Political Order in Changing Societies by Samuel P. Huntington New Haven and London, Yale University Press Copyright © 1968 by Yale University. Seventh printing, 1973. Designed by John O. C. McCrillis, set in Baskerville type, and printed in the United States of America by The Colonial Press Inc., Clinton, Mass. For Nancy, All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form Timothy, and Nicholas (except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Library of Congress catalog card number: 68-27756 ISBN: 0-300-00584-9 (cloth), 0-300-01171-'7 (paper) Published in Great Britain, Europe, and Africa by Yale University Press, Ltd., London. Distributed in Latin America by Kaiman anti Polon, Inc., New York City; in Australasia and Southeast Asia by John Wiley & Sons Australasia Pty. Ltd., Sidney; in India by UBS Publishers' Distributors Pvt., Ltd., Delhi; in Japan by John Weatherhill, Inc., Tokyo. I·-~· I I. Political Order and Political Decay THE POLITICAL GAP The most important political distinction among countries con­ i cerns not their form of government but their degree of govern­ ment. The differences between democracy and dictatorship are less i than the differences between those countries whose politics em­ , bodies consensus, community, legitimacy, organization, effective­ ness, stability, and those countries whose politics is deficient in these qualities. Communist totalitarian states and Western liberal .states both belong generally in the category of effective rather than debile political systems. The United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union have different forms of government, but in all three systems the government governs. Each country is a political com­ munity with an overwhelming consensus among the people on the legitimacy of the political system. In each country the citizens and their leaders share a vision of the public interest of the society and of the traditions and principles upon which the political com­ munity is based. All three countries have strong, adaptable, coher­ ent political institutions: effective bureaucracies, well-organized political parties, a high degree of popular participation in public affairs, working systems of civilian control over the military, ex­ tensive activity by the government in the economy, and reasonably effective procedures for regulating succession and controlling po­ litical conflict. These governments command the loyalties of their citizens and thus have the capacity to tax resources, to conscript manpower, and to innovate and to execute policy. If the Polit­ buro, the Cabinet, or the President makes a decision, the probabil­ ity is high that it will be implemented through the government machinery. In all these characteristics the political systems of the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union differ significantly from the governments which exist in many, if not most, of the modernizing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. These rr: r . 2 POLITICAL ORDER IN CHANGING SOCffiTIES i POLITICAL· ORDER AND POLITICAL DECAY 3 countries lack many things. They suffer real shortages of food, lit­ twentieth century the principal locus of political underdevelop­ eracy, education, wealth, income, health, and productivity, but ment, like that of economic underdevelopment, tends to be the most of them have been recognized and efforts made to do some­ modernizing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America... thing about them. Beyond and behind these shortages, however, With a few notable exceptions, the political evolution of these there is a greater shortage: a shortage of political community and countries after World War II was characterized by increasing of effective, authoritative, legitimate government. "I do know," , ethnic lind class conflict, recurring rioting and mob violence, fre­ Walter Lippmann has observed, "that there is no greater necessity i, quent military coups d'etat, the dominance of unstable person­ I< for men who live in communities than that they be governed, self­ i; alistic leaders who often pursued disastrous economic and social I governed if possible, well-governed if they are fortunate, but in 1" policies, widespread and blatant corruption among cabinet minis­ tl any event, governed." 1 Mr. Lippmann wrote these words in a ; ters and civil servants, arbitrary infringement of the rights and lib­ moment of despair about the United States. But they apply in far f erties of citizens, declining standards of bureaucratic efficiency and greater measure to the modernizing countries of Asia, Africa, and performance, the pervasive alienation of urban political groups, Latin America, where the political community is fragmented the loss of authority by legislatures and courts, and the fragmenta­ against itself and where political institutions have little power, less tion and at times complete disintegration of broadly based politi­ majesty, and no resiliency-where, in many cases, governments cal parties. In the two decades after World War II, successful coups simply do not govern. d'etat occurred in 17 of 20 Latin American countries (only In the mid-1950S, Gunnar Myrdal called the world's attention Mexico, Chile, and Uruguay maintaining constitutional proc­ to the apparent fact that the rich nations of the world were getting esses), in a half-dozen North African and Middle Eastern states richer, absolutely and relatively, at a faster rate than the poorer (Algeria, Egypt, Syria, the Sudan, Iraq, Turkey), in a like num­ nations. "On the whole," he argued, "in recent decades the eco­ ber of west African and central African countries (Ghana, Nige­ nomic inequalities between developed and underdeveloped coun­ ria, Dahomey, Upper Volta, Central African Republic, Congo), tries have been increasing." In 1966 the president of the World and in a variety of Asian societies (Pakistan, Thailand, Laos, Bank similarly pointed out that at current rates of growth the gap South Vietnam, Burma, Indonesia, South Korea) . Revolutionary in per capita national income between the United States and forty violence, insurrection, and guerrilla warfare wracked Cuba, Bo­ underdeveloped countries would increase fifty per cent by the year livia, Peru, Venezuela, Colombia, Guatemala, and the Dominican 2000.2 Clearly, a central issue, perhaps the central issue, in inter­ Republic in Latin America, Algeria and Yemen in the Middle national and developmental economics is the apparently remorse­ East, and Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, China, the Philippines, less tendency for this economic gap to broaden. A similar and Malaya, and Laos in Asia. Racial, tribal, or communal violence or equally urgent problem exists in politics. In politics as in econom­ tension disrupted Guyana, Morocco, Iraq, Nigeria, Uganda, the ics the gap between developed political systems and underdevel­ Congo, Burundi, the Sudan, Ruanda, Cyprus, India, Ceylon, oped political systems, between civic polities and corrupt polities, Burma, Laos, and South Vietnam. In Latin America, old-style, has broadened. This political gap resembles and is related to the oligarchic dictatorships in countries like Haiti, Paraguay, and economic gap, but it is not identical with it. Countries with un­ Nicaragua maintained a fragile police-based rule. In the eastern derdeveloped economies may have highly developed political sys­ hemisphere, traditional regimes in Iran, Libya, Arabia, Ethiopia, tems, and countries which have achieved high levels of economic and Thailand struggled to reform themselves even as they teetered welfare may still have disorganized and chaotic politics. Yet in the on the brink of revolutionary overthrow. During the 1950S and 1960s the numerical incidence of political 1. WaIter Lippmann, New York Herald Tribune, Dec. 10, 1963, p. 24. violence and disorder increased dramatically in most countries of 2. Gunnar Myrdal, Rich Lands and Poor (New York and Evanston, Harper and Row, 1957), p. 6; George D. Woods, "The Development Decade in the Balance," the world. The year 1958, according to one calculation, witnessed Foreign Affairs,14 (Jan. 1966) , 207. some 28 prolonged guerrilla insurgencies, four military uprisings, 4 POLITICAL ORDER IN CHANGING SOCIETIES POLITICAL ORDER AND POLITICAL DECAY 5 and two conventional wars. Seven years later, in 1965, 42 pro­ political instability in Asia, Africa, and Latin America derives pre­ longed insurgencies were underway; ten military revolts occurred; cisely from the failure to meet this condition: equality of political and five conventional conflicts were being fought. Political insta­ l, participation is growing much more rapidly than "the art of asso­ bility also increased significantly during the 1950S and 1960s. Vio­ ciating together." Social and economic change-urbanization, in­ lence and other destabilizing events were five times more frequent ::i creases in literacy and education,industrialization, mass media ex­ " between 1955 and 1962 than they were between 1948 and 1954· ·1.:."······. pansion-extend political consciousness, multiply political de­ Sixty-four of 84 countries were less stable in the latter period than mands, broaden political participation. These changes undermine in the earlier one.s Throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America traditional sources of political authority and traditional political rt·, there was a decline in political order, an undermining of the \. institutions; they enormously complicate the problems of creating authority, effectiveness, and legitimacy of government.