From Revolution to Stability and Integration: Challenges of Political Change in Contemporary Political Regimes

Abstract

Political regimes are not static, unchanging and unaffected by internal and external pressures. Rather, they exist in a dynamic environment, and need to adjust to the circumstances altering both within them, as a result of institutional change or changing political behavior, and outside, as a result of developments at the regional or international level. Alternatively, they can resist these pressures but such resistance can make them unstable and prone to fall. This panel, put forward as a result of the work of Student Research Committees of the International Association for Political Science Students (IAPSS), adopts such a dynamic perspective on political regimes by analyzing the impact of a number of phenomena on the stability and persistence of political regimes at various levels of development. It starts with a paper on revolution as the most sudden form of regime change, which looks at how revolution can or cannot provide for development in the short and long run. Exploring a number of alternative approaches to revolution at the theoretical level with examples from historical events, it highlights some of the dangers of the belief that revolution as the alleged expression of the ‘people’s will’ is necessarily followed by increased stability. Moving on to more subtle but equally important phenomena associated with political change, the next two papers are comparative case studies focusing particularly on South America. The first one looks at the transformations of institutional responses to corruption, a particularly persistent phenomenon in established but often unstable political regime. The second one assesses the changing responses to security threats, that, if remain unaddressed, can seriously undermine the foundations of political regimes. The examination of efficiency of various responses indicates that regimes cannot face security threats individually, quite the contrary; some degree of integration is necessary. The fourth paper contrasts this conclusion to some extent by arguing that regardless of integration efforts and potential benefits of cooperation, developing regimes engage in competition in accordance with the structural realist predictions. These analyses point to the need of moving beyond the internal challenges of a particular political regime when dealing with reactions to political change. The last paper adds another layer to the discussion by investigating how certain democratic political regimes respond to the tragedies of human history, which is part of their own past as well. Using insights from critical theory and the method of analyzing parliamentary discourse, it shows the limits of a particular type of response to actions trying to undermine the democratic foundations of those regimes—that of laws restricting freedom of speech. Together, the contributions of the panel, which rest upon a variety of methodological approaches, suggest that political change bears positive consequences if regimes respond to its challenges through various forms of integration, and if they do not try to avoid making decisions and choices that such responses require.

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