Conclusion. How Many Revolutions Will We See in the Twenty-First Century?

This conclusion focuses on the future of revolutions. Despite past predictions to the contrary, over the last two decades revolutions have become even more frequent, not faded away. Neither the steady decline in the number of traditional monarchies and empires, nor the end of the Cold War, has prevented the re-emergence of revolutions as a major factor in world history. From the color revolutions of the early 2000s to the Arab Revolutions of the 2010s, to further revolutions in Ukraine, Guatemala, Armenia, Sudan, Algeria, Kyrgyzstan, Burkina Faso, and so on, revolutions and other types of revolutionary events (for example, in Hong Kong, France, Zimbabwe, the USA, etc.)—although in diverse forms—clearly remain viable pathways to political conflict and regime change. In this chapter we examine why revolutions have remained frequent despite the many changes in states and the international system, and whether this will likely continue. This conclusion contends that both the number of revolutions and their role as a means of intensifying transformations in the World System will not significantly decrease; they are very likely to increase—and, at the same time, a change in the forms of revolutionary events can be expected. We investigate the factors that will make revolutions likely in the future, as well as a number of possible directions and types of revolutionary events that seem likely to unfold in the twenty-first century. We also try to identify those regions where revolutions are most likely to happen in the future.