Stable and Unstable Political Systems

The simplest definition of a stable political system is one that

survives through crisis without internal warfare. Several types of

political systems have done so, including despotic monarchies,

military regimes, and other authoritarian and totalitarian systems.

The key to their success is their ability to control social

development, to manage and prevent change, and to bring under

governmental direction all the forces that may result in

innovations that are threatening to the system.

In some systems, survival does not depend on the detailed

management of the society or close governmental control over

social processes. It is the result of sensitive political response to the

forces of change and of open political processes that allow gradual

and orderly development. Much of the western democratic world

has achieved peaceful progress in this way, despite new political

philosophies, population increases, industrial and technological

innovations, and many other social and economic stresses.

In modern times the great majority of the world’s political

systems have experienced one form or another of internal warfare

leading to violent collapse of the governments in power. Many

factors in such a situation, including the cheapening of human life,

the ready availability of arms, the discrediting of the national

leadership, material scarcities, and a sense of wounded national

pride, contribute to the creation of an atmosphere in which radical

political change and violent mass action are acceptable to large

numbers of people. Economic crisis are another common stimulus

to revolutionary outbreaks, for they produce a threat to the

individual’s social position, a sense of insecurity and uncertainty as

to the future, and an aggravation of the relationships among social

lasses. Crisis situations test the stability of political systems, for

they place extraordinary demands on the political leadership and the

structure and processes of the system.

Unstable political systems are those that prove vulnerable to

crisis pressures and that break down into various forms of internal

warfare. The fundamental cause of such failures is the absence of

some general agreement on appropriate forms of political action.

Governments suffer their gravest handicap when they must govern

without consent or when the legitimacy of the regime is widely

questioned. This is often the case in systems that have experienced

prolonged civil war, that are torn by tensions among different

national or ethnic group, in which there are divisions along sharply

drawn ideological or class lines.

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