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Revolutions have many catalysts, but also share common threads

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By Dr. Haytham Mouzahem BEIRUT, Lebanon – Western theoretical studies on famous global revolutions reveal common elements in revolutions that assist in understanding their causes and motives. These studies show similarities not only in how and why revolutions occur, despite having different catalysts, but reveal other factors that define revolutions, including circumstances of time and place and diverse cultural, religious, social, political and economic communities that witness these revolutions. Researchers have disagreed about the potential to predict revolutions. Some historians say that revolutions occur suddenly, while others believe that talk about revolution usually spreads through a community as a precursor to one. Additionally, some historians and researchers give social and economic factors a prominent role in causing revolutions, while others say that motivations for revolution are primarily political, being a result of tyranny and injustice and leading peop