Wealth and Rebellion: A Dualistic Perspective on Income Level and Revolutions

In the field of civil war studies, there is now a consensus that the risk of war decreases as average income increases. Nevertheless, such consensus has not been reached in the field of unarmed revolutions, which dominate the revolutionary process of our time. This can be explained by the fact that the researchers assumed a linear effect of income level on the risk of unarmed revolutions’ onset. In contrast, this paper proposes a curvilinear framework that challenges this conventional assumption. It is demonstrated that two opposing trends can be identified within the context of economic development. On the one hand, economic development increases the resources required by the state to prevent illegal displacement and makes revolt costly for potential rebels. Conversely, it develops infrastructure and resources for civil resistance, which gives rise to the politicization of a society and the demand for political rights and participation. Utilizing two independent datasets to define revolutions and employing distinct methodological strategies, I have identified robust support for the inverted "U-shaped" relationship between income level and the risk of unarmed revolutions.