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210
CONCLUSION
22. Our analysis (summarized in Fig. 1) suggests that revolutionaries in the contemporary Third World
360 are most likely to succeed when civil society as a whole can be politi-cally mobilized to oppose an
autonomous and narrowly based direct colonial regime or a Sultanistic neo-patrimonial regime In her
recent comparative study of the Iranian and Nicaraguan revolutions, Farhi suggests that the «most
365 important characteristic of the Iranian and Nicaraguan pre-revolutionary states was their almost total
autonomy from internal classes» This has been characteristic, in fact, of virtually all Third World states that
have been toppled by revolutions. In contrast, when radicals confront a state with significant social
connections — even if the state is authoritarian and its ties are restricted to the middle and upper classes —
370 then revolutionary coalition building becomes very difficult. Furthermore, if a state traditionally allied with
economic elites can politically incorporate at least some popular sectors or organizations, then the pros-
pects for revolutionary success become still more remote.
375
23. It follows from what we have argued that the Third World has been the principal site of social
revolutions in this century, not simply because of the poverty or socioeconomic structures one finds there.
The Third World is also where one finds most of the world's exclusionary and repressive political
380 systems, based in administrative organizations and armies that do not fully penetrate civil society or control
the territories they claim to rule.
24. Our analysis of the conditions conducive to the formation of revolutionary coalitions and actual
385 transfers of power in the Third World has shifted away from the emphases on the peasantry and the effects
of commercial capitalism that characterized earlier comparative approaches. Instead, we have suggested
that the structures of states, as well as the political relations between states and various sectors of society,
390 provide the keys to explaining revolutions in the Third World. Revolutionary uoalitions have formed and
expanded in countries in which one finds not only poverty, imperialism, professional revolutionaries, and
peasants of a certain sort, but also political exclusion and severe and indiscriminate (while not
395 overwhelming) repression.
25. Revolutionary movements will undoubtedly continue to emerge in the Third World, where many
states are not only exclusionary, but also fiscally, administratively, and militarily weak. And if the past is
400 any guide, such movements will be especially likely to triumph where the political regimes they oppose
remain narrow as well as repressive.
From: Politics and Society, vol. 17, No. 4, Dec. 1989.
PART V
EXERCISES ON TEXTS IN PARTS III AND IV
ANNUAL REPORT ON SPACESHIP EARTH
Exercise:
1 .This text was written as if it were a ___________
2.You/ we/I/ refer to: ___________________
3.h writer uses an analogy between planet earth and a spaceship. List some of the features characteristic of
both the earth and a spaceship.
4.What aspects of the earth's life support system are mentioned in the text?
5.A. Compare the life situations of those who represent 5% and those who represent 75% of the world's
population. Consider the following:
a. quality of the living quarters each group inhabits:____
b. percentage of available resources that each group consumes:
c. percentage of each group suffering from lack of: (a) food _____ (b) water ____.
d. relative impact of each member of each group on the lifesupport system:
B. In what sense are the tourist and first-class sections «over-populated» (1.28)?
6.In the author's report to the passengers on earth, what overriding concerns does he have?
7.Is the author optimistic or pessimistic about the outcome of the interlocking crisis