EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

The dynamics of revolution: Discrimination, social unrest and the optimal timing of revolution

Carmen Camacho and Waleed Hassan

Economic Modelling, 2023, vol. 128, issue C

Abstract: What makes a social movement turn into a revolution? This study explores the factors that influence this evolution, examining the economic and social elements that impact the timing of this profound event. By analyzing the dynamics of social unrest, we investigate discrimination, organizational skills, wage inequalities, and retaliation as key elements shaping the course of social unrest. Our objective is to identify the precise moment when a social movement transitions into a revolution, optimizing the well-being of marginalized workers. Our findings reveal that if unrest continues to grow over time and if a revolution results in a net welfare gain for the discriminated workers, then a revolution will occur regardless of the initial state of the economy. It is worth noting that a revolution can occur even if the social movement loses momentum, provided that the initial level of discontent is significant or the system is so repressive that a revolution becomes necessary.

Keywords: Social unrest; Revolution dynamics; Wage inequality; Optimal switching time (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D74 H56 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264999323003012
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecmode:v:128:y:2023:i:c:s0264999323003012

DOI: 10.1016/j.econmod.2023.106489

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Modelling is currently edited by S. Hall and P. Pauly

More articles in Economic Modelling from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:eee:ecmode:v:128:y:2023:i:c:s0264999323003012