class as businesses closed and bank accounts were frozen. Unemployment
reached 25 per cent by mid-2002. Social hardship among the poor increased,
including malnutrition among a quarter of young children. Over 53 per cent
of the population are below the poverty line. The consequence of such a sud-
den downturn in people’s welfare led to strikes, looting, violent demonstra-
tions, growing levels of crime and a loss of faith in democracy.
Other contemporary factors leading to perceptions of a widening gap
between achieved and expected levels of welfare include environmental
problems such as deforestation and land degradation leading to lower levels
of economic output and the displacement of communities (Mohammed,
1999, pp. 3–4).
Foreign influences
Some explanations of instability emphasize the importance of foreign fac-
tors. In Latin America debt and dependency have destabilizing implications
as they affect the legitimacy of governments by adversely affecting their eco-
nomic performance. However, more overtly political factors act independ-
ently of such economic influences or mediate their impact. International
demonstration and diffusion may be important, as in the case of the Cuban
revolution within Latin America, military coupsin neighbouring countries,
or the attitude of the USA towards dictators and democracies. Aid is increas-
ingly used as a weapon against political practices, albeit in the direction of
democracy. External threats, real or perceived, to a country’s security have
fostered authoritarianism, militarization and curbs on civil liberties.
Ethnicity
The destabilizing effect of economic and social modernization is related to
another factor that has received extensive attention. This is ethnicity and
the problems that many societies have had when loyalty to an ethnic group
transcends loyalty to a new state. As we saw in Chapter 9, that problem is
sometimes referred to as the crisis of integration or nation-building. Nation-
building is sometimes seen as an ethical and psychological activity
designed to reorientate people’s loyalties towards a new political entity. But
primordial attachments based on tribe, language, religion or race have been
and still are enormously powerful in most regions of the Third World. They
have been extremely divisive, and frequently lead to armed insurgency.
Ethnic demands are currently the most important source of violent political
Instability and Revolution 231