Revolution as Mass-Based Regime Change

This article makes the case for a broad definition of revolution as mass-based regime change. Recent years have seen an outpouring of research on mass mobilization, responding in part to a succession of global revolutionary waves. But this scholarship has flourished despite conceptual dissensus, with works embracing an array of partly overlapping terms (e.g., uprising, rebellion, civil resistance). Revolution offers a clear and tractable way of characterizing the full range of these mass movements, while still allowing for conceptual narrowing with adjectives. It also provides a conceptual link to related literatures on authoritarianism and democratization, which characterize mass-based regime change as one of the main threats dictators face. After making these arguments, I demonstrate the utility of this broad definition by reviewing two active debates regarding different forms of revolution: the relative merits of nonviolent versus violent resistance and the types of democracy emerging from democratic revolution versus elite-led negotiations.