Manifest and Latent Demands in Revolutions; A Conceptual Distinction

Revolutions are the result of unfulfilled and accumulated demands which finally leads to the overthrowing of the ruling system. The formation of coalitions and making revolutionary demands cohesive, can be observed in the revolutionary ideology which insists on revolution as the ultimate solution for the current problems.This article deals with a theoretical justification for tracing the revolutionary demands beyond the field of ideology. Ideology is a proper indicator for explaining the origins of protests. But the diversity and plurality of the revolutionary’s life-world is not reducible to the ideology whose claims are at best only the common denominator of protester’s demands.Ideology undoubtedly plays a decisive role in achieving a revolution. But all of revolutionary’s demands are not reflected in ideology and there are lots of protesting demands which provide strong motivations for revolutionaries without any manifest appearance in struggle with the existing authorities. That’s why to clarify and exemplify such latent demands and include them in revolution studies, will result in a more realistic understanding of this phenomenon.