Dangerous Youth: why Do Political Uprisings Take an Unarmed Form?

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Abstract

Quantitative cross-national studies of the factors of violent (armed) versus nonviolent (unarmed) revolutionary events are very few, and they do not pay enough attention to such a powerful factor as a high proportion of young people in the total adult population – the “youth bulge”. We assume that (1) revolutionary uprisings in countries with a greater youth bulge will be significantly more likely to take armed form than in countries with a significantly lower value of this indicator. We also assume that (2) the higher the median age of the population, the higher the likelihood for a revolutionary uprising take an unarmed character. In general, both of our hypotheses are fully confirmed. Thus, there is a reason to believe that the significant increase in the median age of the population observed at the global level in the recent decades could have contributed to a noticeable decrease in the share of armed revolutionary uprisings and an increase in the share of unarmed ones.

About the authors

Vadim V. Ustyzhanin

National Research University “Higher School of Economics”; Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration

Moscow, Russia

Yu. Viktorovna Zinkina

Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Lomonosov Moscow State University

Moscow, Russia

Andrey Vital'evich Korotayev

National Research University “Higher School of Economics”; Institute for African Studies RAS

Moscow, Russia

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