refolution
재볼루션
A portmanteau of reform and revolution, coined by British historian Timothy Garton Ash in 1989 to describe the distinctive character of Eastern Europe's anti-communist transitions. Garton Ash argued that what was unfolding in Poland and Hungary was neither pure reform from above nor classic revolution from below, but a singular mixture of both: reformist Communist elites conceding power even as mass movements demanded it. The term became a focal point in the debate over whether 1989 constituted genuine revolutions or negotiated transitions, and has since been applied to other cases including the Arab Spring.
Sources
- Timothy Garton Ash, "Revolution: The Springtime of Two Nations," The New York Review of Books, June 15, 1989 — first coinage: 'a singular mixture of both reform and revolution: a "revorm," if you will, or perhaps a "refolution"'
- Timothy Garton Ash, "Revolution in Hungary and Poland," The New York Review of Books, August 17, 1989 — sustained usage: 'what, in an earlier article, I called a "refolution" — half-reform, half-revolution'
- Catherine Samary, "Eastern Europe: Revisiting the Ambiguous Revolutions of 1989," LeftEast, 2019 — critical academic engagement with the term, supporting it against the 'pure revolution' label
- Barbara J. Falk, "Rethinking the Revolutionary Recipe: 1989 and the Idea of Non-Violent Revolution," Visegrad Insight, March 2, 2020 — situates refolution in the post-1989 debate alongside Furet and Habermas
- Wikipedia, "Coupvolution" — notes refolution as the etymological source for the later term coupvolution