ABSTRACT
Robert Snyder, Ghia Nodia, and Fred Halliday agree that the spread of democratization is making revolutions less likely, and for reasons very similar to those invoked by Goodwin. As Halliday says, “The period of world history that runs from 1789 to 1989, in which the idea of a revolutionary change, at once possible and desirable, attracted large numbers of people, has effectively ended”. Two scholars who disagree with this line of thinking are John Foran and Eric Selbin. They see revolutions as being just as likely in the coming years. Revolutionary movements develop not simply because people are angry, but because the state under which they live provides no other mechanisms for social change and violently represses those who peacefully seek incremental reforms. And revolutionary movements rarely succeed in seizing power unless the authoritarian states that they confront are very weak or suddenly weakened.
