Rebellion

For other analysis of political violence, see Political violence, Rebellion (disambiguation), Revolt (disambiguation), and Ethnic conflict.

Rebellion, uprising, or insurrection is a refusal of obedience or order. It refers to the open resistance against the orders of an established authority. The term comes from the Latin verb rebellõ, "I renew war" (from re- ("again") + bellõ ("I wage war/I revolt"). The rebel is the individual that partakes in rebellion or rebellious activities, particularly when armed. Thus, the term rebellion also refers to the ensemble of rebels in a state of revolt.

A rebellion originates from a sentiment of indignation and disapproval of a situation, and then manifests itself by the refusal to submit or to obey the authority responsible for this situation. Rebellion can be individual or collective, peaceful (civil disobedience, civil resistance and nonviolent resistance) or violent (Terrorism, sabotage and guerrilla warfare.)

In political terms, rebellion and revolt are often distinguished by their different aims. If rebellion generally seeks to evade an oppressive power, a revolt seeks to overthrow and destroy that power, as well as its accompanying laws. The goal of rebellion is resistance, while a revolt seeks a revolution.

Throughout history, many different groups that opposed their governments have been called rebels. In the United States, the term was used for the Continentals by the British in the Revolutionary War, and for the Confederacy by the Union in the American Civil War. Many armed rebellions have not been against authority in general, but rather have sought to establish a new government in their place. For example, the Boxer Rebellion sought to implement a stronger government in China in place of the weak and divided government of the time. The Jacobite Risings (called "Jacobite Rebellions" by the government) attempted to restore the deposed Stuart kings to the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland, rather than abolish the monarchy completely.

Causes of rebellion

Brief Theoretical Overview

There is a wide literature in the social sciences that explores the roots of rebellions. We can broadly divide it between two approaches:

• The "macro" perspective looks at rebellion typically from a regional, national, even global level. Its basic frame of analysis is the organization and the institution. The Marxist-influenced theories are a prime example of this perspective, holding that the greater social, economic, political, and cultural societal structures are the main drivers behind political movements.
• The "micro" perspective focuses on the individual choice to rebel, or to abstain. This school analyzes the needs, motives, and interests of singular political actors,. This perspective is heavily influenced by the problem of collective action to contextualize the choice under constraint of individuals. Thus, it mostly bases itself on the rationality of individuals, and admits that rebellion has a price. The micro perspective considers which factors determine an individual's involvement (or lack of thereof) in the act of rebellion, based on the local level available information.

Macro Determinants of Rebellion

The Marxist Approach

Karl Marx's analysis of revolutions sees such expression of political violence not as anomic, episodic outbursts of discontents but rather the symptomatic expression a of a particular set of objective but fundamentally contradicting class-based relations of power. Indeed, the central tenant of Marxist philosophy, as expressed in Capital, is the analysis of society's mode of production (technology and labour) concomitant with the ownership of productive institutions and the division of profit. Marx writes about "the hidden structure of society" that must be elucidated through an examination of "the direct relationship of the owners of the conditions of production to the direct producers". The mismatch, between one mode of production, between the social forces and the social ownership of the production is at the origin of the revolution. The inner imbalance within these modes of production is derived from the conflicting modes of organization, such as capitalism within feudalism, or more appropriately socialism within capitalism. The dynamics engineered by these class frictions help class consciousness root itself in the collective imaginary. For example, the development of the bourgeoise class went from oppressed merchant class to urban independence, eventually gaining enough power to represent the state as a whole. Social movements, thus, are determined by an exogenous set of circumstances. The proletariat must also, according to Marx, go through the same process of self-determination which can only be achieved by friction against the bourgeoisie. In Marx's theory, if revolutions are the "locomotives of history", it is because rebellion has for ultimate goal to overthrow the ruling class and its antiquated mode of production. Later, rebellion attempts to replace it with a new system of political economy, one that is better suited to the new ruling class, thus enabling societal progress. The cycle of rebellion, thus, replaces one mode of production by another through the constant class friction.

Critique of the Macro Approach

See also: Political violence

The macro perspective does not engage with the agency of the individual. It assumes that organizations and institutions are the main actors in rebellion situations, and pre-supposes that such groups are composed of loyal individuals. The scholars and theories outlined in the following section take another approach: how do individuals decide whether to rebel, engaging with the inherent costs and risk of such an initiative, or to stay put? The micro school of thought argues that such decisions are a uniquely individual mechanism that ought to be studied accordingly. This perspective entails a change in the perception of violence. Rather than large entities, scholars privilege the micropolitics of molecular actors. Stathis n. Kalyvas, a political science professor at Yale University, argues that political violence is heavily influenced on hyperlocal socio-economic factors, from the mundane traditional family rivalries to repressed grudges. Rebellion, or any sort of political violence, could present itself as the opportunity to settle those affairs for the average peasant. In fact, according to Kalyvas, there are two paradigms in the literature that need to be re-examined: first, the Carl Schmitt perspective, which holds that all political violence is inherently political. Indeed, Kalyvas writes:

Identities and actions cannot be reduced to decisions taken by the belligerent organizations, to the dis- courses produced at the center, and to the ideologies derived from the war's master cleavage. So positing unitary actors, infer- ring the dynamics of identity and action exclusively from the master cleavage, and framing civil wars in binary terms is mis- leading; instead, local cleavages and intracommunity dynamics must be incorporated into theories of civil war

Second paradigm to be critically assessed is the Hobbesian view that violence is naturally random and anarchist. Violence for the sake of violence does not exist. Rather, all agents are constrained by complex, hyperlocal motives and imperatives. Thus, in order to understand the Collective, the micro-approach analyzes the Individual.

Micro Determinants of Rebellion

The following theories are all based on Mancur Olson's work in The Logic of Collective Action, a 1965 book that conceptualizes the inherent problem with an activity that has concentrated costs and diffuse benefits. In this case, the benefits of rebellion are seen as a public good, meaning one that is non-excludable and non-rivalrous. Indeed, the political benefits are generally shared by all in society if a rebellion is successful, not just the individuals that have partaken in the rebellion itself. Olson thus challenges the assumption that simple interests in common are all that is necessary for collective action. In fact, he argues the "free rider" possibility, a term that means to reap the benefits without paying the price, will deter rational individuals from collective action. That is, unless there is a clear benefit, rebellion will not happen en masse. Thus, Olson shows that "selective incentives", only made accessible to individuals participating in the collective effort, can solve the free rider problem.

The Political Economy Argument

Samuel L. Popkin builds on Olson's argument in The Rational Peasant: The Political Economy of Rural Society in Vietnam. His theory is based on the figure of a hyper rational peasant that bases his decision to join (or not) a rebellion uniquely on a cost-benefit analysis. This formalist view of the collective action problem stresses the importance of individual economic rationality and self-interest: a peasant, according to Popkin, will disregard the ideological dimension of a social movement and focus instead on whether or not it will bring any practical benefit to him. According to Popkin, peasant society is based on a precarious structure of economic instability. Social norms, he writes, are "malleable, renegotiated, and shifting in accord with considerations of power and strategic interaction among individuals" (p. 22). Indeed, the constant insecurity and inherent risk to the peasant condition, due to the peculiar nature of the patron-client relationship that binds the peasant to his landowner, forces the peasant to look inwards when he has a choice to make. Popkin argues that peasants rely on their "private, family investment for their long run security and that they will be interested in short term gain vis-à-vis the village. They will attempt to improve their long-run security by moving to a position with higher income and less variance" (p. 23). Popkin stresses this "investor logic" that one may not expect in agrarian societies, usually seen as pre-capitalistc communities where traditional social and power structures prevent the accumulation of capital. Yet, the selfish determinants of collective action are, according to Popkin, a direct product of the inherent instability of peasant life. The goal of a labourer, for example, will be to move to a tenant position, then smallholder, then landlord; where there is less variance and more income. Voluntarism is thus non-existent in such communities.

Popkin singles out four variables that impact individual participation:

1. Contribution to the expenditure of resources: collective action has a cost in terms of contribution, and especially if it fails (an important consideration with regards to rebellion)
2. Rewards : the direct (more income) and indirect (less oppressive central state) rewards for collective action
3. Marginal impact of the peasant's contribution to the success of collective action
4. Leadership "viability and trust" : to what extent the resources pooled will be effectively used.

Here, Olson's collective action paradigm becomes apparent again: without any moral commitment to the community, since in Popkin's view the peasant is only rational, this combination of variables is conducive to producing many free riders, meaning individuals that have a greater interest not to pool their resources but to benefit from the positive results of collective action. Indeed, economically speaking, the individual's profit will be much less if he commits resources. Popkin argues that selective incentives are necessary to overcome this problem.

The Moral Economy Argument

Spearheaded by political scientist and anthropologist James C. Scott, the moral economy school considers that moral variables such as the importance of social norms, moral values, interpretation of justice, and conception of duty to the community; are the prime influencers of the decision to rebel. Thompson goes on to write: "[the riots were] legitimised by the assumptions of an older moral economy, which taught the immorality of any unfair method of forcing up the price of provisions by profiteering upon the necessities of the people". Later, reflecting on this work, Thompson would also write: "My object of analysis was the mentalité, or, as I would prefer, the political culture, the expectations, traditions, and indeed, superstitions of the working population most frequently involved in actions in the market". The opposition between a traditional, paternalist, and communautarian set of values clashing with the inverse liberal, capitalist, and market-derived ethics is central to explain rebellion.

Classification of Rebellion

"Rebellion for a hope" by Mexican artist Mauricio García Vega

See also: Wikipedia's Dynamic List of Revolutions and Rebellions

An armed but limited rebellion is an insurrection, and if the established government does not recognize the rebels as belligerents then they are insurgents and the revolt is an insurgency. In a larger conflict the rebels may be recognized as belligerents without their government being recognized by the established government, in which case the conflict becomes a civil war.

Civil resistance movements have often aimed at, and brought about, the fall of a government or head of state, and in these cases could be considered a form of rebellion. In many of these cases the opposition movement saw itself not only as nonviolent, but also as upholding their country's constitutional system against a government that was unlawful, for example if it had refused to acknowledge its defeat in an election. Thus the term "rebel" does not always capture the element in some of these movements of acting as a defender of legality and constitutionalism.

There are a number of terms that are associated with rebel and rebellion. They range from those with positive connotations to those with pejorative connotations. Examples include:

• Civil resistance, civil disobedience, and nonviolent resistance which do not include violence or paramilitary force .{{Citation needed|reason=Who defined this term in this way=April 2016}
• Mutiny, which is carried out by military or security forces against their commanders {{Citation needed|reason=Who defined this term in this way=April 2016}
• Armed resistance movement, which is carried out by freedom fighters, often against an occupying foreign power {{Citation needed|reason=Who defined this term in this way=April 2016}
• Revolt, a term that is sometimes used for a more localized rebellions rather than a general uprising {{Citation needed|reason=Who defined this term in this way=April 2016}
• Revolution, which is carried out by radicals, usually meant to overthrow the current government {{Citation needed|reason=Who defined this term in this way=April 2016}
• Subversion, which are non-overt attempts at sabotaging a government, carried out by spies or other subversives {{Citation needed|reason=Who defined this term in this way=April 2016}
• Terrorism, which is carried out by different kinds of political, economic or religious militant individuals or groups {{Citation needed|reason=Who defined this term in this way=April 2016}

See also

• List of revolutions and rebellions