering.

Eventually, the revolutionaries emerge triumphant and set about trying to create a better society. In most cases, this proves much more difficult than they had anticipated.

All revolutions are unique to their times, locations and conditions. They do not follow a single plan or model. Despite this, several revolutions have followed a similar course: they have unfolded and developed in stages or phases. Some of these phases are discussed below.

Long-term causes

Revolutions do not occur suddenly or ‘out of the blue’. They develop after a long accumulation of grievances and dissatisfaction. These grievances can be political, economic or social, or a combination of the three.

These grievances on their own may not be enough to spark a rebellion or revolution – however, they can undermine or erode faith in the ruling class, the political order or prevailing economic system. Ordinary people become dissatisfied and frustrated with their lot. Revolutionary sentiment begins to circulate and grow.

These unsettling ideas might simmer for years or even decades before any action is taken. They provide a fertile intellectual ground in which the seeds of revolution can germinate.

Short-term causes

Every revolution is triggered by at least one short-term event or crisis. These events create, worsen or highlight existing grievances, conditions or suffering. This brings about more urgent demands for action or reform.

Some events or crises that might trigger a revolution include disastrous wars or military defeats, the passing of unpopular laws, government resistance to reform, a rapid deterioration in economic conditions or standards of living, or an act of violence against the people.

Revolutionary sentiment intensifies when people believe the old regime is unwilling or incapable of reform and improvement. If the revolutionaries realise change and reform will not come ‘from above’, they become more determined to bring about change ‘from below’.

Ideology

Ideas play a critical part in all revolutions. Those who seek change are motivated by new ideas about politics, economics or society.

Revolutionary ideas are developed, adapted and articulated by important writers and thinkers, such as Jefferson and Paine in America, the philosophes in France and Marx in Russia. These ideas promote revolution, explain their objectives and justify their actions.

In the American and French revolutions, for example, old ideas about monarchy and the ‘divine right of kings’ were challenged by Enlightenment ideas of self-government and republicanism. The revolutions in Russia and China were underpinned first by liberal republicanism, then later by Marxist socialism.

Revolutions often involve a struggle of ideas between the old order and the revolutionaries – or indeed between different revolutionary factions.

Flashpoints

In the timeline of every revolution, there are critical moments when revolutionaries come into direct confrontation with the forces of the old regime.

This may be a showdown between government troops and protesting civilians, such as in Boston (America, March 1770) or on ‘Bloody Sunday’ (Russia, January 1905). Alternatively, it may be a confrontation of words or ideas, like the signing of the Declaration of Independence (America, July 1776) or the passing of the Tennis Court Oath (France, June 1789).

Whatever form they take, these flashpoints bring revolutionary ideas and movements to a head. They directly challenge the power and authority of the old regime and bring about an acceleration in the pace of revolution.

Armed struggle

Revolutions, by their nature, are violent struggles between the old regime and those who hope to remove it. Many revolutionaries prepare for armed struggle by forming militias or armies, either to protect themselves or to overthrow the old order. Meanwhile, the old regime mobilises to defend its grip on power.

Eventually, the two forces will clash – such as at Lexington Concord (America, April 1775), the Bastille (France, July 1789) and the Winter Palace (Russia, October 1917). This may lead to war.

If revolutionary war unfolds, society becomes polarised and individuals and regions are forced to take sides. The outcomes of revolutionary war may be dispossession, death and destruction.

A grab for power

Having openly demanded change and signalled their intention to fight, the revolutionaries will seek to displace or overthrow the old order.

How easily this is achieved depends on the level of popular support and military backing enjoyed by the old regime. Sometimes the old regime is so weak that a transition of political power is made swiftly and with minimal violence, such as in China (October 1911) and Russia (February-March 1917).

Sometimes the old regime may lose its political power gradually or incrementally, as occurred in France in 1788-1789. There may be a period of military struggle or attempted counter-revolution, as conservative forces resist political change and attempt to restore the power of the old regime.

Consolidation and confrontation

Once it has claimed control, the new regime will look to consolidate its grip on power. It must defeat remaining military threats or deal with lingering counter-revolutionaries. It must also face the challenge of rebuilding the new society.

Having thrown off the old political system, the revolutionaries must devise and implement a new one. Most importantly, the new regime must earn the support of the people – not just those who supported the revolution but the population at large. 

The new regime must find solutions for the same social or economic problems and grievances that caused the revolution, such as debt, inflation, food shortages or the misuse of power. They must justify their actions by fulfilling their promises and the ideals of the revolution.

Division and factionalism

As the new regime attempts to rebuild society, it may become divided over aims and methods.

Revolutions tend to be better at destruction than construction. They are more effective at dismantling the old order than deciding what will replace it. Plans for a new society are often formed ‘on the run’, in the fires of the revolution.

As these plans appear, ideological divisions may emerge. The revolutionaries may disagree and form internal factions or separate groups. There may be some dispute, even conflict over the future of the new society. New leaders with different ideas or methods may also appear.

Radicalisation

After the revolution, the new society may enter a period of radical political leadership. Radical leaders may claim the revolution is failing to meet its objectives; or that the needs of the people are not being met; or that the revolution is in danger from civil war, counter-revolutionaries or foreign threats.

The radicals may seek to address these problems with extreme measures, such as war, terror, grain seizures or price controls. In doing so, it may encounter opposition from political opponents, moderates or the ordinary people.

This radical phase may also mark a peak in state-sanctioned violence, such as during the Reign of Terror (France, 1793-94) and the Red Terror (Russia, 1918).

Moderation

A radical phase will come to an end when the new regime becomes more moderate. The new government may relax its position or, alternatively, the radicals may be displaced by moderates.

Radical policies and methods are abandoned and possibly discredited. The radicals may be isolated or excluded; there may even be a period of violent retribution against them (often dubbed a ‘White Terror’).

The new society winds back its radical policies and seeks to restore order, control, stability and prosperity. In most cases, it does this by returning to some of the structures, conventions and policies of earlier times – including from before the revolution.

Historical interpretations

Historians over time have offered many different interpretations of revolutions, their causes and their meaning.

The American historian Crane Brinton (1898-1968), who specialised in the French Revolution, famously likened revolutions to a “fever”. This analogy suggests that revolutions are a negative event, like an illness that needs to be treated or cured. Brinton described radical revolutionaries as “lunatics” and the moderates who slow or halt revolutionary change as “level-headed”.

Other historians have more measured views about revolutions. They see them as inevitable, human-driven events that are necessary for society to develop, progress and advance.

Citation information
Title: “What is a revolution?”
Authors: Michael McConnell, Steve Thompson
Publisher: Alpha History
URL: https://alphahistory.com/vcehistory/what-is-a-revolution/
Date published: June 20, 2018
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Last Updated:
5 Apr 2023
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