Internal instability Notes

How Is Internal Instability A Form Of System Failure?

1. It often shows up as political violence, rebellions, civil wars, separatist movements, sharp economic decline,
2. Or a breakdown in everyday systems like taxation, law, and public services.

What Are The Implications of Failing Governance Systems?

1. Empires and states maintain control through governing systems such as bureaucracy, law, taxation, and military organization.
2. When these systems become inefficient or collapse, internal instability becomes much more likely.

Impact of corruption

1. Corruption (the abuse of power for personal gain) drains resources and undermines fairness.
2. Even if a state appears powerful, corruption can hollow it out from within:
   1. Money collected as tax may not reach the treasury
   2. Officials may enforce laws unevenly
   3. Political leaders may prioritize private wealth over public stability
3. The result is a double impact: the government becomes less capable (it cannot fund services or defense effectively) and less legitimate (people feel the state does not deserve obedience).

Challenges of size and communication

1. As empires expand, it becomes difficult to manage day-to-day realities from a single center.
2. Communication delays can force leaders to grant local officials more autonomy.
3. This can be practical, but it also increases the risk that powerful regional leaders will challenge central authority.

What Are Some Forms of Internal Conflict?

When governance weakens, conflict often follows. Internal instability is frequently linked with civil war, rebellion, and independence movements.

1. These categories can overlap.
2. A conflict may begin as a rebellion, escalate into civil war, and eventually become an independence struggle if groups seek separation.

Conflict escalation

Internal conflicts become harder to stop when they trigger feedback loops:

1. Violence disrupts trade and farming (economic decline)
2. Economic decline reduces tax revenue
3. Lower revenue weakens the military and public services
4. Weaker services increase grievances and insecurity
5. Grievances and insecurity fuel further violence

What Are Some Environmental Triggers of Instability?

Instability can also be driven by non-human factors.

Impact of natural disasters

1. Natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and major storms can weaken states.
2. A major earthquake in January 749 CE severely damaged or destroyed many cities in the Umayyad Caliphate's heartland, reducing population and trade and disrupting tax collection.
3. Scholars debate the extent to which the earthquake contributed to Umayyad decline, especially because the empire was already experiencing civil war.
4. The Umayyad Caliphate ended the following year.
5. The key takeaway for "internal instability" is not that a single disaster automatically collapses a state, but that disasters can:
   1. Reduce state revenue (tax disruption)
   2. Destroy infrastructure (roads, storage, ports)
   3. Increase public hardship (food, shelter, disease risk)
   4. Intensify political conflict if groups blame leadership or compete for resources

Climate stress and conflict

1. Climate shifts that reduce agricultural production can cause hunger and disease, and can also push people to move in search of resources.
2. This may lead to population pressure and conflict, including the movement of groups into imperial territory.
3. Even when the trigger is environmental, the resulting instability is often political and social.

What Is Forced Migration?

1. Internal instability frequently forces people to flee their homes.
2. Forced migration is often driven by environmental and political push factors, rather than the economic and social motivations that often drive voluntary migration.
3. To analyze instability-related migration, it helps to use precise terms.

Case study

Syria

• The Syrian conflict shows how internal instability can trigger a combined crisis of violence, poverty, and displacement.
• Prolonged conflict has caused large-scale internal displacement within Syria.
• Many civilians live in hard-to-reach or besieged areas, making the delivery of humanitarian aid extremely difficult.
• Large numbers of people lack access to life-saving assistance, including food, healthcare, and clean water.
• The conflict has also led to a major refugee outflow to neighbouring countries, especially Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey.
• A smaller proportion of refugees sought safety in Europe, contributing to political tensions over burden-sharing among European states.
• Refugee movements have placed economic, social, and political pressure on receiving countries.
• This case study illustrates a key Individuals and Societies insight: internal instability does not remain “internal.”
• Domestic conflict can reshape regional politics, create international humanitarian obligations, and generate social and political debates in other countries.

How Can Internal Instability Be Explained?

Strong explanations connect causes, processes, and consequences.

Structure for analysis

1. Pressure: external threats, economic strain, environmental shock, inequality
2. Failure: corruption, weak taxation, slow communication, ineffective law
3. Escalation: rebellions, civil war, power struggles, regional breakaway attempts
4. Outcome: regime change, fragmentation, humanitarian crisis, migration

Evidence of instability

1. Depending on your case study, evidence might include:
   1. Frequent leadership changes or contested succession
   2. Loss of control over provinces or cities
   3. Tax shortfalls or inability to pay soldiers
   4. Rising prices, unemployment, or collapsing trade
   5. Population displacement (IDPs and refugees)
   6. Restrictions on aid access or widespread poverty