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)
Innehållsförteckning
1. Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events.- 2. The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolution.- 3. On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of Revolution.- 4. Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Democracy.- 5. Revolutions and Historical Process.- 6. Evolution and Typology of Revolutions.- 7. The “Problem of Structure and Agency” and Contemporary Sociology of Revolution and Social Movements.- 8. Revolution and Modernization Traps.- 9. Typology and Principles of Dynamics of Revolutionary Waves in World History.- 10. Revolutionary Waves of the Early Modern Period: Types and Phases.- 11. The European Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves of the 19th Century: Their Causes and Consequence.- 12. Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the 20th Century.- 13. On Revolutionary Waves since the 16th Century.- 14. All Around the World: Revolutionary Potential in the Age of Authoritarian Revanchism.- 15. “Color” Revolutions. Successes and Limitations of Non-Violent Protest.- 16. The Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia.- 17. Serbian “Otpor” and the Color Revolutions’ diffusion.- 18. The Rose Revolution in Georgia.- 19. The Orange Revolution in Ukraine.- 20. Revolutions in Kyrgyzstan.- 21. ‘Moldovan Spring’ 2009. The Atypical ‘Revolution’ of April 7 and the Days that Followed.-22. The Green Movement in Iran: 2009–2010.- 23. The Arab Spring: Causes, Conditions, and Driving Forces.- 24. The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the Birth of the Arab Spring Uprisings.- 25. Egypt’s 2011 Revolution. A Demographic Structural Analysis.- 26. The Arab Spring in Yemen.- 27. The Syrian Revolution.- 28. Revolution in Libya.- 29. The Extent of Military Involvement in Non-Violent, Civilian Revolts and Their Aftermath.- 30. The Arab Spring: A Quantitative Analysis.- 31. Global Echo of the Arab Spring.- 32. Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine.- 33. Two Experiences of the Islamic “Revival”: The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Formation of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq in the 2010s.- 34. Turkey. The (Gülen) Cemaat and the State: An Unfinished Conquest.- 35. The Armenian Revolution of 2018: A Historical-Sociological Interpretation.- 36. Modern Protest Civil Movements in Sub-Saharan Africa in the Context of Global Political Destabilization.- 37. Articulating the Web of Transnational Social Movements.- 38. Revolutions of the 21st Century as a Factor of the World System Reconfiguration.- 39. Global Inequality and World Revolutions: Past, Present and Future.- 40. Revolution Forecasting. Formulation of the Problem.- 41. Conclusion. How Many Revolutions.
Om författaren
Jack A. Goldstone is the Virginia E. and John T. Hazel, Jr. Chair Professor and an Eminent Scholar of Public Policy at George Mason University, USA. He has been a visiting scholar at the University of California Berkeley and San Diego, The California Institute of Technology, University of Konstanz, Cambridge University, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (Stanford), and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He is the author or editor of 13 books and over 175 research articles. His primary research interests are the effects of population change on political stability and economic growth, economic history, global population cycles, the causes and outcomes of revolutions, and improving governance in developing nations.
Leonid Grinin is a Senior Research Professor at the Laboratory for Monitoring of Sociopolitical Destabilization Risks, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia, as well as a Senior Research Professor at the Oriental Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences. He is a co-editor of the international journals Social Evolution & History and the Journal of Globalization Studies, as well as the international almanacs Evolution, History and Mathematics, and Kondratieff Waves. He is the author of more than 500 publications, including 30 monographs in Russian, English, Chinese, and Spanish. His current research focuses on comparative political studies, political anthropology, the global economy, global history, historical sociology, and futurology. He was honored with the N. D. Kondratieff Gold Medal in 2012.
Andrey Korotayev is a Senior Research Professor at the Laboratory for Monitoring of Sociopolitical Destabilization Risks, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia, as well as a Senior Research Professor at the Oriental Institute and Institute for African Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences. He is the author of over 300 scholarly publications, including monographs like
Ancient Yemen (Oxford University Press, 1995),
World Religions and Social Evolution of the Old World Oikumene Civilizations: A Cross-Cultural Perspective (The Edwin Mellen Press, 2004),
Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Compact Macromodels of the World System Growth (URSS, 2006), and
Great Divergence and Great Convergence (Springer, 2015, with Leonid Grinin). He is a laureate of the Russian Science Support Foundation under ‘The Best Economists of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Nomination (2006). He is a co-editor of the international journals Social Evolution & History and the Journal of Globalization Studies
, as well as the international almanacs
Evolution, History and Mathematics, and
Kondratieff Waves.