In political science, a revolution (Latin: revolutio, 'a turn around') is a rapid, fundamental transformation of a society's class, state, ethnic or religious structures.[1] According to sociologist Jack Goldstone, all revolutions contain "a common set of elements at their core: (a) efforts to change the political regime that draw on a competing vision (or visions) of a just order, (b) a notable degree of informal or formal mass mobilization, and (c) efforts to force change through noninstitutionalized actions such as mass demonstrations, protests, strikes, or violence."[2]
Revolutions have occurred throughout human history and varied in their methods, durations and outcomes.[3] Some revolutions started with peasant uprisings or guerrilla warfare on the periphery of a country; others started with urban insurrection aimed at seizing the country's capital city.[2] Revolutions can be inspired by the rising popularity of certain political ideologies, moral principles, or models of governance such as nationalism, republicanism, egalitarianism, self-determination, human rights, democracy, liberalism, fascism or socialism.[4]
A regime may become vulnerable to revolution due to a recent military defeat, or economic chaos, or an affront to national pride and identity, or pervasive repression and corruption.[2] Revolutions typically trigger counterrevolutions which seek to halt revolutionary momentum, or to reverse the course of an ongoing revolutionary transformation.[5]
Notable revolutions in recent centuries include the American Revolution (1775–1783), French Revolution (1789–1799), Haitian Revolution (1791–1804), Spanish American wars of independence (1808–1826), Revolutions of 1848 in Europe, Mexican Revolution (1910–1920), Revolutions of 1917–1923 in Russia and worldwide, Xinhai Revolution in 1911, decolonization of Africa from the mid-1950s to 1975, Cuban Revolution in 1959, Iranian Revolution and Nicaraguan Revolution in 1979, worldwide Revolutions of 1989, and Arab Spring in the early 2010s.