Political Instability in Latin America: The Cross-Cultural Test of a Causal Model

Abstract

although at times quite thin, there does appear to be a common thread of agreement running through most of the classic and contemporary literature on theories of revolution—this being the simple proposition that the majority of the participants engaging in such activity are dissatisfied, discontented, and often disaffected individuals. If we can think of “revolution” for the moment in its most general terms—to subsume under such a conceptual label both the simplest manifestation of civil disorder to the most grandiose occurrence of what might be called basic social change—then, it seems, we are in a position to illustrate the emergence of this basic proposition throughout the literature.

Tres hipótesis sobre las causas de la violencia política y sus supuestos psicosociales

“…Sin embargo, otro estudio con una muestra compuesta por países de Oriente Medio y Asia corroboraba el planteamiento de Davies. En concreto, el primero de esos estudios encontró una correlación negativa entre crecimiento económico y procesos revolucionarios (Midlarsky y Tanter, 1967) y el segundo una correlación positiva entre esas mismas variables (Bwy, 1968). El propio Gurr acabó introduciendo tantas modificaciones en su modelo que la privación relativa dejó de ser contemplada como causa principal de la protesta y la violencia políticas (Ekstein, 2004).…”

Evaluating the Policy Impact of Military Regimes in Latin America

“…Operationalizing regime characteristics such as those listed above certainly presents difficulties. Numerous studies of political development have provided us with measures of formal democracy and political stability, such as the degree of party competitiveness, degree of popular participation in elections, degree of press freedom, level of civil strife, and regularity of constitutional succession (see, for example, Banks 1971;Russett et al 1964;Taylor and Hudson 1972;Collier 1975;Feierabend, Feierabend, and Nesvold 1973;Cutwright 1963;Bwy 1968;Adelman and Morris 1967;Johnson 1976;Elkins 1974). There have been fewer attempts to operationalize other theoretically relevant regime variables; nevertheless, the possibility of investigating them should not be excluded.…”

Repression Works (Just Not in Moderation)

“…The idea of a threshold effect is not new. A rich literature on contentious politics and social movements has hypothesized an “inverted-U” relationship between repression and dissent (Bwy, 1968; DeNardo, 2014; Feierabend et al, 1972; Gurr, 1970; Khawaja, 1993; Muller & Seligson, 1987; Olivier, 1991). The scope of this research, however, has been mainly on protests and forms of resistance short of armed conflict.…”