Dr. Jack Goldstone

It's a Hollywood theme, whether it's the uprisings of gladiators or the uprisings of slaves or historical documentaries about revolutions that need heroes and villains.

Yes, we tend to think that a revolution is a good thing, and some of them have been.

Certainly, we have democracy today because of revolutions against kings and emperors.

But almost all revolutions have a dark side, if you will.

That is, if it requires a lot of violence and a lot of creating harsh, oppressive, brutal governments to create a revolution and to hold it in place, that leads to tragedies.

That leads to tens of millions of people being killed.

And too many revolutions have leaned in that direction, leading to civil war, leading to authoritarian governments.

Sure.

And...

The thing about revolutions is they're processes.

They're not just an event.

A revolution can unfold over years, sometimes even decades.

That is, revolutions can trigger civil wars.

Revolutions may start with uprisings, spill into civil war.

Sometime during the revolution, there may be a military coup.

It is hard to tell these different things apart.

What I tell my students and what I would tell your listeners is if you have a sustained mass mobilization, that is someone kind of raising and organizing and pushing the people to change the government, and they make a major attempt to overthrow the government in order to change the way institutions are run.

then that's a revolutionary episode.

It may lead to a successful revolution.

It may not.