ABSTRACT
“History has not normally been kind to revolutions” (HUNTINGTON 1971a: 5). There have not been many revolutions; 1 so-called Grand Revolutions or “Great social revolutions” (EDWARDS 1927), such as the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and the Chinese Revolution, have been even rarer. History has been somewhat kinder, however, to revolutionary activities, even if the eventual outcome was not revolution but another form of social change or even social restoration. Social scientists interested in developing a causal science of revolutions are thus confronted with an almost impossible task. A broader definition of the dependent variable, i.e., revolutionary phenomena as opposed to revolutions, to increase the number of cases under study, does not solve the problem since, first, we are interested in finding determinants of successful revolutionary overthrow, determinants which differ from those of unsuccessful overthrows (even if not in all respects), and, second, we do not know how such a definition will affect the results obtained (see also chapter 8.5 on the question of an adequate research design). As of now, there is no study providing the scholar with guidelines as to the price he pays for relying on either a narrow or a wider definition of revolution. 2
