Bring the Popcorn: They’re about to get really angry, but instead, they’ll be very angry Likelihood of Uprising: If they’re very angry, look out. The risk of uprising is very low. We estimate a 3.8% risk of uprising in this scenario. This is what a full-blown social revolution looks like: It’s not so much that protesters are angry—it’s that the political system has completely given up. There is no political compromise in place to deal with this deep sense of grievance. In this case, the government’s popularity is already plummeting because of police violence, corruption, and growing economic disparities. It’s safe to assume that the country will face political violence of some sort, both non-violent and violent. So when it comes to the likelihood of a violent uprising, protesters are going to come out ready to rumble—at the very least, they will have to protect themselves because they will face violent opposition. In this scenario, political pressure is building over the government. It has stopped giving its people what they want and stopped responding to their grievances. These people are furious, and when they do eventually erupt, they will be prepared to fight back against both the police and whoever shows up to counter them. What would happen if protests become violent? This country’s political system is already deeply polarized. This is the most dangerous scenario—right when all signs point to an imminent uprising—when an already unstable political system experiences external shocks. This country has not been a democracy for long, and has already shown some signs of instability, even before the current protests. This type of political instability may result in a more violent uprising, and a higher risk of a political crisis. If this country experienced an uprising, what do you think the next steps might be? Would the military intervene to maintain order? Or could the government just try to clamp down even harder on its own? A full-blown social revolution, as we’ve seen, does not have to result in a full-blown uprising. It may end with a peaceful transition of power, where the next generation of political leaders is more representative of the political and economic interests of the country. Or it may never even become a full-blown social revolution. All we can know for sure is that protests will be the spark that sets off this process. Protests are the spark that set off the process, but our model cannot predict who will be involved in what path the revolution might take next. This model assumes that as protest spreads, a large enough number of protesters are willing to come out and be violent to end the status quo. But each political revolution is unique, and the type of regime that replaces the one that has just been ousted may not necessarily be better than the one that it replaced. The government’s legitimacy and the strength of the new opposition must be taken into account. Our framework doesn’t care what this country’s history looks like, and it doesn’t care what its current political system is. It works like a lens that makes it possible to look at any country and determine whether its political system is likely to crumble in the face of opposition, and to use this knowledge to understand what might happen to that country when it does. And that’s how our model can help us predict where this story might go. If we’re on the verge of a full-blown social revolution, this story won’t end with the military cracking down and restoring the status quo. Instead, things are just getting started. Read more: The political and economic underpinnings of regime crises A closer look at some of these case studies The Russian Revolution: The biggest political revolution in the history of the world, with far-reaching effects that shape modern Russia today, was a full-blown social revolution. The revolution is sometimes referred to as the October Revolution because it occurred on Nov. 7, 1917—just a few weeks after another crucial date, Oct. 26, when the provisional government was established. We don’t see this political transition as a single event: As we explain in our article on the Russian Revolution, after the Russian Revolution the country was in a state of political upheaval for years. Why did this revolution occur? In 1917, the Russian economy was not robust. The regime was increasingly unpopular, especially among those living in big cities. And since the country had been run through the tsarist government for centuries, many had little faith in the current autocracy. This was before Russia went to war with Germany in 1914, which worsened the country’s economic and political troubles. This was just the first step in a larger social revolution that unfolded over the following years. Why did this revolution occur? Here’s a closer look at why the Russian Revolution occurred in 1917, and how the political and economic events of the time might have shaped the events to come. The beginning of World War I was the catalyst for revolution in Russia. Russia’s government wanted to stay out of the war and wanted to get in on the economic opportunities that came from the conflict, but its political system was unstable. The Tsarist government had little support from its citizens, and a new political party named the Socialist Revolutionary Party took advantage of the discontent. As a result of military setbacks against Germany, a military uprising against the government broke out, and then a social revolution followed. Russia declared itself independent from the crumbling Tsarist government. The new ruling coalition put together a constitution that would guarantee civil rights and allow Russia to remain independent. After the revolution, Russia would not be an autocracy, but instead a multi-party democracy where representatives elected by the public would be in charge of the country’s affairs. Read more: We’re living through another Russian Revolution right now East Germany: The collapse of communism in the GDR followed a full-blown social revolution that resulted from the desire of East Germans for more political freedom, and which led to the country’s regime change in 1989. The government in the GDR had long been repressive, and its citizens were tired of being kept in political lockdown, even as other western European countries were opening up and allowing people more freedom of speech and other rights. But the collapse of communism that occurred in Europe in the late 1980s, and the economic turmoil that struck in 1989, made life worse. There were few people who were happy with the status quo before the