Comparative Revolutions Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Revolutions are rapid changes in the institutions of government, carried out by noninstitutional means and usually with the support of popular groups mobilized for demonstrations, local revolts, guerilla warfare, civil war, mass strikes, or other revolutionary actions. Until the 1960s, revolutions were viewed as major turning points in history, ending traditional systems of government and ushering in modern political organization. However, the proliferation of revolutionary movements and rapid shifts in governments throughout the twentieth century led to a more open and ambiguous view. Revolutions—even “great social revolutions” such as the French Revolution (1789–1799) and the Russian Revolution (1917)—are now seen as bringing a mixture of change and continuity.

Comparative Revolutions: Classification By Goals And Processes

Although all revolutions bring a relatively sudden change in authority structures, the causes, processes, and outcomes of revolutions have differed greatly throughout history. Scholars, therefore, have developed a variety of classifications of

different kinds of revolutions to aid comparison and highlight differences.

Constitutional revolutions sought to replace traditional monarchies or empires with republics bound by newly written rules that would limit state power, end the privileges of hereditary elites, and confer rights and responsibilities on citizens. Major examples include the American Revolution (1775–1783); the French Revolution; the revolutions of 1848 in France, Germany, and Austria; the Iranian Revolution of 1905; the Chinese Republican Revolution (1911); and the Turkish Revolution of 1919.

Anticolonial revolutions aimed to end rule by foreign countries, drawing on nationalist identities to inspire resistance and the foundation of new institutions of local self-rule.

In many cases, nationalist traditions were in fact newly developed by elites, and in some cases, self-rule became rule by local elites rather than citizen-based democracy. Major examples include the Latin American revolutions (1808–1828), the Vietnamese (1954) and Algerian (1962) revolutions, the Indian Independence movement (1949), and the Mozambique and Angolan revolutions (1974).

Fascist revolutions also drew on nationalist traditions but used them to mobilize mass support for the replacement of weak monarchies or republics with authoritarian regimes. Major examples include Italy (1921) and Germany (1933).

Communist revolutions, inspired by the historical theories of Karl Marx, intended to overturn existing regimes and replace them with one-party states that abolished private property. Although the communist regimes were one-party dictatorships, they labeled themselves “democracies” or “republics,” as they destroyed the prior economic and political elites while claiming to represent workers and peasants. Major examples include those in Russia, China (1949), and Cuba (1959).

Antidictatorial revolutions, provoked by the excessive corruption or depredations of modernizing dictators, endeavored to create new regimes based on constitutions or populist one-party states. Major examples include Mexico (1911), the Philippines (1976), Nicaragua (1979), and Iran (1979).

Some revolutions combined these features; thus, the Vietnamese revolution was anticolonial and communist. Other revolutions were distinctive and fit none of these categories; for example the South African antiapartheid revolution (1994), in which a native ethnic majority wrested power from a ruling minority of foreign descent.

The past several decades have seen the emergence of yet another kind of revolution, the people power or color revolutions—so termed because popular demonstrations toppled dictators or communist regimes not by mass violence, but by rallying huge crowds around symbols of national unity and popular opposition, which were mainly colored symbols such as yellow or orange ribbons (the Philippines in 1976 and Ukraine in 2004) or flowers (Georgia’s “rose revolution” in 2003 and Kyrgyzstan’s “tulip revolution” in 2005). Other examples include the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia (1989) and the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon (2005).

Comparing Revolutions By Outcomes

The outcomes of revolutions vary greatly. In some cases, revolutionaries start with, and maintain, relatively moderate and focused goals of political change. Examples include the American Revolution, the Latin American revolutions, and the Philippines Revolution (1996). These revolutions mainly opened up political competition and did little to change the economies of these countries. Such cases often are called liberal or moderate revolutions.

By contrast, in other cases revolutionaries came to embrace a more radical program of economic and social transformation— whether through internal or external struggles to defend their revolutionary program or through ideological inspiration. In the French, Russian, Chinese, Cambodian, and a number of other revolutions, revolutionary leaders sought to fully transform society’s elite structure, to radically accelerate social mobility, and to replace the foundations of economic organization through extensive state seizures of property. Such cases often are called radical or great social revolutions.

The political character of the regimes that result from revolutions also varies. In some cases, revolutionary leaders have been genuinely committed to achieving democracy and have guided their new regimes to that goal. Examples include the United States, South Africa, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and the Philippines. In other cases, revolutionary leaders placed a higher value on staying in power or maintaining the revolutionary regime in the face of powerful threats; in these cases, revolutionary regimes swiftly moved toward one-party or personal dictatorships. Examples include France, the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Mexico, and Algeria. In some cases, the revolutionary outcomes remained mixed and unclear for some time, as with Russia’s anticommunist revolution of 1981 (first moving toward, then away from democracy) or Nicaragua’s Sandinista Revolution of 1979 (first moving away, then toward, democracy).

Sometimes revolutionary efforts to take power are suppressed but only after they shock society substantially. In such cases, scholars speak of unsuccessful revolutions, such as the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the revolutions of 1848 in Prussia and Austria-Hungary.

In sum, revolutions vary widely by their goals, their processes, and their outcomes. One of the key challenges in the comparative study of revolutions is to account for patterns of similarity and difference and to identify complexes of causal factors or trajectories that lead revolutions to assume certain forms or bring particular outcomes.

So far, however, the comparative politics of revolutions has not progressed much beyond classification and typologies. Scholars have been more concerned to explain why revolutions occur at all, rather than why they have taken specific forms or generated certain results in various places. Even the classifications and typologies above are frequently challenged as new forms of revolutions develop.

Bibliography:

Foran, John. Taking Power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Goldstone, Jack A., ed. Revolutions. Belmont, Calif: Thomson, 2003.
Goodwin, Jeffrey. No Other Way Out. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Selbin, Eric. Modern Latin American Revolutions. Boulder, Colo.:Westview, 1999.

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