A Note on Political Coerciveness and Turmoil

Feierabend, Nesvold, and Feierabend (1970) suggest two major hypotheses relating the concept of permissiveness-coerciveness of political regimes to the occurrence of political instability. First, they expect that “Low levels of political coerciveness (that is, political permissiveness) and high levels of coerciveness are associated with internal stability while mid-levels of coerciveness are associated with political violence.” Second, they hypothesize that “The greater (lesser) the fluctuation in level of political coerciveness, the higher (lower) the level of political violence.” The justification of these hypotheses are largely in terms of the psychology of frustrations and aggression. Political coerciveness is conceptualized as a set of restraints on the behavior of individuals imposed by a political regime. The more restraints imposed by the regime the more likely is any particular individual to be inhibited from performing certain of his desired behaviors. This situation is seen as producing, in the aggregate, higher levels of system-wide frustrations. It is appreciated, however, that if the number of restraints imposed is sufficiently large, then along with higher levels of frustration there will also appear a deterrent effect. The deterrent effect will presumably prevent these frustrations from becoming manifest in politically violent behavior

Economics · Keynesian economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Law · Political Conflict and Governance

• Holonational Bibliography

  Open Access•Lee Sigelman, Raoul Naroll•Comparative Political Studies•1974

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• Some Problems in Generalizing Aggregate Associations

  Open Access•David Gold•American Behavioral Scientist•1964

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• Political Coerciveness and Turmoil

  Open Access•Ivo K Feierabend, Betty A Nesvold et al.•Law & Society Review•1970

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