print

Waves of revolutions in the 21st century

Goldstone J.A.,

George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, Arlington, USA, jgoldsto@gmu.edu

ORCID: 0000-0003-1524-6081 |

Grinin L.Ye.,

HSE University, Moscow, Russia; Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, leonid.grinin@gmail.com

elibrary_id: 250272 | ORCID: 0000-0003-0278-2619 | RESEARCHER_ID: D-8842-2012

Korotayev A.V.,

HSE University, Moscow, Russia; M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia, akorotayev@gmail.com

elibrary_id: 72980 | ORCID: 0000-0003-3014-2037 | RESEARCHER_ID: N-1160-2018

Article received: 2021.08.30 16:35. Accepted: 2022.03.29 16:35
DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2022.04.09

Rubric: Orbis terrarum

For citation:

Goldstone J.A., Grinin L.Ye., Korotayev A.V. Waves of revolutions in the 21st century. – Polis. Political Studies. 2022. No. 4. P. 108-119. (In Russ.). https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2022.04.09

This article is an output of a research project implemented as part of the Basic Research Program at HSE University in 2022 with support by the Russian Science Foundation (Project 18-18-00254).

Abstract

The present article offers a preliminary description of three revolutionary waves of the 21st century as well as of their characteristics and causes. One of the objectives of the present paper is to develop analytical tools, in particular to add more insight to the very notion of revolution and revolutionary events as well as develop a typology of revolutionary events. In general, the present article offers a theoretical and partially quantitative analysis of the twenty-first century’s revolutionary process. It also suggests a new approach to the definition of waves of revolutions which implies the following criteria: 1) an actual connectedness of the events within the World System via common factors; 2) the number of revolutions should be no less than 4-5; 3) the time interval between revolutionary events should be less than ten years between the start of the first and the start of the last event; 4) one chronological period should comprise only one wave. Based on these criteria we have distinguished three waves in the 21st century. The first wave included the color revolutions of 2000-2009. The second wave was the Arab Spring and its global aftermath, 2010/2011-2013. The third wave is incomplete since it started in 2018 and is still in progress. In general, the performed analysis allows characterizing the revolutionary process of the 21st century as a) rather dynamic with increasing revolutionary intensity; b) rather diverse in terms of the types of revolutionary events; and c) rather disperse as revolutionary events occur not only in the World System periphery but in its core as well. 

Keywords

revolution, analogue of revolution, waves of revolutions, typology of revolutions, World System, a world-system event, revolutionary event, color revolutions, the Arab Spring, the 21st century.

Дополнительные материалы

Приложение

 Full Text

Beck, C.J. (2015). Radicals, revolutionaries, and terrorists. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Beck, C.J. (2017). Revolutions: Robust findings, persistent problems, and promising frontiers. In States and Peoples in Conflict: Transformations of Conflict Studies (pp. 168-183). New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315623634-10

Brinton, C. (1965). The anatomy of revolution. New York: Vintage Books.

Filin, N., Fahmy, S., & Koklikov, V. (2022). 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. In Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century: The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (pp. 865-883). Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_33

Goldstone, J.A. (1998). Social movements or revolutions? On the evolution and outcomes of collective action. In From Contention to Democracy (pp. 125-145). Boulder, CO: Rowman and Littlefield.

Goldstone, J.A. (2009). Rethinking revolutions: Integrating origins, processes, and outcomes. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, 29(1), 18-32. https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201X-2008-040

Goldstone, J.A. (2016). Revolution and rebellion in the early modern world: population change and state breakdown in England, France, Turkey and China 1600-1850 (25th Anniversary Edition). London: Routledge.

Goldstone, J.A., & Ritter, D.P. (2018). Revolution and social movements. In The Wiley-Blackwell companion to social movements (pp. 682-697). New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.

Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2022). Revolutions, counterrevolutions, and democracy. In Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: the new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 105-138). Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01120-9

Huntington, S. (1993). The third wave: democratization in the late twentieth century. Norman OK: University of Oklahoma Press.

Kamrava, M. (2019). A concise history of revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Korotayev, A., Shishkina, A., & Khokhlova, A. (2022). Global echo of the Arab Spring. In Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: the new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 813-849). Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_31

Lawson, G. (2019). Anatomies of revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Moore, B. (1978). Injustice: the social bases of obedience and revolt. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Ritter, D. (2015). The iron case of liberalism: international politics and unarmed revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199658329.001.0001

Rozov, N. (2022). Typology and Principles of Dynamics of Revolutionary Waves in World History. In Handbook of revolutions in the 21st century: the new waves of revolutions, and the causes and effects of disruptive political change (pp. 241-264). Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_9

Stone, B. (2013). The anatomy of revolution revisited: a comparative analysis of England, France and Russia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Goldstone, J.A. (2006). On the fourth generation theory of revolution. Logos, 5, 58-103. (In Russ.)

Goldstone, J.A. (2015). Revolutions. A very brief introduction. (Russ. ed.: Goldstone, J.A. Revolyutsii. Ochen’ kratkoe vvedenie. Moscow: Gaydar Institute Press).

Grinin, L., & Grinin, A. (2020). Revolutions of the 20th century: a theoretical-quantitative analysis. Polis. Political Studies, 5, 130-147. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2020.05.10

Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2020). Metodologicheskie poyasneniya k issledovaniyu revolyutsionnykh sobytii [Methodological explanations to the studies of revolutionary events]. In Sistemnyi monitoring global’nykh i regional’nykh riskov [System monitoring of global and regional risks]. Vol. 11 (pp. 853-861). Volgograd: Uchitel. (In Russ.)

Khamov, A.V., & Shabardina, A.D. (2020). Nekotorye revolyutsionnye sobytiya v Latinskoi Amerike (2000-2019) [Some revolutionary events in Latin America (2000-2019)]. In Sistemnyi monitoring global’nykh i regional’nykh riskov [System monitoring of global and regional risks]. Vol. 11 (pp. 862-877). Volgograd: Uchitel. (In Russ.)

Korotayev, A.V., Issaev, L.M., & Vassilev, A.M. (2015). Quantitative analysis of 2013-2014 revolutionary wave. Sociological Studies, 8, 119-127. (In Russ.)

Kostin, M.S. (2020b). Nekotorye revolyutsionnye epizody i dvizheniya XXI v. v Vostochnoi Evrope [Revolutionary episodes and movements of the 21st century in some countries of the Eastern Europe]. In Sistemnyi monitoring global’nykh i regional’nykh riskov [System monitoring of global and regional risks]. Vol. 11 (pp. 931-943). Volgograd: Uchitel. (In Russ.)

Kostin, M.S. (2020c). “Uksusnaya revolyutsiya” 2013-2016 godov v Brazilii [The Vinegar revolution of 2013-2016 in Brazil]. In Sistemnyi monitoring global’nykh i regional’nykh riskov [System monitoring of global and regional risks]. Vol. 11 (pp. 891-898). Volgograd: Uchitel. (In Russ.)

Kostin, M.S. (2020а). Venesuela: revolyutsionnye sobytiya na fone prodolzhayushcheisya revolyutsionnoi epokhi (1998–2020) [Venezuela: revolutionary events at the background of the continuing revolutionary epoch]. In Sistemnyi monitoring global’nykh i regional’nykh riskov [System monitoring of global and regional risks]. Vol. 11 (pp. 878-890). Volgograd: Uchitel. (In Russ.)

Rozov, N.S. (2019). Filosofiya i teoriya istorii. Kn. 2: Prichiny, dinamika i smysl revolyutsii [Philosophy and theory of history. Book 2. Causes, dynamics and meaning of revolutions]. Moscow: Krasand/URSS. (In Russ.)

Rozov, N.S., Pustovoit, Yu.A., Filippov, S.I., & Tsygankov, V.V. (2019). Revolyutsionnye volny v ritmakh global’noi modernizatsii [Revolutionary waves in the rhythms of global modernization]. Moscow: URSS. (In Russ.)

Shul’ts, E.E. (2016). Teoriya revolyutsii: Revolyutsii i sovremennye tsivilizatsii [Theory of revolution: revolutions and modern civilizations]. Moscow: Lenand/URSS. (In Russ.) 

See also: