The second structural feature is political. Revolutions have tended to occur in societies located at polar ends of the political spectrum. Not surprisingly, monarchies, colonial powers, and dictatorships have generated desires for social and political participation and freedom from repression, and in so doing, provided solid targets around which broad coalitions of social forces may rally. But paradoxically, those Third World polities that are completely open to the free play of political competition through elections, in which the left has a genuine chance to win, such as in Chile, Jamaica, Guatemala, or Iran in 1951, have also opened the door to the coming to power of revolutionaries through the electoral channel. We may now add the string of left-of-center elected governments in Latin America, in Venezuela under Hugo Chávez, Brazil under Lula, Bolivia with Evo Morales, and the Frente Amplio in Uruguay to this list, though not all are finding the will or capacity to try for a social revolution once in power (here Chávez leads the way at the moment).

The third long-term causal factor in all revolutions to date has been the ability of revolutionaries to build and tap into strong political cultures of opposition. These are formed from an amalgamation of the subjective experiences of a population. These include their memories of past struggles, lived experience, and emotions; the circulation of some kind of revolutionary ideology (the most popular have been democracy, socialism, nationalism, and radical forms of religion, such as Liberation Theology in Central America or radical Islam in Iran); less formal but equally powerful “idioms” that people use to express their grievances (“Tierra, Pan y Libertad!” in 1910 Mexico, “Death to America!” in the streets of Iran in 1979, “social justice” in many of the movements today); and finally coalescing in some form of organization that brings diverse people together. Successful leaders and groups have been able to tap these currents and use them to mobilize people out of their daily routines and into the risky adventure of making a revolution.

The last two factors are conjunctural – they help explain why revolutions happen when they do. One is that the international balance of forces has to be favorable to the revolution; for example when the regime’s outside supporters (a colonial power or, in many cases, the US) is unwilling or unable to intervene to stop the revolution coming to power. This can happen for a variety of reasons: distraction by other crises, divided counsels about what to do, a falling out with the dictator. An example was the human-rights based foreign policy announced by Jimmy Carter in 1977 that weakened the position of both the Shah in Iran and Somoza in Nicaragua. The second conjunctural factor is an economic downturn, a recession, or worse, on the eve of revolution: this can be the straw that breaks the back of compliance for key groups, from workers and peasants, to struggling middle classes, and sometimes even for elites. In my book, Taking Power: On the Origins of Third World Revolutions (Cambridge University Press, 2005), I apply this five-factor approach to most of the cases of successful revolution in the twentieth century, and use it to explain why others have failed in various ways.

Do Revolutions Make Life Better for Those Who Live Through Them?

Revolutions have always promised much, delivered some, but have typically fallen short of the dreams and aspirations of those who make them. Third World revolutions have always had to contend with First World hostility, from the US-backed coup that killed Salvador Allende in 1973 to the subsequent interventions in Nicaragua, Grenada, and elsewhere. In addition, Third World economies are vulnerable to economic pressures of all kinds, and must undo decades of exploitation with the limited resources at their disposal. A third factor that limits their outcomes has been the fragmentation of the broad coalitions which are instrumental in bringing them to power, as different constituents seek different changes and often seek to eliminate their former comrades from power.

A few revolutions have lasted and delivered lasting changes: the Chinese Revolution for some decades improved life for hundreds of millions of peasants, until the Communist leadership opened the economy to global capitalism while quashing those who sought to democratize the regime at Tienanmen Square in 1989. The Cuban revolution lives on, even as Fidel now passes slowly from the scene, having achieved remarkable gains in literacy and education, health and life expectancy, nutrition, culture, sports, and employment; its Achilles heel has been the twin burdens of the US embargo (remarkable in view of the ability of the United States to live with the far more threatening Soviet Union and Chinese communists for decades) and Castro’s reluctance to allow free expression to the children of the revolution. Nicaragua, Chile, and Grenada all did well in their first stages, before their experiments were cut short by US-imposed embargoes, war, and coups. The balance sheet is mixed, but the evidence suggests that revolutions can improve people’s lives in relatively short time-spans if given the chance to thrive and a bit of luck.

Can the Revolutionaries of the Future do Better?

What future is there for revolutions in the twenty-first century? I have engaged colleagues to ponder this question in such projects as Revolution in the Making of the Modern World: Social Identities, Globalization, and Modernity (co-edited with David Lane and Andreja Zivkovic, Routledge, 2008); Feminist Futures: Re-imagining Women, Culture and Development (co-edited with Kum-Kum Bhavnani and Priya A. Kurian, Zed Press, 2003), and most tellingly perhaps, The Future of Revolutions: Rethinking Radical Change in the Age of Globalization (Zed Press, 2003). The older strategies of seeking national power through armed struggle seem to be yielding attempts to take power through elections, most notably in Latin America, as noted above. History suggests that such governments will achieve the most when they are pushed by a well-organized civil society from below, and when they find ways of working together that can perhaps articulate a regional response to the negative impact of globalization. Deep social transformation is also being sought in more local settings, most notably in Chiapas, where the Zapatistas have fostered community empowerment, taking some of southern Mexico out of the neoliberal model through self-organization among the indigenous and empowerment for women in particular. A third route lies in the emergent notion of a global revolution. Embodied in the vision and activism of the global justice movement, as it seeks to slow down the process of corporate globalization from above and illuminate the contours of an alternative globalization, one supported by life-affirming values and dedicated to making a more peaceful, democratic, sustainable world based on social justice.