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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cosmicforce who wrote (114534)	7/3/2009 2:23:34 PM
From: cosmicforce	Respond to of 541933

Here's the link to that article about social groups and empathy... sciencedaily.com

To: cosmicforce who wrote (114534)	7/3/2009 2:31:23 PM
From: Dale Baker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541933

If a country is having a revolution, the die is cast. If the country is unstable, but governed, you can have influence. I believe all human transactions reduce to games. One of the downfalls of this approach is everyone gets to have a "theory" but only those in power get to play. I studied a lot of comparative politics in college and grad school with a lot of emphasis on what causes social upheavals and revolutions and the like. It's such a huge topic that I couldn't being to sum it up in one or two theories or propositions. Here I would only remark that power is a dynamic situation; those who are out often have a huge impact on who is in and whether they stay, those who are in can be out tomorrow, influence on policy can come from within or without depending on which variable we are talking about and..... Well, you see why it's not a simple picture. One of the few "eternal" themes I saw through the years and the assignments in several countries was how democracy and the rule of law are almost always great assets for a country, regardless of its level of development. Two that I know well, Botswana and Mauritius, had almost no modern development at independence, and both have prospered as the oldest democracies in the region. Their neighbors pretty much can't say the same.