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Tyler Daniels
Prof. C. J. Saia, J.D.
Political Science
8/3/2015
Final Exam Part 2
Question 1:
Revolutions are an important part of our worlds history. Nearly all countries have
experienced some type of revolution since its foundation. Revolutions are not a thing of the past,
they still happen today in several different forms.
The four major strategies of revolutions I will be analyzing are terrorism, revolution from
above, guerrilla war, and democratic revolution. While the word revolution itself can make you
think of violent up rises, that is not always the case. A democratic revolution is a legal, nonviolent for of revolution. It is usually fought by using the democratic electoral processes to select
a new leader. This can be done in a number of ways, voting is a strong tool when selecting a new
leader. If a revolution has be created in spite of a need for change in leadership, citizens can band
together and all vote for a candidate. A democratic revolution can be used for immoral reasons as
well. If you look back to the rise of Hitler, you will find that he manipulated the citizens of
Germany using propaganda to persuade them into believing his proposition. That too was a form
of a democratic revolution, people voted for him legally without any means of violence as their

leader. He obviously did horrendous things while he was a leader, but he was able to rise to
power using a democratic revolution.
Terrorism is something we are all familiar with in todays world. For me personally,
growing up in a post 9/11 generation I have always been aware of terrorism and we seem to see
more of it in the past decade. A terrorism revolution is selective acts of violence committed by
organized groups or political activists who are in a struggle against the existing state. Unlike a
democratic revolution, terrorism involves violence to disrupt public life to make waves in the
state to get their message across. Terrorisms goal is to get the states attention and use the
violence as a type of leverage. Most commonly terrorist revolutions propose they will stop the
violence when they get what they want from the state. Terrorism is a gruesome way to achieve
political change.
The next strategy is a revolution from above. These revolutions usually occur in the
urban areas of the state, and more often in the capital city. Revolutions from above are products
of an old regime collapsing due do the death of a leader or the remaining leaders fled. A new
system is then forced into a country in hope to overrun it and control it. Sometimes a part of the
political elites and military are sympathetic of revolutions from above and the goals of the
revolution if it can benefit the state.
The final strategy of a revolution is guerrilla warfare. Guerrilla war is a long protracted
campaign of political violence against the state. It occurs most often in rural areas however it
does also occur in urban areas as well. Unlike terrorism, guerrilla war drags out their acts of
violence over time. Terrorism usually consists of a single big event like a bombing or 9/11 for

example. Where guerilla warfare carries out small attacks for a long period of time in a hit and
run style in hope to harass the regimes authorities and military.
I found that there are 5 major conditions that revolutions occur under.
1-Politically: When freedom disappears from the country, and the citizens do not trust their own
government.
2-Economically: Often times heavy taxes, inflation, and a high poverty rate in the society makes
citizens consider revolution.
3-Religion: When the citizens religion is ban, limited, or oppressed there is often times grounds
for revolution. Religion in some countries is very sacred and if taken away can lead to violent
acts.
4-Culture: When people believe that they can change the country to the best, when people
decide to finish abuse in their country.
5-Socially: When there is no equality in the society such as what happened in France 1789 when
they had three Estates in the society without equality between each other.
Revolutions occur for a number of reasons. Maslow's Hierarchy of needs is very
important in terms of revolutions. Revolutions can occur if one or more of these basic needs is
not met. The hierarchy of need in chronological order are physiological (food, water, sleep, etc.),
safety (health, family, security), love and belongingness, esteem (self-esteem, respect,
confidence achievement), and self-actualization (morality and creativity). These basic human
needs are often mandated or dictated by governments and will result in a public backlash.

Question 3:
Developed countries often face threats to their prosperity and stability of their state.
Stability and prosperity are the foundation for security in all states. No state can achieve all of
the 11 major goals of prosperity, stability, and security, so they must make trade-offs went
trying to complete the major goals. An example of a trade-off is investing money into a welfare
program that could otherwise be used in the economic system to achieve economic growth.
Trade-offs are necessary in any state, but there are some threats to the prosperity and stability of
states. But before looking into the major threats of prosperity and stability, its important to
know what they are.
The major components of stability are, influence, prestige, and dominance, and the major
components of prosperity are economic growth, economic development, and welfare
distribution. Like I mentioned above, a tradeoff can be made between two components of any
major goals of a state. Only in a perfect world can you have all of the components of prosperity.
But things like economic growth, development, and welfare distribution cant always go hand in
hand. Sometimes sacrifices need to be made in order to maintain the state.
There are three major threats to both stability and prosperity in developed countries. The
major threats to prosperity are, the competitive globalized economic system, the European
Union, and the distribution of prosperity. And the three major threats to stability are Value
conflicts and disputes, multiculturalism and immigration, and political polarization.
The first threat to prosperity is competitive globalized systems, any developed countries
face the threat of other countries increasing their production capabilities because of the

increasing rate of globalization. With other countries increasing the rate of production and
working our outsourced jobs, developed countries are faced with unemployment and declining
economic vitality.
The next threat to prosperity is the European Union (EU). The EU presents complexities
in developed countries with sorting out their economic relations with other countries as the EU
mandates those decisions. There are internal problems in the EU as well, some of the non-global
north countries tend drain the wealthier members. This is similar to the financial crisis in Greece
who recently went bankrupt after years of bailouts.
The final issue is the actual distribution of prosperity. The government of any country has
goods and services that they would like to distribute to its citizens. However, as I mentioned
before in the issue of competitive economic systems, welfare distribution and low economic
growth will not work. There needs to be a stable or increasing economy in order to distribute
goods and services to the citizens.
Next, the challenges of stability. The first challenge to stability is value conflicts and
disputes. Open group politics is common in developed countries like here in America with
feminism, environmentalism, etc. (the isms). With open politics citizens start congregating and
develop a set of ideals they would like in their country. This can lead to a loss of trust in their
countries leaders, political parties, and institutions. An example of this would be the recent
legalization of gay marriage in the United States. While some agreed on it, it left a large number
of religious member quite upset of the ruling. In some religions gay marriage is considered an
abomination.

The next challenge to stability is multi culturalism and immigration. A huge problem in
developed countries is cultural diversity. In a culturally diverse country there are several things
that must be accommodated for like religion and clashes between ethnic groups and native born
minorities. An example of this would be Muslims or people of Arabic decent in the United
States. In the post 9/11 world we live in today there is a stereotype put on Muslims that they are
all radical Muslims or somehow tied to terrorism. Also when Mexicans immigrate legally and
illegally into the US. There is a clash against both, minorities in the US complain of the
Mexicans taking jobs and benefits while stereotyped and generalized as illegal aliens, and
Muslims are seen as a danger to society. However immigration can be challenging to the US.
The US is now overpopulated, and the rise of illegal immigration is not helping it. The US treats
nearly 12 million illegal immigrants.
The final challenge to stability is political polarization. Political polarization is when a
citizens stance on a particular issue, law, or person is more likely to be persuaded by their
political party (republican or democrat). Someone who labels themselves as a Republican, based
on a set of ideals that they like, are likely to vote for a Republican candidate regardless if they
offer a few ideas that they do not like. But because they label themselves as a republican they
will vote for that candidate anyways for the sake of wanting to remain a republican. This makes
it difficult for opposing parties to make policies that both sides will agree on. It is almost
impossible to satisfy opposing viewpoints with political polarization

For prosperity the major issue I see is the competitive globalized economic system. America for
example is known for outsourcing factory jobs overseas to cut back on labor costs. But the jobs
lost in the States will increase the poverty and welfare rate, and in turn drive up the demand for
government spending. But high poverty and welfare will slow the economic growth and can lead
to a nation in debt. As for stability, the issue seems to be the acceptance of culture, religion, and
political parties. The mentality of them vs. us never seems to play out well. If there were just one
political party that was comprised of several political cultures to collectively agree on something
and unify a country, it could greatly benefit the countries of the global north. Illegal immigration
is an issue that I believe can be handled by the American government. Funds should not be given
out to people who entered here illegally, especially with the current state of the American
economy.
With developing third world countries, some of them have a growing economy and rising
rate of production. Americas mentality has always been that they are number 1 in the world.
Wanting to be the best isnt an issue, however over the years its been proven we arent the best
at everything and some countries dominate us in some areas. If a third world country starts to
grow and surpass other global north countries, their military and economy will grow as well
making them a threat to the global north. World peace and even distribution of production is only
a concept in a perfect world. There will always be trade-offs between prosperity and stability in
all countries.

Works Cited
Cherry, Kendra. "What Is Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs?" About Education. 2015. Web. 7 Aug.
2015.
Danziger, James N., and Charles Anthony Smith. Understanding the Political World. 12th ed.
Charlyce Jones Owen, 2015. Print.