POLITICAL CHANGE

Political Change

Change is a fundamental feature of human societies, political change is a universal phenomenon. People may be socialised politically into the traditional rules and practices of a society but this does not necessarily reinforce the status quo, preventing change or progress. Political socialisation is a two-way process of communication of ideas or “feedback”, it may introduce new ideas and alter accepted ones. This process produces changes in attitudes and customs and these are eventually reflected in the political system. Furthermore, conflict is immanent in a society characterised by the simultaneous existence of different groups or classes, hence different interests and traditions. Conflict is basically about change in the distribution of power and privileges in society; it causes change in the political system, as well as is caused by it.

Meaning and Types of Political Change

Political change, in broad terms, means a change in the political system which may arise from changing internal and external conditions and other factors. It may be major and minor, gradual or abrupt, peaceful and violent.

1. Bottomore defines major political change as one which brings about a significant reorganization of government apparatus, a change in the relation between government and people, and to a large extent a restructuring of other social relationships, including modifications in the hierarchical structure of social classes and groups. According to Marxist thinkers, a major political change means the transfer of power from one class to another as a result of the transformation of the whole social system. For example, during the period of transition of feudalism to capitalism the new capitalist class overthrew the feudal landowning class and became the ruling class and a new political system was born. Likewise, the transition from capitalism to socialism would be marked by a new political system with the rise of the working class as the ruling class. In other words, Marxist thinkers conceive of a major change in the political system as being produced by a social revolution.

Non-Marxist liberal political thinkers, however, view major political changes, “as being produced in a more autonomous way, and less abruptly,” it is the result of accumulation or changes occurring at different stages of development of the system. Modern democracy, for example, is the result of the various stages of development merging into each other.

2. By minor political changes are meant some kind of political change that goes on continuously in every society. Here older generations disappear and here rise new ones. Here one dynasty falls and here another dynasty rises. Here adjustment takes place and here conflict replaces adjustment among various social groups, cultural and intellectual movements. Competition among political parties, interest groups and a variety of social movements (e.g. the backward class movement in India) have led to continual revision and expansion of legislation. Such political changes are gradual and minor. However, they are not always and everywhere peaceful. History abounds with examples of replacement of a dynasty or other ruling group by political assassination or other forms of violence. But such replacements of the monarch or other ruling personnel have not effected any fundamental change in the political system because it left the pillars of the social edifice intact.

3. Thus political change takes various forms. At the two extremes stand evolutionary and revolutionary change. Evolutionary change is gradual but can, over time, transform the functioning of a government. The British political system, for example, is characterised by evolutionary change. The institutions of monarchy, Parliament and the Cabinet have survied, but their functions and relative importance have changed in response to changing demands.

4. Revolutionary change may be loosely defined as any wide-ranging change. However, strictly speaking, a revolutionary change denotes a fundamental change in the distribution of power in the nation or society concerned, and often in other nations as well. The impact of revolutions is so great that often transcend national boundaries; the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the People’s Revolution of China, for examples. 

5. Between the poles of evolutionary and revolutionary chanee Sands political change brought about by the transfer of power which results in the replacement of one group of leaders by another, without any change in the existing political, social and economic framework. Such transfers of power may be regular or irregular. In the modern world orderly transfers take place through elections. Irregular transfers occur through military coups. Transfer of power, whether regular or irregular, do not usher in any reconstruction of the political landscape; they lack the transformation drive associated with revolution.

Factors of political change

Political change is the result of a large number of interrelated factors. The basic factors which influence political change are the following:

(1) Social structure and level of economic development which are determined by technology, science and industrialisation.

(2) Periods of political and social upheaval, e.g., revolutions, wars (international or civil), crisis, etc.

(3) Dynamic individuals. Sometimes, persons with considerable power of leadership and ability to win popular support on grounds of charisma, etc. are able to bring about considerable changes for example Garibaldi, Mao Zedong, Adolph Hitler, de Gaulle, Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru.

(4) Ideas. Religious beliefs such as Christianity (Catholicism and Protestantism), Mohammedanism, Hinduism and Buddhism, political ideas such as democracy and ethical values concerned with freedom and justice have had considerable impact in the world. Some of the important pressures of change in the British and American societies, for example, today stem from dissatisfaction, particularly among the younger people, who dislike traditional values which accept absolute sovereignty of the nation-state and the principles of individualism in capitalist society which involves waste and the perpetuation of competitive values. Marxism, the ideology of communism, has played a very important role in effecting political changes in the twentieth century.

1. Of the varied factors noted above, “economic changes have been generally recognised as being more important”, as Bottomore writes, “but their influence has been conceived in diverse ways.”? According to Marx’s theory of social structure and social change, known as historical materialism, the prime cause of the major historical transitions from one type of society to another (from ancient to feudalism and then to capitalism) is to be found in changes in the economic infrastructure, the “mode of production of material life”. Such changes result from the development of the forces of production. The growing conflict and mismatch between the new forces of production and the old relations of production bring about a more or less rapid transformation of the “entire immense superstructure” (state, law, social institutions and ideas in a period of social revolution. Marx’s theory of historical materialism, particularly the base/ superstructure model as well as his idea about the relation between the structural characteristics of a society and the conscious actions of social classes have been the subject of intense criticism and debate both within Marxism and from without. In fact, Marxism today is not singular but plural.

2. Another alternative theory which gives prime importance to economic changes influencing social and cultural life is epitomised in the concept of ‘post-industrial society’. In The Coming of the Post-industrial Society (1974) Daniel Bell argues that economic development, based upon science and technology, has a pervasive and fundamental influence upon the whole of social life and with the change from a goods production to a service economy, and with the rise in the proportion of professional and technical occupations, a new “knowledge class” comprising the professional and technical class will be pre-eminent in society. This “knowledge class” capable of challenging the dominance of business class and politicians will become a new ruling class.

3. The crucial role of economic factor may be illustrated by the catastrophic effects of the Great Depression of 1929-33 on politics. No government, except that of the Soviet Union, was immune. The failure of economic liberalism led to the expansion of the role of government in economic affairs. Political change was not always as immediate as in Latin America, where twelve countries changed government or regime in 1930-31, ten of them by military coup. All did not change in the same direction. Many of them moved towards the Left than to the Right. Chile, for example, passed through a momentary “Socialist Republic” in 1932, under Colonal Marmaduke Grove, while in Brazil the. Depression ended the oligarchic “old Republic” o 1889-1930 and brought to power Getulio Vargas, best known as a nationalist-populist. In Europe and Japan there was a striking move to the Right, except in Scandinavia, where Sweden entered I's half-century of social-democratic rule in 1932, and in Spain the Bourbon monarchy gave way to a Republic in 1931 which later fell to fascist aggression. The most far-reaching and sinister political consequences of the Great Depression, however, had been the establishment of nationalist, warlike, and actively aggressive regimes in two major military powers Japan (1931) and Germany (1933). The United States, far away from the European political upheaval, moved quite markedly to the Left, as its new President F.D. Roosevelt (1933-45) experimented with a more radical New Deal. In vast colonial sector of the world the Depression marked the effective beginning of indigenous political and social discontent, directed against the colonial government. These were the years of the second Gandhi phase of the freedom struggle in India under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi.

The French Revolution of 1789 swept away the ancien regime and led to the creation of nation-states in Europe; the ideas of the Revolution- “liberty, equality and fraternity”-have paved the way for the development of democratic movement. The Russian Revolution of 1917 in its sweep and intensity shook the old society, the old economy, the old political system of its roots. The revolution swept away all regimes from Vladivostok to the Rhine, established a socialist republic, created the Soviet Union-a new social and political system. The impact of the Russian revolution on European regimes was also profound. A short-lived socialist republic was proclaimed in Bavaria in 1918, and a brief Soviet Republic in Munic, then the Hungarian Soviet Republic of March-July 1919. All were, of course, suppressed with inhuman brutality. Soviet social and political system has now collapsed and disintegrated. Nevertheless, it is important “to remember”, writes Hobsbawm, “that the major and lasting impact of the regimes inspired by the October Revolution was a powerful accelerator of the modernisation of backward agrarian countries.”

4. War is another important factor contributing to the rise and expansion and consolidation of state power as well as their disintegration. In Greece, for example, war was the grand collective function, and the city developed as its focal point of organisation. War and conquest were equally an integral part of Roman life, in the long run subverting the republic by fostering slavery and inequality. “In all periods of recorded history.” Bottomore writes, “the political order in the world as a whole has been very largely a product of conquest and the establishment of empires, armed struggles for national independence, and conflicts among dynasties, empires or nation-states.” The decades from the outbreak of the First World War to the aftermath of the Second were marked by the break-down of the western civilisation which was capitalist in its economy and liberal in its legal and constitutional structure. The huge colonial empires were shaken and crumbled into dust. As the world economic crisis of unprecedented depth brought even the strongest capitalist economies to their knees, the institutions of liberal democracy disappeared between 1917 and 1942 from all but a fringe of Europe and parts of North America and of Australasia, as fascism and its satellite ultra-Right movements and regimes advanced. On the other hand, the two World Wars, followed by two waves of global rebellion and revolution, brought to power the socialist system which claimed to be the alternative to the capitalist system and liberal democracy, first over one-sixth of the world’s land surface, and after the Second World War over one-third of world’s population. “Revolution was the child of twentieth century war”, to quote Hobsbawm. Furthermore, the social and economic consequences of the war forced the bourgeois democratic government to introduce social and economic reforms, unthinkable prior to the Second World War. With the assumption of the role of manager of the capitalist economy and provider of welfare services to the needy, politics of liberal democracies underwent some changes to a large extent.

METHODS OF POLITICAL CHANGE

In any society or country there is rarely complete agreement as to how power, wealth and status should be shared among individuals and groups, or on the values governing social, economic and political life and the steps needed to implement necessary changes and reforms. Conflict occurs when frustrated or deprived groups try to increase their share of power and wealth or to modify or revise the prevailing values or ideology. If the system does not permit adjustments the dissident groups will, through various forms of pressure and direct action, try to change or overthrow the prevailing system and to institute a new one.

Direct action

Direct action implies that the individual or group takes political action directly rather than merely relying on others and in addition to working through normally accepted channels of influence. The major forms of direct action are:

(a) Constitutional

To promote the neglected interests of a region, or group, attempts are made to enlist the help of the press, legislators, political parties or other organisations at the regional or national level.

(b) Non-violent direct action

This may take various forms ranging from some activity at the local level to some form of national protest. Examples are non-cooperation and civil disobedience such as boycott of elections, tax refusal, or some form of positive action. Gandhiji advocated fasting and peaceful obstruction of the civil authorities to bring moral pressure on the British in support of India’s independence. In 1930-31 he led the famous Dandi March and initiated various acts of civil disobedience to break the British monopoly of salt production. Political parties in India often adopt Gandhi’s weapon of civil disobedience in support of some idea. Martin Luther King in the United States led bus boycotts (1956) and Freedom Rides (1961) in support of the Negro Civil Rights movement. The Solidarity in Poland resorted to strike action in support of its demands for a change in the political system of the country.

Non-violent direct action however is only likely to succeed to bring about change in societies imbued with liberal and humanitarian traditions, where groups do not differ strongly on fundamental issues and are willing to find a compromise settlement.

(c) Revolutionary (non-peaceful) action

Where no constitutional or negotiatory machinery exists (as in many authoritarian systems) and all peaceful paths to change are blocked, revolutionary war becomes the only means of the oppressed to effect political change. Such had been, for example, the American Revolution from 1776 to 1789, the English Revolutions of 1640 and 1688, the French Revolutions which began in 1789, October Revolution in Russia in 1917 and the People's Revolution in China. All the five revolutions were accompanied by warfare, which in the English case took the form of civil war only, and in the other four involved conflict with foreign powers as well. Many national liberation movements in Asia, Africa and in Latin America had to adopt revolutionary methods as a means to bring about political and social change.

All the great revolutions have been accompanied by violence. But violence is not an integral part of revolution. In the case of the historic revolutions and twentieth century national-liberation struggles, the revolutionaries had to resort to violent means when they were confronted by the organised and systematic violence of the ruling class of the old system. Nor a violent act is necessarily a revolutionary act. There are dangers of the use of violence, such as bomb attacks, personal attacks on individuals (e.g. the assassination of Gandhiji in 1948, of American President John F. Kennedy in 1963, of Martin Luther King in 1968 and of Indira Gandhi in 1984), or the hijacking of planes, etc., for it can become an end in itself and hence provide no real solution.

References

Bhattacharyya, D. C. (2015). Political Sociology. Vijoya Publishing House. pp. 258-265