| Chapter 2: | Pattern of the Insurrection and Modernity |
calls “coercive” or “closed” regimes when their revolution becomes successful.18 Skocpol also suggests that “marginal” or isolated elites are likely to adopt radical revolutionary policies while traditional landed elites tend to do just the opposite.19
Three major hypotheses have been advanced by scholars in the study of major world revolutions. These are (a) the “increasing expectations” hypothesis, (b) the “relative gap” hypothesis, and (c) the “climb and fall” hypothesis which all share the common premise that rebellion starts when there is a significant discrepancy between actual and anticipated circumstances or the perception that there is an intolerable gap between a state of affairs believed possible and desirable and a state of affairs actually existing.
The “increasing expectations” hypothesis goes as far back as 1856, the time of de Tocqueville, who wrote:
Edwards and Crane Brinton also concur with de Tocqueville’s suggestion.21 Their studies of the French, the Bolshevik, and the American revolutions had indicated upheavals taking place when people experienced a period of improvement in their socioeconomic conditions and were expecting more, but further improvements came too slowly. Their main suggestion is that blockage in group mobility will enhance the movement toward social upheaval.
The “relative gap hypothesis” is traced to Karl Marx’s study of the condition of the proletariat and his anticipation of a future revolution,