Revolutions and Democracy

Can Democracies Prevent Revolutionary Armed Violence

Bibliographic Data

ID2299323
AuthorsVadim Ustyuzhanin (0000-0003-3800-1108, National Research University Higher School of Economics), Andrey Korotayev (0000-0003-3014-2037, Institute for African Studies)
Year2023
Volume22
Issue1
Pages95-137
Publication date2023-02-27
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueComparative Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1569-1322 • E-ISSN: 1569-1330
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1163/15691330-bja10073
OpenAlexW4323857558
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited74

In recent years, the question of what form a revolutionary uprising will take - armed or unarmed - has been raised more often. This is because, as shown by numerous studies, revolutionary nonviolence can explain why an uprising fails or succeeds to lead to democracy. In the recent decades the likelihood of revolution being nonviolent appears to have significantly increased, but it is still not clear why this tendency is observed. Moreover, there are only a few quantitative cross-national studies on this topic, in which the authors tried to explain the apparent pattern. However, none of them considered political factors separately. This article tests the hypothesis that a country's level of democracy can inhibit the armed revolutionary violence. By applying logistic regression to the NAVCO database, the authors analyze more than 400 revolutionary episodes and conclude that, in general, the more democratic the political system, the more likely the revolution take an unarmed form. Nevertheless, various revolutionary events could be of a rather different nature, and it is further shown that the level of democracy matters only for sociopolitical revolutions, while for ethno-separatist revolutions it does not play a significant role

Democracy · Development economics · Economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Law · Political Conflict and Governance · Religion and Society Interactions · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence

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