SOCIAL MOBILIZATION,
POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS,
AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE
A Cross-National Analysis
PETER R. SCHNEIDER
ANNE L. SCHNEIDER
Indiana University
paper will attempt to synthesize and test series of hypotheses
This
linking certain aspects of social change, political institutions, and
a
economic development with political violence in ten of the world’s more
affluent nations. The major question the research seeks to answer may be
stated as follows: What attributes of a political system enable it to avoid
violence in the face of potentially disruptive forces generated by rapid
change?
To approach
this problem, considerable attention was given to the
construction of indices designed to represent the independent variables in
comprehensive manner than that provided by standard crossnational statistical indicators. Moreover, by collecting data spanning a
twenty-year period, the researchers were able to assess a country’s relative
position among the other nations at a given point in time, as well as to
determine the speed with which the countries were undergoing crucial
processes of change.
a more
AUTHORS’ NOTE: This article is a slightly revised version of a paper presented at
the 19T0 annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association in Chicago.
While entirely responsible for its contents, the authors wish to acknowledge the
intellectual and technical guidance of Professors Alfred Diamant and John Gillespie
and the many helpful comments of Mr. Philip Laemmle.
[69]
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One consequence of the study was that it demonstrated the feasibility
employing aggregate data to discern significant differences among
nations which tend to group together on most indicators of economic
development. Another was the unusually high degree of statistical
explanation: five independent variables jointly account for 95% of the
variance in political violence among the ten countries (R .97, R2 .95). The
data also suggest that the level of economic development has no direct
impact upon the maintenance of political order, and that rapid social
mobilization alone does not necessarily produce greater violence. Rather,
according to the data presented here, political violence is most likely to
occur when the development of strong political institutions lags behind the
process of social mobilization.
The antecedents of this research may be found in studies published by
numerous scholars over the past decade in which various socioeconomic
variables were shown to be related to political participation, democracy,
and stability.22
The concept of institutionalization employed in this paper is derived
from the work of Samuel Huntington (1968, 1965). His major premise is
that violence results primarily from rapid social change and the rapid
mobilization of new groups into politics, coupled with the slow development of political institutions (Huntington, 1968: 4). Conversely, if the
political institutions are able to develop at the same rate as the social
change taking place in a society, then violence might be avoided. The
process by which political institutions gain strength and quality is referred
to as institutionalization. Thus, Huntington (1968: 12-24) suggests that
the level of institutionalization in a given country may be determined by a
series of measurements along the following continua:
of
(1) Highly institutionalized organizations and procedures are adaptable
rather than rigid, meaning they have adapted to and met challenges.
(2) They are complex rather than simple, implying that they have more
(3)
(4)
subunits and more purposes.
They are autonomous rather than subordinate, meaning the
stronger institutions will be more independent of other institutions
and social forces.
They will be characterized by coherence rather than by disunity,
meaning there will be a greater amount of consensus within the
organization.
Karl Deutsch, Huntington (1968: 15-17) maintains that the
of
social
mobilization results in increased aspirations and expectaprocess
Following
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[71]
tions &dquo;which, if unsatisified, galvanize individuals and groups into politics.
In the absence of strong and adaptable political institutions,&dquo; he adds,
&dquo;such increases in participation mean instability and violence.&dquo;~ Unlike
Deutsch, however, Huntington keeps social mobilization analytically
development. The former increases aspirations
while economic development increases the capacity of a society to meet
the aspirations. Thus the gap or lag between the two produces social
frustration. Elaborating this hypothesis, he goes on to say that the gap
distinct from economic
between frustration and mobility opportunities leads to political participation, and the gap between the level of participation and the institutionalization of the political system leads to political instability (Huntington, 1968: 55). The major points of this sequence are that social
mobilization is more destabilizing than economic development, and that
institutionalization acts as an intervening variable to increase the odds for
a particular political system’s survival in the face of a potentially unstable
situation.
THEORY AND PROPOSITIONS
Our purpose here is to explain how and why social mobilization,
economic development, and the strength of political institutions affect the
level of violence in a given nation. First, the concepts will be defined and
made more explicit; second, the general nature of the relationship between
the independent variables and political violence will be examined.
In accordance with Deutsch (1961: 494), social mobilization is defined
as &dquo;the process in which major clusters of old social, economic and
psychological commitments are eroded or broken and people become
available for new patterns of socialization and behavior.&dquo; This process, it is
maintained, can be identified by examining the extent of communications,
education, and mobility in the society. The last concept, mobility,
includes not only the shift from a rural to an urban society-as reflected in
an increasing concentration of the population in cities-but also an
increase in the percentage of persons in nonagricultural occupations. Each
of these factors should either reflect or contribute to a breakdown of
traditional values and an increase in the options available to an individual
regarding his values and role in the society. A rapid rate of mobilization
refers to the speed at which these changes are taking place, while the stage
of mobilization reflects the magnitude of these factors at a given point in
time. One of the basic notions underlying this paper is that this process of
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[72]
in the society increases the overall quantity of political demands
and results in substantial changes in the content of demands.
Economic development refers to the productive capacity of a nation as
indicated by the extent of its industrialization and its gross national
product. Though many authors combine economic development and social
mobilization into a single index, they are kept analytically distinct here.
The latter, as explained earlier, is expected to increase the demands made
by the population on the political system of a nation. The level of
economic development, on the other hand, reflects the magnitude of
resources available in the society to meet such demands.
As indicated, the concept of political institutionalization relies heavily
on Huntington. Our revisions in his operationalization have been made to
facilitate the description of the political institutions most &dquo;appropriate&dquo;
for handling change in the society. Strong or appropriate political
institutions would be characterized by adaptability (the ability to meet
challenges and survive); legitimacy (as perceived by the society); complexity (permeation of the political system into the society); and an
internal nature which is coherent or consensual (relative absence of
change
disunity or factionalism).
Political violence is the
only dependent variable in the study. It refers
the
attempts by
population or the government to obtain political goals
the
of
use
violence or the threat of violence. As used here, the
through
term specifically excludes normal nonviolent events associated with
government, such as cabinet reshufflings or changes in leadership through
elections, as well as violent events not associated with government, such as
common street crime or delinquency. An exception to this rule is the
inclusion of political demonstrations to oppose the existing government or
seek redress of grievances as an indicator of political violence at a very low
level. Since this paper focuses primarily on the extent of political disorder
or violence in the society, the term &dquo;political order&dquo; will often be used to
refer to the relative absence of such violence.
The general nature of the relationship among the rate of social
mobilization, economic development and institutionalization, and political
violence can be expressed in rather direct terms. Social mobilization, by
increasing the options available to individuals and breaking down
traditional commitments, increases the level of demands and changes the
content of those demands. This process, in turn, places a strain on the
political system which must handle the demands. If the political
institutions are adaptable, they will be more likely to change as demands
change. Adaptable political parties, for example, will shift their programs
to
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[73]
aggregate the new demands. If the
the
population will be more inclined to
system is perceived legitimate,
utilize the existing channels and institutions rather than attempt to create
new ones. If the system is complex and reaches to the &dquo;grass-roots&dquo; level,
it will be better able to channel demands up to the governing body and to
communicate to the people the information the government wants them
to hear. If the institutions are internally more coherent and consensual,
they will be better able to reach agreement on the formulation of new
in such
a
way
as
to articulate and
as
Economic development, as mentioned above, reflects the ability
of the government to increase its services to the public. If the society is
relatively well off, increased demands can be met by increased services. If
the society has few available economic resources, it may be impossible for
the governing body, no matter how willing, to meet an increase or change
in demands with anything more concrete than promises.
If mobilization is increasing rather rapidly and the political institutions
are not adaptable, legitimate, coherent, and complex, the probability is
greater that segments of the society will resort to more violent attempts to
bring about change or to gain satisfaction for their demands. Likewise, if
the society’s resources are scarce, as reflected in a low stage of economic
development, disorder and violence are more probable due to the inability
of the system to meet the demands.
This explanation should not be interpreted as meaning that the political
institutions have to satisfy each and every demand that is made. This, in
itself, could lead to the inability to formulate any sort of policy-especially if extreme groups are making widely diverse and intense demands on
the system. Institutionalization, to be sure, refers to the political system’s
ability to articulate demands, but it also involves its ability to aggregate
diverse demands and maintain its legitimacy and coherence as a structural
policies.
system.
Not all ramifications of this theory can be examined in the paper, but if
the foregoing reasoning is correct, one would expect that higher rates of
social mobilization would be associated with more disorder and violence in
the society. One would also expect that a higher level of economic
development and higher institutionalization would be associated with
greater political order.
The more complex relationships between the variables can also be
examined: the theory suggests that the impact of a higher rate of social
mobilization on the violence in the system will depend upon the extent of
institutionalization and economic development. This can be tested by
examining the ratio between the rate of social mobilization and the level
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[74]
of institutionalization within each nation (SM/I). If there is a high positive
ratio or &dquo;gap&dquo; between the two-indicating that mobilization is outrunning
institutionalization-violence is more apt to occur. A low or negative ratio
between these variables would suggest that institutional development is
keeping pace with social mobilization and that violence is less apt to occur.
A ratio can also be constructed between social mobilization and the level
of economic development (SM/ED). A high ratio would indicate that
mobilization is occurring faster than economic resources have been
developed to meet the increased demand. The level of violence would be
greater when the ratio is higher and smaller when the ratio is lower.
The theory also suggests a relationship among all three variables. Civil
violence resulting from social mobilization outrunning institutional development (the ratio SM/I) will be less severe if the society has ample
economic resources to satisfy increasing demands. On the other hand, one
would predict that nations having the greatest violence would be those
characterized by a high ratio between the rate of social mobilization and
institutionalization as well as low economic development. This aspect of
the theory can be tested by dividing the nations into two groups-one with
high economic development and one with corresponding lower economic
development. If the theory is accurate, one would expect the ratio
between social mobilization and institutionalization to correlate strongly
with political violence when economic development is low and to correlate
less strongly when economic development is higher.
The specific propositions to be tested are as follows:
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
The higher the rate of social mobilization, the greater the political
violence.
The lower the level of economic development, the greater the
political violence.
The lower the level of institutionalization, the greater the political
violence.
The higher the ratio between social mobilization and institutionalization, the greater the political violence.
The higher the ratio between social mobilization and the stage of
economic development, the greater the political violence.
A high ratio between social mobilization and institutionalization
will produce more political violence in nations with low economic
development than in nations with higher economic development.
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[75]
METHODOLOGY
The nations selected for the study necessarily had to vary among
themselves in the level of violence, institutionalization, social mobilization,
and economic development. The major constraint in the selection of
nations was the amount of data available for each. Since rather complex
estimates for institutionalization were proposed and our sources were
limited to texts, case studies, and reference books, most eligible nations
tended to fall in the &dquo;more highly developed&dquo; category. The countries
selected were Sweden, Norway, Britain (England and Wales), France,
Germany, Italy, Belgium, Japan, Mexico, and Austria.
Data on each of the variables were collected for two time periods,
1948-1958 and 1959-1968. The correlation of variables for each nation in
each time period constituted one &dquo;case&dquo; and, since there were two time
periods, twenty &dquo;cases&dquo; were generated by this procedure.
The index of social mobilization included four indicators: the percentage of economically active males engaged in nonagricultural occupations;
the percentage of urban population (based on the number of persons in
cities of over 50,000 population); the extent of mass communications,
which includes the number of television sets, radios, and newspapers per
1,000 persons; and the percentage of the population enrolled in higher
education 4 Estimates of these indicators were taken for 1950, 1960, and
the latest available year. A rate of change was then computed for the first
and second time periods.
The procedure for constructing the index of rate of social mobilization
(rate of change) was to compute the average annual percentage change for
each indicator and the average amount of change for a given country on all
four indicators. A problem with this procedure is that the mean and
amount of variation around the mean are considerably different for the
increase in television sets, for example, and the increase in the percentage
of population in higher education. For this reason, and because a decision
was made that each indicator should contribute an equal weight to the
final index, the nation’s scores on rates of change for each indicator had to
be standardized, so that the mean rate of change for the individual factors
was equal and the amount of variation around the mean was equal. The
method used was to compute Z-scores for each indicator. This involves
giving each nation a score reflecting how many standard deviations above
or below the mean it was on the average. Thus, if a nation has a minus
score on rate of mobilization, that indicates it was below the mean-it does
not imply that the nation was going &dquo;backward&dquo; or that no mobilization
was
occurring.
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[76]
this procedure, a communications index was computed by
a nation’s Z-scores on the radio, television, and newspaper
factors. This index was then averaged with the other indicators-percentage of economically active males in nonagricultural occupations,
percentage of urban population, and percentage of population enrolled in
higher education-to form a second-order index of the overall rate of social
mobilization.
To estimate the stage of economic development, two indicators were
used: gross national product per capita, in constant 1966 dollars, and the
energy consumption per capita in kilograms of coal equivalent.s Each
indicator was given a weight of one, and the index was constructed using
the same procedure, as explained above.
The estimate of institutionalization involved four separate factors: the
adaptability, coherence, legitimacy, and complexity of political institu-
Using
averaging
tions.6Following Huntington, one important aspect of adaptability was
considered to be the age of political institutions. The age of the nation’s
constitution and the average age of its major political parties were used as
two indicators of adaptability. The rationale for these is that older
institutions have met and survived more challenges and will, therefore, be
more apt to meeet, adapt to, and survive other challenges in the future.
Another way of estimating adaptability was to obtain the percentage of
the vote gained by &dquo;surge&dquo; parties-parties which appear suddenly and
appeal to a particular group or have rather specific or narrow issue appeals.
A party was not classified as a surge party if it persisted through several
elections or was generally considered a major political party. The rationale
for including this factor is that an adaptable party system should be able
to aggregate the interests represented by these surge parties, thus
preventing their appearance. The index of adaptability was a nation’s
average Z-score on these factors. The adaptability index was later included
in the overall index of institutionalization.
The coherence of political institution was estimated by four indicators:
the percentage of cabinet positions held by the majority party, total
number of different parties represented in the cabinet, number of parties
in parliament, and the percentage of parliament seats held by the largest
party. Nations scoring high on coherence were those in which a smaller
number of parties held stronger control of the cabinet and parliament.
There was one major problem with using this concept in the institutionalization index: Mexico is essentially a one-party state and its extremely high
score on coherence resulted in a distortion of the relationship between this
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[77]
indicator and the other indicators of institutionalization. There is probably
a curvilinear relationship between coherence, as estimated here, and the
other indicators. The extreme distortion resulted in coherence not being
included in the overall index of institutionalization.
Legitimacy was estimated by utilizing Robert Dahl’s (n.d.) concept of
patterns of opposition. Opposition to the structure of government, as
distinct from opposition to policies or personnel, was considered to
represent the perception that the structures were not legitimate. The
percentage of votes gained by parties which oppose the system was used.’
Complexity of government was the third contributor to the institutionalization index. The extent of decentralization of government in the
society was used to estimate complexity. While this indicator might not be
appropriate for underdeveloped nations, for more developed ones it
represents a more comprehensive, far-reaching governmental structure, as
well as one which provides citizens with more decision-making points
which could serve to aggregate interests or meet demands. The extent of
decentralization was estimated by examining the expenditures of the
central and local governments for social welfare services. The more highly
centralized states were those in which more of the total expenditures on
social welfare originated with the central rather than the local government (Russett, 1965). Complexity (decentralization), legitimacy, and
adaptability were used to form the index of institutionalization. The
indexing procedure involved the use of Z-scores as explained above.
The extent of political violence was determined by first placing each
violent political event in each country from 1948 to December 1968 into
one of 27 categories of violence. The New York Times Index was used as
the data source. An 11-point scale of political violence was then
constructed. Guttmann scaling provided a coefficient of reproducibility of
.96 for these 10 nations during the 20-year time span. The scale had the
following categories ranging from less to more violence:
(1)
(2)
Political demonstrations to oppose government or seek redress of
grievances; isolated violence or small riots.
Political strikes or isolated terrorist activities, such as bombing,
sabotage, or attempted assassination.
(3) Occasional rioting; widespread demonstrations.
(4) Occasional terrorist activity, including political
murders and
assassinations.
(5) Widespread rioting;
continuing over
an
massive
extended
public demonstrations
period of time.
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and disorders
[78]
(6) Plot to overthrow government verified and thwarted.
(7) Widespread terrorist activity; or organized armed resistance, or
guerrilla warfare with no attempt or possibility of overthrowing
the central government. Or extreme governmental measures taken
to prevent this, such as the central government assuming control
of an internal area; declaration of a state of siege or emergency, or
suspension of the constitution, or imposition of martial law.
(8) Organized armed resistance with intent to overthrow government
or impose new constitutional order.
survival of an attempted coup d’etat or palace
Government
(9)
(10)
(11)
revolution.
Government threatened by rebellion and open civil war.
Government overthrow by rebellion and open civil war.
A political violence score for each nation was computed by adding the
numbers on the scale (representing types of political events) for those
events which occurred in the nation during a particular year. For example,
if events numbered one, two, and three occurred in a given country in
1948, that state had a violence score of six for that year. An average score
for each nation was then computed for each time period. Z-scores were
computed for each nation, indicating how much above or below the mean
it
was.
Analysis of the data relied primarily upon measures of the strength of
association between the independent variables and political violence.
Interpretation of results depended mainly on the value of r2, the
&dquo;coefficient of determination&dquo; which is the square of Pearson’s r. The
magnitude of r22reflects the strength of the relationship between the
variables. An r2 of .50, for example, is interpreted as one variable
explaining 50% of the variance in the other. Partial regression analysis was
also used in an attempt to examine the impact of each independent
variable on violence with the other independent variables held constant.
The regression coefficients (beta) were also examined. This figure indicates
the actual impact of a change in one variable on the other. A regression
coefficient of 1.0, for example, means that a change of one standard
deviation in institutionalization is associated with a change of one standard
deviation in violence. The betas or regression coefficients were corrected
or &dquo;weighted&dquo; for slight differences in the standard deviations. The
resulting figure, called the beta weight, indicates that a change of one unit
in the independent variable is associated with a certain amount of change
(the size of the beta weight) in the dependent variable.
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[79]
FINDINGS
The standardized score for each nation in the study on each of the
major variables is presented in Table l. The scores for political violence
and institutionalization represent how far above or below the mean a
nation was on a given variable, higher scores indicating greater political
order and greater institutionalization. For the ratios, a constant of two was
added to eliminate the minus signs so that a higher score represents a larger
positive ratio or &dquo;gap&dquo; between social mobilization and institutional
strength in one case and social mobilization and economic development in
the other.
France was scored as the nation having the most political violence
during the first time period and was surpassed only by Mexico during the
second. The recent intensification of Walloon-Flemish disagreements in
Belgium was reflected in its drop from a score of .40 on violence during
the first period to a score of minus .33 for the second. The violence scores
are quite close to what one would expect intuitively, with Sweden,
Norway, Austria, and Britain the least violent and Japan, Mexico, Italy,
and France the most violent.
On institutionalization, the scores again reflect what one might expect.
Sweden and Britain have the highest scores, followed by Norway and
Austria. Belgium’s score changed considerably from the first to the second
period. One might argue that a nation’s institutions could not change so
much in such a short period of time, but the shift reflects a considerable
increase in the extent of structural opposition.
The variation in social mobilization rates is also interesting. Norway, for
example, was estimated as quite low on rate of change for the first period
but experienced considerable change, relative to the other states, during
the second. This was primarly due to a yearly average change rate of
nineteen percent in the number of students enrolled in higher education.
Germany and Japan represent the opposite phenomenon: rapid changes in
the first period and less rapid, comparatively, in the second.
The scores on level of economic development contain no surprises. The
ratio scores, with higher scores representing larger gaps or lags, are
relatively consistent with the violence scores.
Almost all the states experienced more violence and disorder during the
second time period than during the first. Table 2 includes each state’s raw
score for violence for each time period.
Table 3 includes the coefficient of determination (r~) of each variable
with each other variable. The ten cases in each time period were pooled,
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[80]
TABLE 1
STANDARDIZED SCORES AND INDEX NUMBERS FOR
EACH NATION FOR EACH MAJOR VARIABLE
PERIOD 1 (1948-1958) AND 11 (1959-1968)
a.
Social
positive
mobilization to institutionalization,
a
higher
score
represents
a
larger
gap between the two variables.
b. Social mobilization to economic
development,
positive gap between the two variables.
a
higher
score
represents
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a
larger
[81]
TABLE 2
POLITICAL VIOLENCE SCORES FOR EACH
PERIODS I AND 11
STATE,
producing twenty cases to use in the computation of r2 .
It should be noted
that this is a small number of cases and the r2 values may be somewhat
inflated. Further, these nations are not a &dquo;sample&dquo; to be used for
generalizing to other nations or other time periods.
Several of the relationships are interesting for methodological reasons.
If the ratio variables are to be meaningful, the numerator and denominator
TABLE 3
CORRELATION MATRIX AND R2
SIX MAJOR VARIABLESA
OF
THE
a. The variables have been
arranged in such a way that positive correlations always
indicate that the variable is related to greater political violence in the predicted
direction. If negative signs appear in the table it means the direction is opposite of
that predicted.
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[82]
of the ratio should be relatively independent of each other. If they are not,
the researcher may have unknowingly put the same factors into both the
numerator and denominator and created a ratio that has little substantive
meaning.~ °The social mobilization rate explains 9% of the variance in
institutionalization and 9% of the variance in economic development.
These relatively low relationships demonstrate a satisfactory degree of
independence between numerator and denominator. The r2value between
the two ratio variables is .14 indicating that these variables are estimating
relatively different processes-as, theoretically, they are supposed to do.
The five independent variables explain 95% of the variance in stability.
THE PROPOSITIONS
In Table 4 are presented the coefficients of determination (r2) and beta
weights between the three basic independent variables and political
violence as well as the partial values of r2 and the partial beta weights.
The first proposition was that a higher rate of social mobilization would
be associated with greated political violence. There was no evidence for
this. Although social mobilization explained fourteen percent of the
variance in political violence, the relationship virtually disappeared when
institutionalization and economic development were controlled. The beta
weight was also reduced to a rather small magnitude when the other
variables were controlled. The data also indicate that a lower level of
economic development is not necessarily associated with greater political
violence. Although economic development is related to violence (r2 .40),
TABLE 4
RELATIONSHIP OF INSTITUTIONALIZATION, ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT AND RATE OF SOCIAL MOBILIZATION
TO POLITICAL VIOLENCE
r2
The partial
indicates the amount of variance explained by the vanable when the
other two variables in this table are held constant. The partial beta weight indicates
the amount of change in violence associated with a change of one unit in the
a.
independent variable when both other variables
are
controlled.
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[83]
relationship disappears if the other variables are controlled. The beta
negative with institutionweight is not only reduced but actually becomes
I
the
alization and social mobilization controlled.&dquo;
The data lend strong support to the third proposition: that a low level
of institutionalization would be associated with political violence. With no
controls, institutionalization explained 83% of the variance in violence and
even with the influence of both other variables taken out, it still explained
70% of the variance. The beta weights indicate that a decrease of one unit
in institutionalization produces an increase of .91 units in violence, even if
economic development and mobilization are held constant.
For these nations, the data support a contention that institutionalization, rather than social mobilization or economic development, is the main
factor affecting the extent of political disorder. The construction of aq
single index out of the several political factors included in the concept i
institutionalization, however, obscures some aspects of the relationship
between political institutions and political violence. Table 5 includes the
coefficients of determination between the factors used to construct the
index and the level of violence.
All three of the factors actually included in the index (adaptability,
complexity, and structural opposition) are strongly related to violence,
although structural opposition (the estimate of legitimacy) seems to be the
best predictor.
The weak relationship between coherence and violence resulted in its
being excluded from the index, although the authors still consider it a
theoretically useful concept. Mexico’s one-party system apparently introduced a curvilinear-type relationship between coherence and the other
factors included in the index. If Mexico was excluded, coherence
explained 44% of the variance in the violence scale.
Table 6 includes the data needed to examine propositions four and five.
TABLE 5
POLITICAL FACTORS AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE
a.
The coherence factor was not included in the index of institutionalization for
explained earlier.
reasons
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[84]
TABLE 6
RELATIONSHIP OF FIVE INDEPENDENT VARIABLES
TO VIOLENCE
The negative signs preceding the partial r2 and beta weight for social mobilization
and economic development indicate that lower mobilization and higher economic
development actually are related to greater violence if the other four variables are
a.
controlled.
In the table, each independent variable is examined in relation to
political violence with no controls and with all other independent variables
controlled. (This differs from Table 4 in that the ratio variables, as well as
the other variables, are controlled).
The fourth proposition stated that a high ratio between social
mobilization and the extent of institutionalization would be associated
with greater political violence. This implies that violence is more apt to
occur when mobilization is particularly rapid and political institutions are
weak. The proposition is given strong support, as the ratio explains 81% of
the variance in violence and, even with all other variables controlled, still
explains 52% of the variance. The fact that SM/I has a strong impact
independent of the other variables is especially significant, for it indicates
that a large gap between mobilization and institutional development
contributes to violence regardless of the actual rate of mobilization or the
actual level of institutionalization.
The ratio between social mobilization and economic development
explains 58% of the variance in political violence with both contributors to
the ratio controlled. This indicates that here, too, a balance between the
variables is more significant for political order than either the level or rate
of these processes taken individually. It should be noted that the beta
weight of the latter ratio variable is smaller (.33) than the weight for the
SM/I ratio (.70). This means that the ratio SM/ED does not have a
particularly dramatic impact on violence in a nation. In other words, one
might predict the amount of political violence in a nation relatively
accurately by knowing the extent of the gap between social mobilization
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[85]
and economic development (as evidenced by the size of r2 ), but a change in
the ratio would not have as much impact on violence as would a change in
the ratio between social mobilization and institutionalization.
Of particular interest is the fact that the ratio variables explain a rather
significant amount of the variance in violence regardless of the actual level
of economic development, social mobilization, or institutionalization. The
significance of the finding is that one may better understand why some
nations, with highly developed economic systems and strong institutions,
will experience political violence. The explanation would be that neither
the level of economic development nor institutionalization is high enough,
given the rate of change occurring in the nation. Also, one could
understand why nations with weaker institutions and less-developed
economic systems are able to maintain political order when change is not
occurring rapidly.
The level of institutionalization, however, retains an impact
independent of the other variables. High social
economic development no longer contribute to
on violence
mobilization and low
violence if the
other
variables are controlled.
One implication of this finding is that rapid social mobilization can
occur without disruptive effects in these nations if there is no severe gap
between social mobilization and institutionalization or between social
mobilization and the level of economic development. By the same token,
the evidence suggests that lower economic development does not
contribute to violence if the economic development is not accompanied by
other disruptive factors. The pattern that emerges from the data is one in
which the nations having less violence undergo the process of change
synchronously, with institutionalization and economic development keeping pace with the rate of social mobilization while the nations having more
violence change sequentially; i.e., institutionalization and economic
development lag behind social mobilization.
The sixth and final proposition stated that the gap between social
mobilization and institutionalization will produce more violence in nations
with low economic development than in nations with higher economic
development. Essentially, this predicts an interaction between the SM/I
ratio and the level of economic development. Table 7 includes the partial
coefficients of determination for each variable within each level of
economic development (all other variables held constant) and the beta
weights.
The evidence lends strong support to the proposition. The extent to
which social mobilization is outrunning institutionalization explains 32%
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&dquo;*
[86]
TABLE 7
PREDICTORS OF VIOLENCE FOR HIGH AND LOW
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
of the variance in political violence within the more-developed countries
and 90% of the variance in the lessnations. Also, the impact of a large gap between mobilization
and institutionalization is more dramatic in the less-economically
developed nations, as is evident from an examination of the beta weights.
A change of one unit in the gap between these variables results in almost
twice as much change in violence in the less-developed nations as it does in
the more-economically developed ones. The theoretical explanation is that
political violence which results from social mobilization occurring faster
than institutional development is mitigated or lessened if the nation has
adequate economic resources. If it does not, the disruptive effects seem to
be accentuated.
It should be pointed out again that the &dquo;less-developed&dquo; nations in this
study are rather highly developed economically in relation to many
nations of the world, and that only a few nations are included in this
study. But a trend may be indicated even in this very limited test of the
proposition. One would expect the impact of the gap to be even more
severe in nations which are less economically developed.
(all other
developed
variables
controlled)
CONCLUSIONS
The theoretical scheme underlying this research suggested that changes
in communication patterns, increasing urbanization and industrialization,
and rapid education of the citizenry would increase the overall quantity
and would alter the content of the demands made on the political system.
The strain placed on the system by rapid change was expected to increase
the probability of public disorder and violence. It was also suggested that a
state which has strong, adaptable political institutions and which has
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[87]
adequate economic
change and prevent
resources
or
would be better equipped to handle rapid
the extent of public dissatisfaction
at least decrease
and disorder.
The basic contention is that the relationship between the rate of change
and the strength of political institutions, as well as the level of economic
development, is crucial for understanding or predicting the extent of
political violence in a society. The proposition was tested by establishing a
ratio in each state between the amount of change occurring and the
system’s ability to handle change, as reflected through its level of
institutionalization and its stage of economic development.
The first major conclusion is that political violence in these nations is
more apt to occur when change (reflected through the rate of social
mobilization) is outrunning the development of adaptable, legitimate, and
complex political institutions. The ratio between these variables explained
81% of the variance in violence, and 52% even with all other variables
controlled. This supports the contention that institutionalization is a
critically important variable which intervenes between social mobilization
and the amount of political disorder in the nation. A possible explanation
for this relationship is that mobilization increases demands and that
stronger institutions are needed to handle the demands. There was no way
in this study to test the accuracy of the explanation.
The second major conclusion is that political violence is more apt to
occur when social mobilization is taking place faster than economic
development. The ratio between these variables explained about 58% of
the variance in violence with the other variables controlled. The proposed
explanation, which could not be tested here, is that societies with greater
economic development will be better able to meet the increase in demands
resulting from social mobilization.
The third conclusion is that a gap between social mobilization and the
level of institutionalization has a more dramatic impact on political
violence in the economically less-developed nations included in this study
than in the more-highly developed ones. The explanation proposed is that
ample economic resources tend to mitigate the potential violence resulting
from social mobilization changes occurring more rapidly than institutions
have developed.
The study also indicates that the level of economic development is not
a strong predictor of violence for these nations if other relevant variables
are controlled. The relationship frequently observed in other studies (and
seen here with no variables controlled) may be spurious. Economic
development might help produce higher levels of institutionalization
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3
’
[88]
may contribute to political order unless the rate of social
mobilization is too rapid. The evidence, however, seems to best support a
contention that the absence of political violence is the product of a proper
balance among the three variables. If social mobilization is not too rapid,
given the level of institutionalization and economic development, then
order will be maintained. Likewise, the existence of violence may be the
result of imbalance. For these nations, violence seems to result from
changes occurring too rapidly for the institutions to handle and too
rapidly given the extent of economic resources available to meet the
increasing demands. The social mobilization process also seems to be quite
important-but its importance is due to its relationship with institutionalization and economic development and not because of any direct
which, in turn,
impact on political disorder.
It should again be noted that the ten nations in the study were
primarily Western European and generally would be classified among the
more highly developed both economically and politically. Thus, still
another consequence of the study is that it demonstrates the feasibility of
utilizing cross-national aggregate data in the analysis of nations which tend
to cluster on many statistical indicators. However, the findings should not
be
generalized
developed.
to all
nations, and particularly
not to those which are least
NOTES
1. An "index is constructed by the grouping together of two or more indicators
a single statistical estimate of a variable." The purpose of using an index is to
arrive at a more accurate estimate of the phenomenon under investigation. Care was
taken to avoid using uncorrelated indicators to construct an index.
2. In chronological order, the studies that contributed most significantly to the
theoretical underpinnings of this project are: Lerner (1958); Lipset (1959); Almond
and Coleman (1960); Deutsch (1961); Cutright (1963); Feierabend and Feierabend
(1966). The authors also drew upon two of the contributions to that last article, one
by Betty Nesvold, and the other by Wallace Conroe. Also of influence were:
Flannigan and Fogelman (1967); Gurr (1968); Huntington (1968, 1965).
3. For an interesting comparison with a typology of whole political systems, see
Ake (1967). Ake, who also dealt with potentially destabilizing effects of social
mobilization, hypothesized that a political system maximized its capacity for
remaining stable if it were authoritarian, paternal, identific, and consensual.
into
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[89]
4. The two major data sources for social mobilization were Compendium of
Social Statistics for 1968, published by the United Nations (nonagricultural
population, urbanization, and enrollment in higher education); and UNESCO
Statistical Yearbook (radio and television receiving sets, and newspaper circulation).
5. Economic development information was obtained from the Statistical
Yearbook and from Agency for International Development (1968).
6. General sources, for more than one nation, included Political Handbook of
the World, 1948-1968, Statesman’s Yearbook, and Dahl (1966). Also, Stacey (1968);
Kogan (1966); Anderson (1961); Valen and Katz (1964); Loewenberg (1967).
7. The inability to find this data for some nations resulted in the use of the
percentage of seats in parliament held by surge parties in the following states: Austria
(period I); Belgium (periods I and II).
8. This 27-point political violence scale was developed and used in Schneider
(1968). The categories were devised by researching the histories of ten countries
(different from those in this study) from 1951 to 1966 and listing all politically
relevant events in each country according to the magnitude of violence. These lists
were then combined into a single scale containing categories covering all the events in
each country.
9. A decision was made to use regression analysis even though the assumptions
needed for it are not actually met. Analysis of the data using ordinal statistics (taubeta) yielded the same general results and conclusions. Regression analysis was
justified on the grounds that it allows a more flexible and powerful analysis.
10. This was a problem in the two fine studies by Betty Nesvold, the
mentioned earlier as part of the Feierabend article, and (n.d.).
11. Feierabend, Feierabend, and Nesvold (1969) found some support for the
contention that a rapid rate of change on several socioeconomic indicators was
associated with greater violence. But in an appendix to the article, they noted that a
distinction should be made between "ceiling" indicators (such as literacy or
urbanization which have an upper limit of 100%) and "nonceiling" indicators (such
as radios or newspapers per capita, which have no actual upper limit). Their study
indicated that highly developed nations have low change rates on ceiling indicators
but have higher change rates on the nonceiling indicators. Likewise, less-developed
nations show high change rates on indicators such as literacy and urbanization but
low change rates on nonceiling indicators such as newspapers per capita. Further,
they found that rapid change on ceiling indicators (which occurred generally in
less-developed or "transitional" nations) was associated with greater violence, but
that rapid change on nonceiling indicators was associated with less violence. Thus the
observed relationship between rate of change and the level of violence which they
found in the study might have been due not to the rate of change per se, but to the
level of development. The evidence in this study is that neither the rate of change per
se nor the level of economic development per se is related to violence. Rather, as will
be explained below, the rate of social mobilization in these nations seemed to
interact with the level of development. The nations with the largest "gap" between
the rate of change and the level of economic and institutional development were the
ones experiencing the most violence.
one
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[90]
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