In the 1960s Mancur Olson and Samuel Huntington suggested that the positive correlation between per capita income and the level of sociopolitical destabilization that they detected for low and middle income countries might be partly accounted for by the growth of the inequality associated with the economic and technological development in these countries. The empirical tests we perform generally support this hypothesis, but they also identify certain limits for such an explanation. Our tests reveal for low and middle income countries (...) a statistically significant correlation between GDP per capita and the economic inequality levels, but this correlation is not particularly strong. Earlier we found for the same countries significantly stronger positive correlations between GDP per capita and some important components of sociopolitical destabilization, such as the intensity of political assassinations, general strikes and anti-government demonstrations. It is quite clear that the strong association between the increase in the intensity of these components of sociopolitical destabilization and GDP per capita growth, can be explained by a much weaker tendency toward the growth of economic inequality only partly. In addition, our empirical tests suggest the presence of a certain threshold level of about 40 points on the Gini scale, after crossing which one can expect a radical increase in levels of sociopolitical destabilization in general, and the intensity of terrorist acts / guerrilla warfare and anti-government demonstrations in particular. According to the World Bank, the value of the Gini coefficient for Russia is now just in this zone, which suggests that the further growth of inequality in Russia could lead to an abrupt increase in political destabilization. (shrink)

In the 1860s and 1870s, the feudal monarchy of the Tokugawa shogunate, which had ruled Japan for over two centuries, was overthrown, and the entire political order it had commanded was dismantled. This immense political transformation, comparable in its results to the great social revolutions of the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries in the West, was distinctive for lacking a major role for mass political mobilization. Since popular political action was decisive elsewhere for both providing the force for social revolutions to (...) defeat old regimes and for pushing revolutionary leaders to more radical policies, the Meiji Restoration’s combination of revolutionary outcomes with conservative personnel and means is puzzling. This article argues that previous accounts fail to explain why a group of relatively low-status samurai—administrative functionaries with some hereditary political privileges but in fact little secure power within the old regime—was able to overcome far more deeply entrenched political actors. To explain this, it is necessary to distinguish clearly between two political processes: the long-standing political relations of feudal monarchy and magnate lords and the unprecedented emergence of independent samurai political action and organizations cutting across domain boundaries. It was the interaction of these two processes that produced the overthrow of the Tokugawa and enabled the revolutionary outcomes that followed it. This article’s revised explanation of the Meiji Restoration clearly places it within the same theoretical parameters as the major revolutions of the seventeenth century and later. (shrink)

Recent work on social movement fields has expanded our view of the dynamics of social movements; it should also expand our thinking about social movement success. Such a broader view reveals a paradox: social movements often snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by narrowly targeting authorities with their actions instead of targeting the broader social movement field. Negative impacts from the wider social movement field can then reverse or overshadow initial victories. We distinguish between a social movement’s victory over (...) the immediate target, and more lasting success that arises from shifting alignments in the broader social movement field. To test the predictive value of the distinction, we compare two very similar student-led social movements, both of which targeted university policies regarding sensitivity to race issues and changes in university personnel. One built a broad coalition of support that extended across its social movement field and was thereby able to institute durable change. The other did not, and despite its clear initial success, this protest movement produced consequences mainly adverse to its preferred outcomes. We demonstrate how pervasive this paradox is with examples from other U.S. protest outcomes and studies of revolutions. The paradox is resolved by focusing on changes in the entire social movement field. We thus argue that achieving, and understanding, lasting social movement success requires attention to the entire social movement field. (shrink)