Economic Determinants of Political Unrest

Some degree of political unrest and thus potential for violence exists in all societies at all times. In recent years, the causes of political unrest are attributed to one or more sociopsychological traits or geopolitical factors. Economic explanations are absent or lack modern quantitative approach. This study is an attempt to test some of the old and new theories of political unrest, and to extend, modify, and synthetize others in a unified theoretical framework. Thus, etiologically, universal economic factors in contrast to noneconomic, particular, or local factors are considered and methodologically a multifactor analysis is adopted. Theoretically, neither exclusivity nor primacy of economic factors is assumed; however, empirical results demonstrate their importance as main explanatory variables of political violence. In contrast to general belief, it is shown that political unrest is not a monotonically explained variable for the entire range of explanatory factors such as relative deprivation. Thus, the usefulness of concepts such as optimum level of income inequality, socioeconomic mobility, income growth rate, or the like are indicated.