Abstract
This chapter deals with the problem of revolution forecasting. The first question it raises is whether revolutions have any future, or if their time has gone. The second question addressed is whether revolution forecasting is possible at all. The third is which countries are likely to have revolutions in the future. Shults maintains that the understanding of the role of revolutions in the history of state development and modern nation-building allows to make a precise conclusion that revolutions are most likely to happen in states that have had no basic revolutions to overturn traditional political systems. He argues that the main candidates for revolutions today are Morocco, Brunei and the so-called “Gulf monarchies” as well as Afghanistan and most countries in Africa. These countries are changing, but they need much more time before true revolutions are likely to occur. Correcting revolutions are also possible in communist countries: China, Vietnam, North Korea, Laos, and Cuba.
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Notes
- 1.
For detail on the discussion about the future revolutions see Chapter “Revolutions of the Twenty-First Century as a Factor in the World System Reconfiguration” (Grinin, 2022d) and Chapter “Conclusion. Why have so Many Revolutions Occurred in Recent Years, and are They Likely to Continue to Occur in the Future?” (Goldstone et al., 2022c, in this volume).
- 2.
On the subject of the phenomenon of revolution and classifications of revolutions see Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022a), Chapter “The Phenomenon and Theories of Revolutions” (Goldstone et al., 2022b), Chapter “Evolution and Typology of Revolutions” (Grinin, 2022a), Chapter “On Revolutionary Situations, Stages of Revolution, and Some Other Aspects of the Theory of revolution” (Grinin, 2022b), and Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume).
- 3.
About four last revolutions as well as about most other events mentioned on this page see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume).
- 4.
A “military coup” type can be regarded as an analogue of revolution—see Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022a) and Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume).—Editors’ note.
- 5.
For some more detail about the revolutionary processes in Nepal, Myanmar and Yemen in the twentieth and twenty-first century see Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022) and Chapter “The Arab Spring in Yemen” (Issaev et al., 2022, in this volume).
- 6.
On Sub-Saharan Africa as a region with a great revolution potential see also Chapter “Revolutions of the Twenty-First Century as a Factor in the World System Reconfiguration” (Grinin, 2022d) and Chapter “Conclusion. Why have so Many Revolutions Occurred in Recent Years, and are They Likely to Continue to Occur in the Future?” (Goldstone et al., 2022c, in this volume). About the correlation between modernization process (including modern type state formation) and the probability of revolution see Chapter “Revolution and Modernization Traps” (Grinin, 2022c, in this book).
- 7.
It is worth to add that the above described situations with long-term troubles, disturbances, civil wars, weakness of central governments, disorders etc. in Nepal, Myanmar, Yemen, Afghanistan as well as in some other countries can be defined as “revolutionary epochs” or “epochs of disturbances and revolutions”. On this see Chapter “Introduction. Changing yet Persistent: Revolutions and Revolutionary Events” (Goldstone et al., 2022a) and Chapter “Revolutionary Waves and Lines of the Twentieth Century” (Grinin & Grinin, 2022, in this volume).—Editors’ note.
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Shults, E. (2022). Revolution Forecasting—Formulation of the Problem. In: Goldstone, J.A., Grinin, L., Korotayev, A. (eds) Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century. Societies and Political Orders in Transition. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86468-2_40
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