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Revolutions, which are the result of the crisis in its most extreme form, involve the overthrow not merely of the government but of the political order itself. Typically, a revolution is preceded by a series of strains within the system: challenges to the authority of the government mount, and its legitimacy is increasingly questioned; the exercise of power becomes coercive, and the challenge to rule assumes ever more violent forms; eventually, the struggle comes to a dramatic climax in the destruction of the old order. The coup d’etat is another form of violent response to the crisis of rule, but it is distinguished from the revolution in that it involves the overthrow only of the government: the political order is not immediately affected, for the coup is managed by an individual or group within the government or within the ruling class. In some cases, however, the coup d’etat is merely a preliminary stage to revolution. Sometimes this happens when the new ruler leads a governmentally imposed revolution: this was the role played by Napoleon I, Napoleon III, Mussolini, and Hitler. At other times, coups are actually prompted by fear of revolution but succeed only in further weakening the claims to legitimacy of the existing order. In addition to revolutions and coups d’etat, the crisis of rule may prompt other forms of violent political reaction, including civil war and secession, resistance movements and rebellions, guerrilla warfare and terrorism, class warfare, and peasant revolts.
The causes of internal conflict leading to the forcible overthrow of governments are extremely varied. They include tensions created by rapid social and economic development; the rise of new social classes and the refusal of established elites to share their power; problems of the distribution of wealth and the grievances of different economic groups and interests; the rise of corrosive social and political philosophies and the estrangement of intellectuals; conflict of opinions over the ends of government; factional struggles among power holders or within the ruling class; the rise of a charismatic leader; oppressive rule that alienates powerful groups; weak rule that tolerates antigovernmental or revolutionary movements; and many different combinations of these and other social, economic, and political factors. All political systems experience some of these conditions with some frequency. Yet there are a number of modern countries that have avoided internal wars and the forcible overthrow of their governments for considerable periods.
It appears that rulers in the contemporary world are generally safe from violent challenges if they possess an effective monopoly of military, economic, and political power, linked with certain important social controls; or, alternatively, if they are obliged to exercise limited powers for specified periods and are required to yield office to rivals who meet certain qualifications. The first is the definition of a modern totalitarian regime, fully and efficiently organized; the second describes the governments of several contemporary constitutional democracies. In the first case, the government secures itself by force combined with social and psychological means of preventing the formation of opposition. In the second case, alternatives to internal war are provided by the opportunities for oppositions to influence the exercise of power and ultimately to replace the government. The great achievement of constitutional democracy has been to give reasonable security to governments from forcible overthrow by compelling them to accept limitations on their power, by requiring them to forgo the use of force against rivals who agree to accept the same limitations, and by establishing well-known legal procedures through which these rivals may themselves constitute the government.
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