Where do the current protests lead?
Dr. Ali Sahibi
Revolution, coup, foreign intervention, fall or repression and silence or continuation of the process of the last forty years?
Yesterday, Azizi asked that
The suicide of a peddler in Tunisia led to a revolution and the overthrow of the government, is there a possibility of a revolution in Iran with the killing of Mahsa Amini, or is the structure of the government such that no revolution will take place.
Since I always analyze everything – especially human behavior, both individual behavior and collective action, from the perspective of scientific theories in behavioral sciences and social sciences, I tried to answer the possibility of revolution or its non-occurrence from the perspective of one of the important theories of social psychology. get help
Dr. Neil Esmelser, regarding the revolution and why and how it happened, has presented one of the most reliable theories tested in different social conditions.
From Smelser’s point of view, revolution is the most severe form of social transformation. He uses the concept of added value to explain collective behavior.
He believes that whenever six social factors gather together in a society, the revolution will definitely happen. Like the gathering of gasoline and oxygen and a spark – when they gather together, fire will definitely occur.
The revolution is a collective action that is the result of the accumulation of these six elements.
1- The factor that creates structural conduciveness, which is the structural conditions of society, such as the existence of class differences, unequal citizenship rights, and the division of citizens into independents and non-independents.
2- Structural pressure
(The existence of poverty, high prices, injustice, inflation and widespread corruption of those involved)
3- Generalized belief
(People’s widespread belief about the wasteful use of public wealth in unnecessary projects).
– Like costly intervention in other countries
– Indifference of the rulers towards the fate of the people
– Entertaining people or convulsions about secondary topics
– The unwillingness of the government to deal with widespread corruption.
4- Accelerating factors:
– Like the killing of innocents
– Incidents such as the Metropol building or the Ukrainian plane
– Sudden and sharp jump in rates
5- Mobilization or gathering of forces for action and mass protests (gathering of like-minded people for a practical action)
Syndicates, scientific-student associations
– Parties, Internet groups, etc.
6- Inefficiency of the government
– The government’s response to protest measures or the government’s response to the fifth element.
Sometimes the governments see these protest actions as a useful feedback and fall short of their procedures. or being responsible, they admit their mistakes and those of their executives.
They try to compensate for the damages and take practical steps to correct their defective and repetitive methods and procedures. In that case, the protests will be silenced and the other four factors will be mild and stability will return.
In the current situation, if the political system and the government give an appropriate response to the protests and talk to the protesters by showing themselves responsible, accept their repeated mistakes, stop monopolization and self-righteousness, and the illusion of control and power, and live If the people respect, the revolution will not happen, but if the government and the political system remain unaccountable and stubborn and follow the mechanism of governance that avoids responsibility and sweep the garbage (problems) under the carpet, the occurrence of the revolution is inevitable based on the tested theory of Smelser.
This post is written by amirBRZa