So, WHY DO MEN REBEL?

The statement at the outset of this textbook, acknowledging that the many attempts by scholars to formulate universal theories to explain revolutions and predict their success or failure, have, in fact, yielded disappointing results. However, it is also true that one should not abandon that quest. The job of a political scientist or international relations scholar is to theorize and generalize in order to explain a very complex world. The predictive capacity of the theories to explain insurrection and revolution should not be dismissed due to inevitable complexity. Granted, if scholars attempt to explain every dependent variable with a multitude of independent variables, they have explained nothing and abandoned parsimony.

Chalmers Johnson has attempted parsimony, but still has significant explanatory width. He has defined what he calls a “Process Theory” of revolution. This theory takes the structural elements combined with the actor-oriented elements of a conjunction theory and adds an interactive element that this work has chosen to call a “Spark” (Johnson, 1966). It combines the mass frustration with environmental factors like lack of economic opportunity, democratic deficit, fear of government violence and corruption with actor-oriented variables that can mobilize the masses with a unifying motivation, a charismatic leader, disaffected elites, or a vanguard revolutionary party. These can all increase the scope and intensity of Gurr’s “relative deprivation (Gurr, 1970). Yet even then still no revolution occurs. It may take the “Spark” like the self-immolation of a poor Tunisian street vendor that spreads virally on Facebook, the Cossack butchering of numerous innocent bread-shortage demonstrators or even the dramatic defeat in war which puts the interactive rather than cumulative forces of revolution in motion.

The relative strength of the forces of revolution versus those of the government is often the best predictor of the outcome of the insurrection. Charles Tilly put it best articulating that if there are two or more blocs competing for control of the sovereignty of the state and the rulers are unwilling or unable to suppress these contenders, you have a revolutionary situation (Tilly, 1993). Revolution is still not automatic due to the process theory of the aforementioned factors, but often an intransigent elite in power who refuses to listen to the will of the people make it so. John F. Kennedy said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

Comparisons among the case studies provided will still lead to different individual causal factors that can exist within this larger framework. From this work can one predict the revolutions of the future. Che Guevara famously stated that misery is everywhere and therefore every state is ripe for revolution if the masses can be mobilized (Guevara, 2002). Very few scholars would disagree that economic inequality and repression are still very present globally. However, democracies continue to spread and provide some home that reform will replace revolution to mitigate that misery. “Genuine democracy, unrestrained and free from intimidation by other nations or external economic forces, has the potential to be an instrument of popular revolution where people suffer from limited opportunity and exploitation” (Defronzo, 2011). Social movement leaders who can formulate the necessary themes of economic justice will likely continue to inspire many people to call for revolutionary change.

Works Cited

Brinton, Crane, The Anatomy of a Revolution. Vintage Press, 1965

DeFronzo, J. (2011). Revolutions and revolutionary movements. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Guevara, Che. Guerrilla warfare. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002.

Gurr, Ted (1970), Why Men Rebel. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Johnson, Chalmers, (1966) Revolutionary Change. Boston, MA: Little Brown and Company

Tilly, Charles. (1993), European Revolutions 1492-1992. Blackwell Publishers