1.10 Political Stability

• Strong Institutions 💪 - Stability can be achieved by providing a strong foundation to the political institutions.
• Good governance ✅ - Stability can be achieved through the transparent, effective, and effective management of public affairs.
• Social cohesion 🫂 - The government provides conditions for citizens to feel part of a unity, with a common purpose.
• Economic Development 🤑 - Economic stability is crucial to reduce poverty and inequality and imrpove the quality of life.
• International Relations 🌎 - A country's relation with other countries can also highly influence stability, as conflicts and disagreements can lead to tensions and threaten stability.

Factors that Impact Political Stability

Factor #1

• In China, President Xi Jinping has used the courts and corruption charges to keep rival factions from power. This silences criticism and stifles change.
• Russia 🇷🇺 in 2012 riots were held as many claimed that Putin's garnering of 63.6% of the vote was suspicious (Putin has also always won on the first vote in Russia, each and every time he has run). OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe) observed the election from the start and found irregularities every step of the way, from Putin having more access to the media, stricter requirements being required to officially be listed as a candidate for President, and accusations that there was repeat voting by Putin supporters. All of this resulted in massive protests in March after the election. Protesters were jailed and because the Russian government controls media outlets and limits internet access to information, the riots ceased and no investigations of the election were conducted by the media.
• In Iran 🇮🇷 the media is controlled by the central government, as well as the internet and this makes it difficult to criticize or combat political corruption as there are no real outlets to question the government.

Factor #2

• In Iran, although women have the right to vote, as well as christians and Jews as established by the constitution, there are many obstacles for the nation to bring equal opportunities to minory groups. Women in Iran that have protested against poltical repression, lack of economic opportunity, adn the forced used of the hijab were responded with violence and detention by the government. This discrimination causes internal and external turmoil.

• In Nigeria, the terrorist group Boko Haram promotes a version of Islam which makes it "haram", or forbidden, for Muslims to take part in any political or social activity associated with Western society. In recent years this terrorist group has conducted bombings, kidnappings, and assassinations. President Buhari has recently coordinated military attacks against the terrorist group, but they have not been able to entirely eliminate this internal threat.
• In Mexico, the issue for years has been the drug cartels. A number of drug cartels control large territories of Mexico as well as being responsible for government corruption and assassinations. The Mexican government has used the military since 2008 to combat drug cartels in Mexico, but they have taken a low intensity approach focused more on attempting to dismantle the cartels and less on preventing drug trafficking. The Mexican government's inability to stem the violence of cartels can undermine political stability, legitimacy, an vital economic industries. As you can see by the examples in Nigeria 🇳🇬 and Mexico 🇲🇽, not all factors that impact a regime are from within a regime, but rather there can be external factors, like terrorist groups or drug cartels that can impact the regimes ability to maintain power.

Factor #3

• For example in Mexico 1968. A number of demonstrations in Mexico City began springing up prior to the Olympics that were to be held in Mexico City. The Mexican armed forces opened fire on October 2, 1968 on unarmed protesters killing hundreds. However, the Head of the Federal Directorate of Security claimed and so did the government controlled media, that the protesters had opened fire on the military first. Government documents released in the 2000s (remember in the last 2 decades freedom of information acts were passed)seem to contradict the governments claims.

Unit 1 Recap

1. Correlation
2. Causation
3. Empirical data
4. Normative data
5. Nation
6. Regime
7. Authoritarianism
8. Democracy
9. Federal system
10. Unitary system
11. Authority
12. Legitimacy
13. Political stability