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121-529: Rebellion is a violent uprising against one's government. A rebel is a person who engages in a rebellion. A rebel group is a consciously coordinated group that seeks to gain political control over an entire state or a portion of a state. A rebellion is often caused by political, religious, or social grievances that originate from a perceived inequality or marginalization. The word "rebellion" comes from Latin "re" + "bellum," and, in Lockian philosophy, refers to

242-436: A 1965 book that conceptualizes the inherent problem with an activity that has concentrated costs and diffuse benefits. In this case, the benefits of rebellion are seen as a public good , meaning one that is non-excludable and non-rivalrous. Indeed, the political benefits are generally shared by all in society if a rebellion is successful, not just the individuals that have partaken in the rebellion itself. Olson thus challenges

363-479: A condition of law and order is possible." Moreover, Kant believed that any "forcible compulsion of [the dethronement of a monarch], on the part of the people, cannot be justified under the pretext of a right of necessity ( casus necessitatis )". John Stuart Mill believed in a morally justifiable form of right to revolution against tyranny, placing him firmly in the tradition of Aquinas, Locke, and Rousseau. In his introduction to On Liberty , he gave an account of

484-517: A condition that applies to all underprivileged people. This leads to an important conclusion: while the objective deprivation (poverty) in the world may change over time, relative deprivation will not, as long as social inequality persists and some humans are better off than others. Consider the following examples: in 1905 cars were a luxury, hence an individual unable to afford one would not feel or be viewed as deprived. In 2010, when cars are common in most societies, an individual unable to afford one

605-409: A declaration of the rights of man and citizen including right to rebellion in §35: "When the government violates the rights of the people, insurrection is for the people, and for every portion thereof, the most sacred of rights and the most indispensable of duties." The inherent (rather than constitutional) right to revolt was cited in the year prior the civil war's start as justifying the secession of

726-460: A despotic ruler. The Mandate of Heaven would then transfer to those who would rule best. Chinese historians interpreted a successful revolt as evidence that the Mandate of Heaven had passed on. Throughout Chinese history, rebels who opposed the ruling dynasty made the claim that the Mandate of Heaven had passed, giving them the right to revolt. Ruling dynasties were often uncomfortable with this, and

847-611: A few individuals, but the 'Body of the People' had to feel concerned" before the right of revolution was justified and with most writers speaking of a " 'whole people who are the Public', or the body of the people acting in their 'public Authority', indicating a broad consensus involving all ranks of society". In the second of his Two Treatises of Government , John Locke quotes the jurist William Barclay as stating "That particular men are allowed ... to have no other remedy but patience; but

968-607: A government that was unlawful, for example, if it had refused to acknowledge its defeat in an election. Thus the term rebel does not always capture the element in some of these movements of acting to defend the rule of law and constitutionalism. The following theories broadly build on the Marxist interpretation of rebellion. Rebellion is studied, in Theda Skocpol 's words, by analyzing "objective relationships and conflicts among variously situated groups and nations, rather than

1089-514: A grassroots movement by nature because they do more than change the modalities of power, they aim to transform the fundamental social structure of society. As a corollary, this means that some "revolutions" may cosmetically change the organization of the monopoly over power without engineering any true change in the social fabric of society. Her analysis is limited to studying the French, Russian, and Chinese revolutions. Skocpol identifies three stages of

1210-535: A justification for the exercise of the right of revolution. During the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the Parliament of England effectively deposed James II of England and replaced him with William III of Orange-Nassau , due to the former's unacceptable leanings towards absolutism and Catholicism . Although Locke's treatise was published the year after, his ideas were already widely current in

1331-591: A laborer, for example, will be to move to a tenant position, then smallholder , then landlord; where there is less variance and more income. Voluntarism is thus non-existent in such communities. Popkin singles out four variables that impact individual participation: Without any moral commitment to the community, this situation will engineer free riders. Popkin argues that selective incentives are necessary to overcome this problem. Political Scientist Christopher Blattman and World Bank economist Laura Ralston identify rebellious activity as an "occupational choice". They draw

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1452-590: A long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty , to throw off such Government" (emphasis added). The phrase "long train of abuses" is a reference to John Locke's similar statement in the Second Treatise of Government , where he explicitly established overthrow of a tyrant as an obligation. Martin Luther King Jr. likewise held that it

1573-725: A pagan," thereby enshrining the right of rebellion against the King. During the High Middle Ages , the Charters of Sobrarbe were used both in the kingdom of Navarre and in the kingdom of Aragon to thwart royal authority, and in the medieval kingdom of Aragon to create the figure of the Justicia de Aragón , an office first mentioned in 1115, appointed by the Aragonese parliament , and with ample powers to veto any action of

1694-445: A parallel between criminal activity and rebellion, arguing that the risks and potential payoffs an individual must calculate when making the decision to join such a movement remains similar between the two activities. In both cases, only a selected few reap important benefits, while most of the members of the group do not receive similar payoffs. The choice to rebel is inherently linked with its opportunity cost , namely what an individual

1815-430: A peasant, according to Popkin, will disregard the ideological dimension of a social movement and focus instead on whether or not it will bring any practical benefit to him. According to Popkin, peasant society is based on a precarious structure of economic instability. Social norms, he writes, are "malleable, renegotiated, and shifting in accord with considerations of power and strategic interaction among individuals" Indeed,

1936-411: A position with higher income and less variance". Popkin stresses this "investor logic" that one may not expect in agrarian societies, usually seen as pre-capitalist communities where traditional social and power structures prevent the accumulation of capital. Yet, the selfish determinants of collective action are, according to Popkin, a direct product of the inherent instability of peasant life. The goal of

2057-516: A potential cause of social movements and deviance , leading in extreme situations to political violence such as rioting , terrorism , civil wars and other instances of social deviance such as crime . For example, some scholars of social movements explain their rise by citing grievances of people who feel deprived of what they perceive as values to which they are entitled. Similarly, individuals engage in deviant behaviours when their means do not match their goals. In response to exploration of

2178-495: A rational, profit maximizing logic. The authors conclude that the best way to fight rebellion is to increase its opportunity cost, both by more enforcement but also by minimizing the potential material gains of a rebellion. The decision to join a rebellion can be based on the prestige and social status associated with membership in the rebellious group. More than material incentives for the individual, rebellions offer their members club goods , public goods that are reserved only for

2299-471: A sovereign oppresses his people to a great degree, they will rise and cut off his head. There is a remedy in human nature against tyranny, that will keep us safe under every form of government. Had not the people of France thought themselves honoured as sharing in the brilliant actions of Louis XIV , they would not have endured him; and we may say the same of the King of Prussia's people." Revolutionary movements subsequent to this, all drew on Locke's theory as

2420-469: A system's value structure and its problems in order to conceptualize the revolutionary situation in any meaningful way". Skocpol introduces the concept of the social revolution, to be contrasted with a political revolution. While the latter aims to change the polity, the former is "rapid, basic transformations of a society's state and class structures; and they are accompanied and in part carried through by class-based revolts from below". Social revolutions are

2541-476: A title by his sword has an unjust conqueror who forces me into submission. The injury and the crime is equal, whether committed by the wearer of a crown or some petty villain." Thus, according to Locke, if a government acts against a citizen's right of property, that citizen may exercise his right of revolution against that government. Locke drew on the Old Testament story of Hezekiah 's rebellion against

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2662-407: A voice of anger that manifests itself against the established order. More precisely, individuals become angry when they feel what Gurr labels as relative deprivation , meaning the feeling of getting less than one is entitled to. He labels it formally as the "perceived discrepancy between value expectations and value capabilities". Gurr differentiates between three types of relative deprivation: Anger

2783-501: Is relative poverty . A measure of relative poverty defines poverty as being below some relative poverty line , such as households who earn less than 20% of the median income . Critique of this theory has pointed out that this theory fails to explain why some people who feel discontent fail to take action and join social movements. Counter-arguments include that some people are prone to conflict-avoidance, are short-term-oriented, and that imminent life difficulties may arise since there

2904-433: Is a normal and endogenous reaction to competition for power between different groups within society. "Collective violence", Tilly writes, "is the product of just normal processes of competition among groups in order to obtain the power and implicitly to fulfill their desires". He proposes two models to analyze political violence: Revolutions are included in this theory, although they remain for Tilly particularly extreme since

3025-415: Is at the intersection between the need for society to adapt to changes but at the same time firmly grounded in selective fundamental values. The legitimacy of political order, he posits, relies exclusively on its compliance with these societal values and in its capacity to integrate and adapt to any change. Rigidity is, in other words, inadmissible. Johnson writes "to make a revolution is to accept violence for

3146-436: Is force alone that overthrows him. Not all Enlightenment thinkers supported the rebellion principle. Immanuel Kant would have strongly disagreed with Locke and Rousseau as regards the notion of there being any general principle of a right to revolution. He believed that "if the ruler or regent, as the organ of the supreme power, proceeds in violation of the laws, as in imposing taxes, recruiting soldiers, and so on, contrary to

3267-415: Is heavily influenced by hyperlocal socio-economic factors, from the mundane traditional family rivalries to repressed grudges. Rebellion, or any sort of political violence, are not binary conflicts but must be understood as interactions between public and private identities and actions. The "convergence of local motives and supralocal imperatives" make studying and theorizing rebellion a very complex affair, at

3388-501: Is much more likely to feel deprived. In another example, mobile phones are common today, and many people may feel that they deserve to have one. Fifty years ago, when there were no mobile phones, such a sentiment would not exist. Relative deprivation may be temporal; that is, it can be experienced by people that experience expansion of rights or wealth, followed by stagnation or reversal of those gains. Such phenomena are also known as unfulfilled rising expectations . In an example from

3509-470: Is not always political in the sense that they cannot be reduced to a certain discourse, decisions, or ideologies from the "center" of collective action. Instead, the focus must be on "local cleavages and intracommunity dynamics". Furthermore, rebellion is not "a mere mechanism that opens up the floodgates to random and anarchical private violence". Rather, it is the result of a careful and precarious alliance between local motivations and collective vectors to help

3630-421: Is not taken into account seriously by the grievance model: individuals are fundamentally risk-averse. However, they allow that conflicts create grievances, which in turn can become risk factors. Contrary to established beliefs, they also find that a multiplicity of ethnic communities make society safer, since individuals will be automatically more cautious, at the opposite of the grievance model predictions. Finally,

3751-456: Is ready to give up in order to rebel. Thus, the available options beside rebellious or criminal activity matter just as much as the rebellion itself when the individual makes the decision. Blattman and Ralston, however, recognize that "a poor person's best strategy" might be both rebellion illicit and legitimate activities at the same time. Individuals, they argue, can often have a varied "portofolio" of activities, suggesting that they all operate on

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3872-469: Is relevant to researchers studying multiple fields in social sciences. The concept was first used systematically by the authors of The American Soldier who studied army units and found out that it is the perceived discrepancy between anticipation and attainment which results in feelings of relative deprivation. Social scientists, particularly political scientists and sociologists, have cited relative deprivation, especially temporal relative deprivation, as

3993-401: Is so completely dissolved by despotism, that the despot is master only so long as he remains the strongest; as soon as he can be expelled, he has no right to complain of violence. The popular insurrection that ends in the death or deposition of a Sultan is as lawful an act as those by which he disposed, the day before, of the lives and fortunes of his subjects. He was maintained by force alone, it

4114-465: Is so necessary to the society, and wherein the safety and preservation of the people consists, the people have a right to remove it by force. In all states and conditions the true remedy of force without authority is to oppose force to it. Later, Jean-Jacques Rousseau would be in agreement on Locke's point about force, stating in his work On the Origin of Inequality that: The contract of government

4235-466: Is that violence is not an anarchic tactic or a manipulation by an ideology, but a conversation between the two. Rebellions are "concatenations of multiple and often disparate local cleavages, more or less loosely arranged around the master cleavage". Any pre-conceived explanation or theory of a conflict must not be placated on a situation, lest one will construct a reality that adapts itself to his pre-conceived idea. Kalyvas thus argues that political conflict

4356-424: Is the analysis of society's mode of production (societal organization of technology and labor) and the relationships between people and their material conditions. Marx writes about "the hidden structure of society" that must be elucidated through an examination of "the direct relationship of the owners of the conditions of production to the direct producers". The conflict that arises from producers being dispossessed of

4477-478: Is the duty of the people to resist unjust laws. Certain theories of the right of revolution impose significant preconditions on its exercise, sometimes limiting its invocation to the most dire circumstances. Aristotle insisted that "men of rank" who "excel in virtue have the best right of all to rebel". Although Plato argued that a dissident should openly criticise his nation's policies, "provided that his words are not likely either to fall on deaf ears or to lead to

4598-508: Is thus comparative. One of his key insights is that "The potential for collective violence varies strongly with the intensity and scope of relative deprivation among members of a collectivity". This means that different individuals within society will have different propensities to rebel based on the particular internalization of their situation. As such, Gurr differentiates between three types of political violence: In From Mobilization to Revolution , Charles Tilly argues that political violence

4719-502: The Summa Theologica . He considers a law not to be a law at all, but an act of violence, if it contradicts either human or Divine good, overextends the power of the lawgiver, or hampers different parts of society unequally. For Aquinas, overthrowing a tyrant does not make a population seditious. Rather, the tyranny of tyrants means they commit "sedition", by which Aquinas means disturbance of those who work together lawfully for

4840-550: The Confederate States of America . Although some explanations of the right of revolution leave open the possibility of its exercise as an individual right, it was clearly understood to be a collective right under English constitutional and political theory. As Pauline Maier has noted in her study From Resistance to Revolution , "private individuals were forbidden to take force against their rulers either for malice or because of private injuries". Instead, "not just

4961-704: The Legislators endeavor to take away, and destroy the Property of the People , or to reduce them to Slavery under Arbitrary Power, they put themselves into a state of War with the People, who are thereupon absolved from any farther Obedience, and are left to the common Refuge, which God hath provided for all Men, against Force and Violence. Whensoever therefore the Legislative shall transgress this fundamental Rule of Society; and either by Ambition, Fear, Folly or Corruption, endeavor to grasp themselves, or put into

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5082-876: The Tribunes of the Plebs in ancient Rome , the Ephors in Sparta , and the Demarchs in ancient Athens . That Calvin could support a right of resistance in theory did not mean that he thought such resistance prudent in all circumstances. At least publicly, he disagreed with the Scottish Calvinist John Knox 's call for revolution against the Catholic Queen Mary I Tudor of England. The Catholic Church shared Calvin's prudential concerns –

5203-640: The realm, the lack of the right to vote is more likely to be felt as a deprivation by people who had it once than by the people who never had the opportunity to vote. Some scientists, for instance John Kenneth Galbraith , have argued that relative differences in economic wealth are more important than absolute deprivation , and that it is more significant in determining human quality of life . This debate has important consequences for social policy , particularly on whether poverty can be eliminated simply by raising total wealth or whether egalitarian measures are also needed. A specific form of relative deprivation

5324-449: The responsibility of the people to overthrow unjust government . An insurrection is an armed rebellion. A revolt is a rebellion with an aim to replace a government, authority figure, law, or policy. If a government does not recognize rebels as belligerents then they are insurgents and the revolt is an insurgency . In a larger conflict the rebels may be recognized as belligerents without their government being recognized by

5445-639: The British monarchy and separation from the British Empire , as opposed to merely self-government within it. The right was also cited in the Declaration of Independence of the United States , written by Thomas Jefferson , two thirds of which consists of a list of the wrongs committed by King George III which violated the colonist's natural right to life, liberty, and property. According to

5566-570: The English political system at the time. Although Locke claimed that his book's purpose was to justify William III 's ascension to the throne, it has been argued that the bulk of the writing was instead completed between 1679 and 1680 during the Exclusion Crisis , which attempted to prevent James II from ever taking the throne in the first place. Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury , Locke's mentor, patron and friend, introduced

5687-479: The King deemed to against the customs and laws of the kingdom; this provided an uniquely complete institutional and constitutional framework with which to disobey the King. The legal lemma " Obedezco pero no cumplo " [I obey, but do not comply] found in Castilian law , likewise stemming from this tradition, was used to justify disobeying the King's orders that were deemed to go against the law; this legal principle

5808-426: The King of Assyria to make the case that God supported any people rebelling against unrighteous rule, saying that "it is plain that shaking off a power which force, and not right, hath set over any one, though it hath the name of rebellion, yet it is no offence before God, but that which He allows and countenances". Like Aquinas, Locke believed that the truly seditious or rebellious individuals are not those who change

5929-684: The Pope condemned Guy Fawkes ' Gunpowder Plot , and Regnans in Excelsis was widely considered to be a mistake. Instead, the safest course of action for the people was to endure tyranny for as long as it could be borne, rather than run the larger risks of armed revolution. The right of revolution was expounded by the Monarchomachs in the context of the French Wars of Religion , and by Huguenots thinkers who legitimized tyrannicides . In

6050-646: The United States meant that a federal army could not provide absolute limitation on the right of revolution, since, "If the federal army should be able to quell the resistance of one State, the distant States would have it in their power to make head with fresh forces." The right of revolution was also included in the 1793 preface to the French Constitution of 1793 during the French Revolution . This preface from 24 June 1793 contained

6171-449: The assumption that simple interests in common are all that is necessary for collective action . In fact, he argues the " free rider " possibility, a term that means to reap the benefits without paying the price, will deter rational individuals from collective action. That is, unless there is a clear benefit, a rebellion will not happen en masse. Thus, Olson shows that "selective incentives", only made accessible to individuals participating in

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6292-409: The assumptions of an older moral economy, which taught the immorality of any unfair method of forcing up the price of provisions by profiteering upon the necessities of the people". In 1991, twenty years after his original publication, Thompson said that his, "object of analysis was the mentalité , or, as [he] would prefer, the political culture, the expectations, traditions, and indeed, superstitions of

6413-545: The authors also note that the grievances expressed by members of the diaspora of a community in turmoil has an important on the continuation of violence. Both greed and grievance thus need to be included in the reflection. Spearheaded by political scientist and anthropologist James C. Scott in his book The Moral Economy of the Peasant , the moral economy school considers moral variables such as social norms, moral values, interpretation of justice, and conception of duty to

6534-628: The bill, but it was ultimately unsuccessful. Alternatively, the work is better associated with the revolutionary conspiracies that swirled around what would come to be known as the Rye House Plot . The right to revolution played a large part in the writings of the American revolutionaries in the run up to the American Revolution . Thomas Paine 's political tract Common Sense used the concept as an argument for rejection of

6655-425: The body of the people may with, with respect, resist intolerable tyranny, for when it is moderate they ought to endure it." Some philosophers argue that it is not only the right of a people to overthrow an oppressive government but also their duty to do so. Howard Evans Kiefer opines, "It seems to me that the duty to rebel is much more understandable than that right to rebel, because the right to rebellion ruins

6776-447: The bourgeoisie. In Marx's theory, revolutions are the "locomotives of history" because revolution ultimately leads to the overthrow of a parasitic ruling class and its antiquated mode of production. Later, rebellion attempts to replace it with a new system of political economy, one that is better suited to the new ruling class, thus enabling societal progress. The cycle of revolution, thus, replaces one mode of production with another through

6897-505: The business of surviving and producing enough to subsist. Therefore, any extractive regime needs to respect this careful equilibrium. He labels this phenomenon the "subsistence ethic". A landowner operating in such communities is seen to have the moral duty to prioritize the peasant's subsistence over his constant benefit. According to Scott, the powerful colonial state accompanied by market capitalism did not respect this fundamental hidden law in peasant societies. Rebellious movements occurred as

7018-527: The case of voting for the far-right . Deprivation Theory is that people who are deprived of things deemed valuable in society, money, justice, status or privilege, join social movements with the hope of redressing their grievances. That is a beginning point for looking at why people join social movements; however, it is even more important to look at relative deprivation theory, a belief that people join social movement based on their evaluations of what they think they should have, compared with what others have. On

7139-415: The cause. Club goods serve not so much to coax individuals into joining but to prevent defection. World Bank economists Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler compare two dimensions of incentives: Vollier and Hoeffler find that the model based on grievance variables systematically fails to predict past conflicts, while the model based on greed performs well. The authors posit that the high cost of risk to society

7260-407: The challenger(s) aim for nothing less than full control over power. The "revolutionary moment occurs when the population needs to choose to obey either the government or an alternative body who is engaged with the government in a zero-sum game. This is what Tilly calls "multiple sovereignty". The success of a revolutionary movement hinges on "the formation of coalitions between members of the polity and

7381-620: The collective effort, can solve the free rider problem. Samuel L. Popkin builds on Olson's argument in The Rational Peasant: The Political Economy of Rural Society in Vietnam. His theory is based on the figure of a hyper rational peasant that bases his decision to join (or not) a rebellion uniquely on a cost-benefit analysis. This formalist view of the collective action problem stresses the importance of individual economic rationality and self-interest:

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7502-427: The collective imaginary. For example, the development of the bourgeoisie class went from an oppressed merchant class to urban independence, eventually gaining enough power to represent the state as a whole. Social movements, thus, are determined by an exogenous set of circumstances. The proletariat must also, according to Marx, go through the same process of self-determination which can only be achieved by friction against

7623-421: The community as the prime influencers of the decision to rebel. This perspective still adheres to Olson's framework, but it considers different variables to enter the cost/benefit analysis: the individual is still believed to be rational, albeit not on material but moral grounds. British historian E.P. Thompson is often cited as being the first to use the term "moral economy", he said in his 1991 publication that

7744-459: The concept in his Two Treatises of Government , especially the last two chapters, "Of Tyranny" and "Of the Dissolution of Government". The right formed an important part of his social contract theory , in which he defined the basis of social relationships. Locke said that under natural law , all people have the right to life , liberty , and private property ; under the social contract,

7865-641: The concept of relative deprivation, the term "relative gratification" has emerged in social psychology to discuss the opposite phenomenon. According to a June 2015 report by the IMF , the defining challenge of our time is widening income inequality. In advanced economies, the gap between the rich and poor is at its highest level in decades. Inequality trends have been more mixed in emerging markets and developing countries (EMDCs), with some countries experiencing declining inequality, but pervasive inequities in access to education, health care, and finance remain. In one of

7986-440: The constant class friction. In his book Why Men Rebel , Ted Gurr looks at the roots of political violence itself applied to a rebellion framework. He defines political violence as: "all collective attacks within a political community against the political regime , its actors [...] or its policies. The concept represents a set of events, a common property of which is the actual or threatened use of violence". Gurr sees in violence

8107-473: The constant insecurity and inherent risk to the peasant condition, due to the peculiar nature of the patron-client relationship that binds the peasant to his landowner, forces the peasant to look inwards when he has a choice to make. Popkin argues that peasants rely on their "private, family investment for their long run security and that they will be interested in short term gain vis-à-vis the village. They will attempt to improve their long-run security by moving to

8228-480: The contenders advancing exclusive alternative claims to control over Government.". For Chalmers Johnson, rebellions are not so much the product of political violence or collective action but in "the analysis of viable, functioning societies". In a quasi-biological manner, Johnson sees revolutions as symptoms of pathologies within the societal fabric. A healthy society, meaning a "value-coordinated social system" does not experience political violence. Johnson's equilibrium

8349-596: The contrary, absolute deprivation is people's actual negative condition; relative deprivation is what people think they should have relative to what others have, or even compared with their own past or perceived future. Improved conditions fuel human desires for even better conditions and so can spark revolutions. Feelings of deprivation are relative, as they come from a comparison to social norms that are not absolute and usually differ from time and place. This differentiates relative deprivation from objective deprivation (also known as absolute deprivation or absolute poverty) -

8470-423: The contrary, such riots involved a coordinated peasant action, from the pillaging of food convoys to the seizure of grain shops. A scholar such as Popkin has argued that peasants were trying to gain material benefits, such as more food. Thompson sees a legitimization factor, meaning "a belief that [the peasants] were defending traditional rights and customs". Thompson goes on to write: "[the riots were] legitimized by

8591-566: The creation and growth of large social movement , like the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Another example of fraternalistic relative deprivation is the envy that teenagers feel towards the wealthy characters who are portrayed in movies and on television as being "middle class" or "normal" despite wearing expensive clothes, driving expensive cars, and living in mansions. Fraternalistic group deprivation has also been linked to voting behaviours, particularly in

8712-623: The decision to enroll in such high stakes organization can be rationalized. Berman and Laitin show that religious organizations supplant the state when it fails to provide an acceptable quality of public goods such a public safety, basic infrastructure, access to utilities, or schooling. Suicide operations "can be explained as a costly signal of "commitment" to the community". They further note "Groups less adept at extracting signals of commitment (sacrifices) may not be able to consistently enforce incentive compatibility." Thus, rebellious groups can organize themselves to ask of members proof of commitment to

8833-459: The declaration: Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. However, the Revolution did change course to set certain limits on

8954-494: The diet, lifestyle, activities and amenities that an individual or group are accustomed to or that are widely encouraged or approved in the society to which they belong. Measuring relative deprivation allows an objective comparison between the situation of the individual or group compared to the rest of society. Relative deprivation may also emphasise the individual experience of discontent when being deprived of something to which one believes oneself to be entitled, however emphasizing

9075-587: The duty for which the honour was bestowed upon him". For Gracchus, he "who assails the power of the people is no longer a tribune at all". He strengthened his argument by highlighting the precedent of the overthrow of Tarquin the Proud "when he acted wrongfully; and for the crime of one single man, the ancient government under which Rome was built was abolished forever." As historian Edward Gibbon observes, after Tarquin's overthrow, "the ambitious Roman who should dare to assume their title or imitate [Tarquin's] tyranny

9196-408: The established government, in which case the conflict becomes a civil war . Civil resistance movements have often aimed at, and brought about, the fall of a government or head of state, and in these cases could be considered a form of rebellion . In many of these cases, the opposition movement saw itself not only as nonviolent, but also as upholding their country's constitutional system against

9317-400: The first formal definitions of the relative deprivation, Walter Runciman noted that there are four preconditions of relative deprivation (of object X by person A): Runciman distinguished between egoistic and fraternalistic relative deprivation. The former is caused by unfavorable social position when compared to other, better off members of a specific group (of which A is the member) and

9438-455: The former rely on local conflicts to recruit and motivate supporters and obtain local control, resources, and information- even when their ideological agenda is opposed to localism". Individuals will thus aim to use the rebellion in order to gain some sort of local advantage, while the collective actors will aim to gain power. Violence is a mean as opposed to a goal, according to Kalyvas. The greater takeaway from this central/local analytical lens

9559-541: The good of the multitude: Indeed it is the tyrant rather that is guilty of sedition, since he encourages discord and sedition among his subjects, that he may lord over them more securely; for this is tyranny, since it is ordered to the private good of the ruler and to the injury of the multitude. Nicole Oresme , in his Livre de Politiques , categorically denied any right of resistance. John of Salisbury advocated direct revolutionary assassination of unethical tyrannical rulers in his Policraticus . Theological notions of

9680-415: The grace of God", but the pretense was "a mere cheat" so that they could "reign without control". He believed that "Earthly princes depose themselves while they rise up against God", so "it behooves us to spit upon their heads than to obey them". When ordinary citizens are confronted with tyranny, he wrote, ordinary citizens have to suffer it. But magistrates have the duty to "curb the tyranny of kings", as had

9801-453: The grounds that Nero's crimes meant he no longer deserved the love of the people: "I began to hate you when you became the murderer of your mother and your wife, a charioteer, an actor, and an incendiary." In 285 C.E., Maximian suppressed a rebellion of Gallic peasants violently resisting exploitation by their masters. These fought for their natural rights against the miserable conditions they were placed under. Gibbon says that they "asserted

9922-573: The hands of any other an Absolute Power over the Lives, Liberties, and Estates of the People; By this breach of Trust they forfeit the Power , the People had put into their hands, for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the People, who have a Right to resume their original Liberty. For Locke, these governments undid themselves by standing in the way of a citizen's right to property. He believed that "governments are dissolved" when "they endeavour to invade

10043-451: The historical limitation of kingly power by the multitude, a conflict he termed "liberty". This progress was sought "by obtaining a recognition of certain immunities, called political liberties or rights, which it was to be regarded as a breach of duty in the ruler to infringe, and which if he did infringe, specific resistance, or general rebellion, was held to be justifiable". On the question of tyrannicide , Mill came down firmly in favour of

10164-438: The individual cause. Rebel governance is the development of institutions, rules and norms by rebel groups with an intent to regulate civilians' social, economic and political life, usually in areas under the territorial control of the rebel groups. Rebel governance may include systems of taxation, regulations on social conduct, judicial systems, and public goods provision. One third of rebel leaders who sign peace agreements with

10285-478: The interests, outlooks, or ideologies of particular actors in revolutions". Karl Marx 's analysis of revolutions sees such expression of political violence not as anomic, episodic outbursts of discontents but rather the symptomatic expression of a particular set of objective but fundamentally contradicting class-based relations of power. The central tenet of Marxist philosophy, as expressed in Das Kapital ,

10406-514: The intersection between the political and the private, the collective and the individual. Kalyvas argues that we often try to group political conflicts according to two structural paradigms: Kalyvas' key insight is that the central vs periphery dynamic is fundamental in political conflicts. Any individual actor, Kalyvas posits, enters into a calculated alliance with the collective. Rebellions thus cannot be analyzed in molar categories, nor should we assume that individuals are automatically in line with

10527-425: The kingdom and of Tuscany, and cleanse those sores that for long have festered. It is seen how she entreats God to send someone who will deliver her from these wrongs and barbarous insolencies. It is seen also that she is ready and willing to follow a banner if only someone will raise it. Perhaps no other major philosopher wrote as much about the right of revolution as Enlightenment thinker John Locke . He developed

10648-457: The last chapter of The Prince , Niccolò Machiavelli exhorts the Medici family to take up violent insurrection "to liberate Italy from the barbarians". He explains why contemporary circumstances justify the Medici's right of revolution: Italy, left without life, waits for him who shall yet heal her wounds and put an end to the ravaging and plundering of Lombardy, to the swindling and taxing of

10769-443: The latter, by unfavorable comparison to other, better off groups. Egoistic relative deprivation can be seen in the example of a worker who believes he should have been promoted faster and may lead that person to take actions intended to improve his position within the group; those actions are, however, unlikely to affect many people. Fraternalism can be seen in the example of racial discrimination and are much more likely to result in

10890-471: The law of equality in the distribution of the political burdens, the subject may oppose complaints and objections ( gravamina ) to this injustice, but not active resistance." He reaffirms this repeatedly in The Metaphysics of Morals , stating that "there is no right of sedition, and still less of revolution", the reason being that "it is only by submission to the universal legislative will, that

11011-495: The law. It included a "security clause" that gave the right to a committee of barons to overrule the will of the King through force if needed. Magna Carta directly influenced the development of parliamentary democracy and many constitutional documents, such as the United States Constitution . The Golden Bull of 1222 was a golden bull , or edict , issued by King Andrew II of Hungary . The law established

11132-408: The legislative to ensure public wellbeing, but the despots who violated public wellbeing in the first place with their illegitimate laws: "For when men, by entering into society and civil government, have excluded force, and introduced laws for the preservation of property, peace, and unity among themselves, those who set up force again in opposition to the law, do rebellare – that is, bring back again

11253-418: The loss of his own life", he also stipulated against seemingly necessary violent insurrection: "force against his native land he should not use in order to bring about a change of constitution, when it is not possible for the best constitution to be introduced without driving men into exile or putting them to death". Relative deprivation thesis Relative deprivation is the lack of resources to sustain

11374-439: The means of production, and therefore subject to the possessors who may appropriate their products, is at the origin of the revolution. The inner imbalance within these modes of production is derived from the conflicting modes of organization, such as capitalism emerging within feudalism, or more contemporarily socialism arising within capitalism. The dynamics engineered by these class frictions help class consciousness root itself in

11495-441: The members inside that group. Economist Eli Berman and Political Scientist David D. Laitin's study of radical religious groups show that the appeal of club goods can help explain individual membership. Berman and Laitin discuss suicide operations, meaning acts that have the highest cost for an individual. They find that in such a framework, the real danger to an organization is not volunteering but preventing defection. Furthermore,

11616-498: The natural rights of men, but they asserted those rights with the most savage cruelty". One example of the emergence of a right of revolution can be traced back to Þorgnýr the Lawspeaker , who in 1018 had a dramatic confrontation with the King of Sweden. The lawspeaker claimed the King of Sweden was accountable to the people and would be overthrown by them if he continued with his unpopular war with Norway. Another example were

11737-580: The now illegitimate political order will have to use coercion to maintain its position. A simplified example would be the French Revolution when the Parisian Bourgeoisie did not recognize the core values and outlook of the King as synchronized with its own orientations. More than the King itself, what really sparked the violence was the uncompromising intransigence of the ruling class. Johnson emphasizes "the necessity of investigating

11858-470: The order of power, whereas the duty to rebel goes beyond and breaks it." Morton White writes of the American revolutionaries, "The notion that they had a duty to rebel is extremely important to stress, for it shows that they thought they were complying with the commands of natural law and of nature's God when they threw off absolute despotism." The U.S. Declaration of Independence states that "when

11979-477: The people could instigate a revolution against the government when it acted against the interests of citizens , to replace the government with one that served the interests of citizens. In some cases, Locke saw revolution as an obligation. For him, the right of revolution acted as a safeguard against tyranny . Locke defended the right of revolution in Two Treatises of Government in this way: Whenever

12100-535: The perspective of the individual makes objective measurement problematic. It is a term used in social sciences to describe feelings or measures of economic , political , or social deprivation that are relative rather than absolute. The term is inextricably linked to the similar terms poverty and social exclusion . The concept of relative deprivation has important consequences for both behaviour and attitudes , including feelings of stress , political attitudes , and participation in collective action . It

12221-485: The property of the subject", since it is the right of the people to "choose and authorise a legislative" and accompanying institutions that act "as guards and fences to the properties of all society". In other writings, he used the analogy of a robber to explain why tyrannical infringement on property makes for unjust law: "Should a robber break into my house, and, with a dagger at my throat, make me seal deeds to convey my estate to him, would this give him any title? Just such

12342-434: The purpose of causing the system to change; more exactly, it is the purposive implementation of a strategy of violence in order to effect a change in social structure". The aim of a revolution is to re-align a political order on new societal values introduced by an externality that the system itself has not been able to process. Rebellions automatically must face a certain amount of coercion because by becoming "de-synchronized",

12463-469: The reaction to an emotional grief, a moral outrage. Blattman and Ralston recognize the importance of immaterial selective incentives, such as anger, outrage, and injustice ("grievance") in the roots of rebellions. These variables, they argue, are far from being irrational, as they are sometimes presented. They identify three main types of grievance arguments: Stathis N. Kalyvas, a political science professor at Yale University, argues that political violence

12584-406: The rest of the actors simply by virtue of ideological, religious, ethnic, or class cleavage. The agency is located both within the collective and in the individual, in the universal and the local. Kalyvas writes: "Alliance entails a transaction between supralocal and local actors, whereby the former supply the later with external muscle, thus allowing them to win decisive local advantage, in exchange

12705-495: The revolution in these cases (which she believes can be extrapolated and generalized), each accordingly accompanied by specific structural factors which in turn influence the social results of the political action: Here is a summary of the causes and consequences of social revolutions in these three countries, according to Skocpol: The following theories are all based on Mancur Olson 's work in The Logic of Collective Action ,

12826-433: The right of rebellion. In Federalist No. 28 , Alexander Hamilton successfully made the case for a federal standing army, in opposition to Locke's principle that a republican government rules not by violence, but by law. Hamilton thought: That seditions and insurrections are, unhappily, maladies as inseparable from the body politic as tumours and eruptions from the natural body; that the idea of governing all at all times by

12947-566: The right of revolution were elaborated in the early modern period . The Jesuits , especially Robert Bellarmine and Juan de Mariana , were widely known and often feared for advocating resistance to tyranny and often tyrannicide—one of the implications of the natural law focus of the School of Salamanca . John Calvin believed something similar. In a commentary on the Book of Daniel , he observed that contemporary monarchs pretend to reign "by

13068-455: The rights of Hungary's noblemen, including the right to disobey the King when he acted contrary to law ( jus resistendi ). The Golden Bull is often compared to Magna Carta ; the Bull was the first constitutional document of the nation of Hungary, while Magna Carta was the first constitutional charter of the nation of England. Thomas Aquinas also writes about the right to resist tyranny in

13189-568: The semi-mythical Charters of Sobrarbe , allegedly issued in the Pyrenees in the 850s, which enshrined the Iberian legal principle that " laws come before kings ." Specifically, the 6th charter of Sobrarbe (first mentioned in 1117) specified that " If He [the King] should hereafter tyrannise the kingdom against the fueros or liberties, the kingdom should be free to choose another king, even if he were

13310-401: The simple force of law (which we have been told is the only admissible principle of republican government) has no place but in the reveries of those political doctors whose sagacity disdains the admonitions of experimental instruction. Simply put, "An insurrection, whatever may be its immediate cause, eventually endangers all government." However, Hamilton did point out that the wide geography of

13431-556: The state experience exile, imprisonment, or unnatural death while two thirds go into regular politics or pursue further rebellion. Right of revolution To justify their overthrowing of the earlier Shang dynasty , the kings of the Zhou dynasty (1122–256 BCE) of China promulgated the concept known as the Mandate of Heaven , that Heaven would bless the authority of a just ruler, but would be displeased and withdraw its mandate from

13552-412: The state of war, and are properly rebels". Also like Aquinas, Locke considered it just for a subject to disobey any ruler overextending his political power. In A Letter Concerning Toleration , he argued that "if the law, indeed, be concerning things that lie not within the verge of the magistrates authority, ... men are not in these cases obliged by that law, against their consciences." However, Locke

13673-505: The state, he rhetorically asked the common soldiery why they submitted to the centurions while military life entailed such low pay and so many years in service. Many soldiers shared his feelings. According to the historian Tacitus , "The throng applauded from various motives, some pointing to the marks of the lash, others to their grey locks, and most of them to their threadbare garments and naked limbs." The Praetorian Subrius Flavus justified his right of revolution against Emperor Nero on

13794-593: The term had been in use since the 18th century. In his 1971 Past & Present journal article, Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century , he discussed English bread riots, and other localized form of rebellion by English peasants throughout the 18th century. He said that these events have been routinely dismissed as "riotous", with the connotation of being disorganized, spontaneous, undirected, and undisciplined. He wrote that, on

13915-408: The virtue of "the act of a private citizen in striking down a criminal, who, by raising himself above the law, has placed himself beyond the reach of legal punishment or control, [since it] has been accounted by whole nations, and by some of the best and wisest of men, not a crime, but an act of exalted virtue". Scottish biographer James Boswell noted the literary critic Samuel Johnson 's attack on

14036-517: The widespread assumption that " the King can do no wrong ": If the abuse be enormous, Nature will rise up, and claiming her original rights, overturn a corrupt political system. Boswell emphasised this sentence "with peculiar pleasure, as a noble instance of that truly dignified spirit of freedom which ever glowed in his heart". Johnson seemed to believe that some form of a right to revolution inhered in natural law. He considered "that in no government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it. If

14157-660: The working population most frequently involved in actions in the market". The opposition between a traditional, paternalist, and the communitarian set of values clashing with the inverse liberal, capitalist, and market-derived ethics is central to explain rebellion. In his 1976 book The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia , James C. Scott looks at the impact of exogenous economic and political shocks on peasant communities in Southeast Asia. Scott finds that peasants are mostly in

14278-457: The writings of the Confucian philosopher Mencius (372–289 BCE) were often suppressed for declaring that the people have the right to overthrow a ruler that did not provide for their needs. The populist leader Tiberius Gracchus tried to justify depriving power from tribune Marcus Octavius by arguing that a tribune "stands deprived by his own act of honours and immunities, by the neglect of

14399-434: Was devoted to the infernal gods: each of his fellow-citizens was armed with the sword of justice; and the act of Brutus , however repugnant to gratitude or prudence, had been already sanctified by the judgement of his country." After the death of Augustus , the soldier Percennius fomented mutiny in the legions of Pannonia . Believing they had the right to violently rebel to get better treatment and greater appreciation from

14520-454: Was not only a proponent of fighting tyranny through civil disobedience of unjust laws. He also suggested using violent insurrection in situations where an illegitimate centre of power, such as a rogue executive, has used force to subdue the supreme power in the land, that is, the legislature: For having erected a legislative with an intent that [the people] should exercise the power of making laws, ... when they are hindered by any force from what

14641-547: Was used in everything from bypassing censorship to justifying open rebellions, as e.g. was famously exploited by Hernán Cortés to justify his otherwise illegal invasion and conquest of Mexico against the explicit orders of the King of Castile and his officers in Cuba . Another example is Magna Carta , an English charter issued in 1215, which required the King to renounce certain rights and accept that his will could be bound by

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