IB History Political Factors Notes

Political Factors: How Political Systems Shaped Popular Movements

Overview

1. The way a country is organised politically has a deep impact on whether popular movements emerge and how they develop.
2. In the 18th century, many popular movements directly challenged systems where an absolute monarchy or colonial power blocked any form of political participation.
3. The Enlightenment created new ideas about governance.
4. Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract (1762) argued that the government exists to serve the general will of the people, not the other way around.
5. More democratic systems are not automatically more accommodating.
6. Popular movements may champion the rights of minorities excluded from decision-making in both democratic and autocratic societies.

1. Australia's 2023 referendum on recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples failed, with 60% voting No.
2. And even where political participation exists, ruling elites can argue that protesters should simply vote or run for office.
3. McAdam and Tarrow identify six political opportunities and threats that shape popular movements.
   1. These include the degree of power centralisation, the stability of political relationships, the government's openness to new actors, its receptiveness to collective claims, and any changes to these factors.
4. When regimes lack cohesion, opportunities open up.
5. When governments are closed to demands, movements may turn to more radical methods.
6. Political consciousness is a key factor, but hard to develop when oppression is deeply ingrained.
   1. Women in Chile, for example, have worked to build political awareness since the end of the Pinochet dictatorship (1973 to 1990).
7. Both governments and movements rely on influential allies: South Africa's white minority government had US and UK support, while the ANC gained backing from Tanzania, Zambia and Soviet-aligned Cuba.

Case studies

1. This section examines political factors across four case studies:
   1. The British suffragette movement explores how women challenged a gradually expanding but still exclusionary democracy in the world's largest empire.
   2. The Indian national movement examines how colonial rule under the British Raj suppressed political consciousness and provoked resistance.
   3. The Indigenous rights movement in Canada traces how European colonisation, the Indian Act and forced assimilation restricted Indigenous political activity.
   4. The Egyptian Revolution of 2011 analyses how decades of authoritarian military rule created the conditions for mass uprising.
2. An inescapable common factor across all four cases is Great Britain.
   1. Britain's dominance in world politics in the 19th century meant that political developments in each case were shaped by how Britain responded to challenges to its rule.
   2. It reshaped Canada's demographics, deepened divisions in India, propped up an unpopular monarchy in Egypt and long resisted women's calls for the vote at home.