Revolutions

Abstract

In common parlance, “revolution” has come to mean virtually any fundamental change. Transformations of ways of thinking, technologies, and even fashions and consumer goods are often described as “revolutionary.” Social scientists, however, generally define revolution in one of two ways. For some, a revolution refers broadly to any extralegal overthrow and transformation of a political regime or state by a popular rebellion, whether by violent or nonviolent means. (Although some state officials may support revolutionaries, a revolution differs from a coup d'état, which refers to the overthrow of a government by political elites, often led by military officers, with little if any popular support or active participation by ordinary people.) Others define revolutions more narrowly as only those historical episodes in which the overthrow of a regime or state is accompanied by or facilitates fundamental changes in a society's economic institutions and class structure (e.g. the French, Russian, and Chinese revolutions). This latter type of revolution is often called a “social revolution” (or “great revolution”) in order to distinguish it from those revolutions (or “political revolutions”) that entail new political orders, but little, if any, change in economic or class structures (e.g. the English and American revolutions). Of course, what begins as a political revolution may end up being a social revolution.