DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE IN POLITICAL SYSTEMS

Students of political systems grapple with a subject matter that is today in constant flux. They must deal not
only with the major processes of growth, decay, and breakdown but also with a ceaseless ferment of
adaptation and adjustment. The magnitude and variety of the changes that occurred in the world’s political
systems beginning in the early 20th century suggest the dimensions of the problem. Great empires
disintegrated; nation-states emerged, flourished briefly, and then vanished; world wars twice transformed the
international system; new ideologies swept the world and shook established groups from power; all but a few
countries experienced at least one revolution and many countries two or more; domestic politics in every
system were contorted by social strife and economic crisis; and everywhere the nature of political life was
changed by novel forms of political activity, new means of mass communication, the enlargement of popular
participation in politics, the rise of new political issues, the extension of the scope of governmental activity,
the threat of nuclear war, and innumerable other social, economic, and technical developments.
Causes of stability and instability
Although it is possible to identify a number of factors that obviously have a great deal to do with
contemporary development and change in the world’s political systems—industrialization, population growth,
the “revolution of rising expectations” in the less developed countries, and international tensions—there is no
agreed theory to explain the causes of political change. Some social scientists have followed Aristotle’s view
that political instability is generally the result of a situation in which the distribution of wealth fails to
correspond with the distribution of political power and have echoed his conclusion that the most stable type
of political system is one based on a large middle class. Others have adopted Marxist theories of economic
determinism that view all political change as the result of changes in the mode of production. Still others have
focused on governing elites and their composition and have seen in the alienation of the elite from the mass
the prime cause of revolutions and other forms of violent political change.
In the discussion that follows, a distinction is drawn between unstable and stable political systems, and an
attempt is made to suggest ways of understanding the processes of political development and change.
Unstable political systems
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. Certain crisis situations seem to
increase the likelihood of this kind of breakdown. Wars and, more particularly, national military defeats have
been decisive in prompting many revolutions. The Paris Commune of 1871, the Russian revolutions of 1905
and 1917, Hitler’s overthrow of the Weimar Constitution in Germany, and the revolutions in China all occurred
in the aftermath of national military disasters. Many factors in such a situation, including the cheapening of
human life, the dislocation of population, the ready availability of arms, the disintegration of authority, 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 crises are another common stimulus to revolutionary outbreaks, for they
produce not only the obvious pressures of material scarcity and deprivation but also 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 classes. A severe national economic crisis works, in much the same way as a
military disaster, to discredit the existent leadership and the present regime. Another triggering factor is the
outbreak of revolutions in other political systems. Revolutions have a tendency to spread: the Spanish
Revolution of 1820 had repercussions in Naples, Portugal, and Piedmont; the French Revolution of July 1830
provoked similar outbreaks in Poland and Belgium; the Russian Revolution of 1917 was followed by a dozen
other revolutions; and the colonial liberation movements in Africa, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere after World
War II appear to have involved a similar chain reaction.
Crisis situations test the stability of political systems in extremely revealing ways, for they place extraordinary
demands on the political leadership and the structure and processes of the system. Since the quality of the
political leadership is often decisive, those systems that provide methods of selecting able leaders and
replacing them possess important advantages. Although leadership ability is not guaranteed by any method of
selection, it is more likely to be found where there is free competition for leadership positions. The availability
of established methods of replacing leaders is equally, if not more, important, for the result of crises is often
to disgrace the leaders in power, and, if they cannot be replaced easily, their continued incumbency may
discredit the whole regime. The stamina and resolve of the ruling elite are also important. It is often said that a
united elite, firmly believing in the justice of its own cause and determined to employ every measure to
maintain its power, will not be overthrown. Most revolutions have gotten under way not when the oppression
was greatest but only after the government had lost confidence in its own cause.
Other conditions of the survival of political systems relate to the effectiveness of the structures and processes
of government in meeting the demands placed on them. Political systems suffer violent breakdown when
channels of communication fail to function effectively, when institutional structures and processes fail to
resolve conflicts among demands and to implement acceptable policies, and when the system ceases to be
viewed as responsive by the individual and groups making demands on it. Usually, a system has failed over a
period of some time to satisfy persistent and widespread demands; then, exposed to the additional strains of
a crisis situation, it is unable to maintain itself. Revolutions and other forms of violent collapse are thus rarely
sudden catastrophes but rather the result of a process of considerable duration that comes to its climax when
the system is most vulnerable.
Unstable political systems are those that prove vulnerable to crisis pressures and that break down into various
forms of internal warfare. The fundamental causes of such failures appear to be the lack of a widespread
sense of the legitimacy of state authority and 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 groups, or in which there are
divisions along sharply drawn ideological or class lines. The problem is often most acute where there is a
pretender to the throne, a government in exile, a neighbouring state sympathetic to a rebel cause, or some
other focus for the loyalty of dissidents. To some degree, also, the problem of legitimacy confronts all newly
established regimes. Many of the postcolonial countries of Africa and Asia, for example, found it a source of
great difficulty. Often they emulated the form of Western institutions but failed to achieve their spirit:
borrowing eclectically from Western political philosophies and systems of law, they created constitutional
frameworks and institutional structures that lacked meaning to their citizens and that failed to generate
loyalty or a sense that government exercises rightful powers.
Closely related to the problem of legitimacy as a cause of the breakdown of political systems is the absence of
a fundamental consensus on what is appropriate political behaviour. A regime is fortunate if there are well-
established, open channels of political action and settled procedures for resolving grievances. Although the
importance of such “rules of the game” is that they allow change to occur in mainly peaceful ways, stable
political systems often show surprising tolerance for potentially violent forms of political behaviour, such as
strikes, boycotts, and mass demonstrations. Such forms of political behaviour are not permitted in systems
where there are no agreed limits to the role of violence and where there is a high risk that violence may
escalate to the point of actual warfare. If the government cannot count upon widespread support for peaceful
political procedures, it must restrict many kinds of political action. Such restriction, of course, inhibits still
more the development of open methods of citizen participation in politics and adds to tension between the
government and the people.
Stable political systems
The simplest definition of a stable political system is one that survives through crises without internal warfare.
Several types of political systems have done so, including despotic monarchies, militarist regimes, and other
authoritarian and totalitarian systems. After 1868, in the period of the restoration regime under the Meiji
emperor, Japan succeeded, without major political breakdowns, in building an industrial state and developing
commercial structures that transformed traditional Japanese society. This achievement was based on the
development of centralized patterns of political control and the growth of a type of authoritarianism involving
the rule of a military elite. Similarly, some of the totalitarian regimes of the contemporary world have
demonstrated an impressive capability for survival. 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 but is the result of sensitive political response to the forces of change, of flexible
adjustment of the structures of the system to meet the pressures of innovation, 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.
Such evolutionary change is possible when representative institutions provide effective channels for the
communication of demands and criticisms to governments that rely upon majority support. The election of
legislators and executive officials, competition between political parties, constitutional guarantees of freedom
of speech and press, the right of petition, and many other structures and procedures perform this function in
contemporary constitutional democracies. In such systems, social and economic problems are quickly
transformed into issues in the open arenas of politics; governments are obliged to shape policies that reflect a
variety of pressures and effect compromises among many conflicting demands.
The representative mechanisms that have produced evolutionary change in Western constitutional
democracies are themselves subject to a continuous process of adjustment and mutation. Indeed,
representative institutions must develop in ways that reflect social and economic developments in the society
or they will lose their legitimacy in the minds of the people. In political systems such as the United States, for
example, subtle shifts in the function and relative power of different institutions are continuously being made
and, over time, produce entirely new structures and very different patterns of institutional behaviour. It is as a
result of this process that the presidency has accumulated a range of new powers that have given it primacy
among the branches of American government. This process also explains the growth of administrative
agencies that perform both legislative and judicial functions. This process of dynamic adjustment is crucial, for
institutions that remain static in a changing society are unable to serve as agencies of evolutionary change.
Types of political change
The study of political change is difficult, for change occurs in many different ways and at many different points
in the political system. One may distinguish several major types of change.
Radical revolution
First are changes of the most fundamental type—transformations not only of the structure of government but
of the whole polity. Such change is not limited to political life but transforms also the social order, the moral
basis, and the values of the whole society. Drastic change of this kind occurred in the four great revolutions of
the modern era—the English Revolution of the 17th century, the American Revolution, the French Revolution,
and the Russian Revolution. These movements had the most profound effect on social and political life,
permanently altering the beliefs by which people live. Their consequences were felt not only in the societies in
which they occurred but also in many other political systems, in which, as a result of their example,
revolutions of an equally fundamental character occurred.
Each of these major revolutions was something of a world revolution, for it resulted in a basic change in the
ways in which people in all political systems viewed the nature of politics and the purpose of political life. The
independence movements in the colonial empires after World War II, for example, were fueled by those
principles of individual liberty and representative government that were once the slogans of 18th-century
American and French revolutionaries. Marxist revolutionary concepts emphasizing economic progress and
radical social change shaped the development of many new countries. The continuing impact of such ideas is
an example of another way in which fundamental political change occurs. The nature of a political system may
be transformed not suddenly or violently in the course of revolution but by the gradual, corrosive influence of
ideas and by the accumulating impact of different political philosophies.
Structural revision
A second type of change involves alterations to the structure of the political system. Such change is not
fundamental, in the sense of a basic transformation of the nature of the regime, but it may produce great
shifts in policy and other political outcomes. Because the structure of a political system—that is, its formal and
informal institutional arrangements—is a major determinant of policy outcomes, it is frequently the target of
political action of various kinds. The political activist, the reformer, and the revolutionary share the recognition
that the policies of a government may be effectively changed by adjusting the institutional forms through
which the government acts. In some systems, structural change has been accomplished by legal means. In the
United States, for example, such major institutional reforms as the direct election of the Senate and the
limitation on presidential terms were made by constitutional amendment; and in Britain the various reforms
of Parliament were accomplished by statute. In other systems, structural changes are often achieved by
revolution and other violence.
Change of leaders
A third type of political change involves the replacement of leaders. Again, the recognition that to change the
personnel of a government may be an effective way of changing government policy prompts many kinds of
political action, ranging from election contests to political assassination and various forms of coup d’etat. In
some systems the existence of established means of changing political leaderships works to prevent violent
types of political action. In the United States the quadrennial contests for the presidency afford a
constitutional opportunity to throw the whole executive leadership out of office. At the other extreme, the
coup d’etat leads to the abrupt, often violent replacement of national executives. Although it is a type of
revolution, the coup d’etat usually does not involve prolonged struggle or popular participation; after seizing
office, the principal aim of the leaders of the coup is usually the restoration of public order. The coup d’etat
occasionally develops into much more than the replacement of one set of governmental leaders by another
and may prove to be the initial stage of a truly revolutionary process—e.g., the coups d’etat that initiated
communist rule in Czechoslovakia in 1948 and ended King Farouk I’s regime in Egypt in 1952.
Change of policies
Government policy itself may be an important agency of political change. The social and economic policies of
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and the socialist-oriented programs implemented by the British Labour Party
after 1945 are examples. In both cases, government policies resulted in far-reaching modifications to the
functioning of the political system: a vast expansion in the role of government in the economy, the use of
taxes to redistribute wealth, an increase in the political influence of organized labour, and the implementation
of national programs of social welfare. Major policy change of this type, of course, is often a response to
widespread pressures and demands that, if not satisfied by the system, may intensify and lead to various
forms of violent political action. At other times, however, policy changes are imposed by a government to
achieve the political, social, and economic goals of a single class, of an elite, or of the political leadership itself.
Many important questions remain as to the reasons for change, the ways in which change occurs, and the
effects of change. Political scientists are still not completely certain, for example, why some systems have
managed to avoid violent political change for considerable periods, while in other systems change is typically
accomplished through coups d’etat, revolutions, and other forms of internal warfare. As suggested above, the
explanation may have much to do with the existence in countries such as the United States and Great Britain
of well-established political institutions that permit peaceful change, the presence in the population of widely
shared attitudes toward the government, and the existence of basic agreement on the legitimacy of state
authority. Clearly, however, other factors are also involved. Perhaps one of the chief goals of the study of
political systems should be to determine as exactly as possible the conditions and prerequisites of those forms
of change that permit the peaceful and evolutionary development of human society.