Our symposium is organized around two panels. The first is on "Revolutions: Causes and Processes". Here we pretend to assess major theories of the causes of revolutions, by looking systematically at a set of contemporary cases which have never been compared. Major topics under debate, which have not so far satisfactorily answered by the literature, will be: 1) the conditions under which economic and political inequalities generate – or fail to do so – major movements of revolutionary change at the national and global levels; 2) when and why do authoritarian or hybrid regimes change through a process of revolution, as opposed to other forms of regime change like political liberalization or authoritarian deepening; and 3) the causes and effects of modes of alliance between revolutionary elites and masses, what is usually called revolutionary coalitions.