It’s all about State Structure – New Findings on Revolutionary Origins from Global Data

Revolutions have been attributed to economic failures, to the e?ects of modernization on autocracies, and to the vulnerability of certain regime types. Using global data from 1955 to 2001, this paper examines a wide range of political upheavals, and demonstrates that regime type is overwhelmingly the dominant factor behind revolutions, ethnic wars, and the overthrow of democratic regimes. However, the e?ect of regime type is not a simple function of the degree of democracy or autocracy. Rather, certain kinds of autocracies and democracies are highly unstable, while others kinds are stable, depending on the detailed institutions and nature of political participation under those regimes