ABSTRACT

Many political revolutionary theorists have argued that political revolutionary activity occurs in a dramatic fashion resulting in explosive change in the orientation of established policy regimes resulting in radically new public policy outputs and governmental organizational structures. This research, quantitatively analyzing political revolutions that culminated in the 20th century, confirms that short-term political revolutionary activity and the establishment of new policy regimes were few in number. Most successful political revolutionary activities along with new policy regimes were long-term while some political revolutions were not successful. The process of political revolutionary activity to overthrow established policy regimes is a complex phenomenon with political and policy change occurring across widely varying time frames.

KEY WORDS

political revolution, complexity theory, policy regime

CLASSIFICATION