Chapter 5 - Psychological Processes Underlying Revolutionary Regime Change

Summary

The process of mutual radicalization is used as a framework to examine relations between the ruling regime and the revolutionary opposition. Mutual radicalization involves a collective process, in which rational individuals are overwhelmed by collective movements and behaviors, which are often irrational. During phase one, group mobilization takes place and the revolutionary opposition comes to perceive the ruling regime as distinct and different from the rest of society, illegitimate and immoral, unstable, and also an obstacle to future progress. During phase two, the ruling regime and the revolutionary opposition develop extreme ingroup cohesion in opposition to one another. Intergroup aggression and hostility increases. Individuals can step outside the group and recognize that the collective is behaving incorrectly, but social forces pressure rational individuals to conform to irrational collective behavior. In phase three, the identities of the ruling regime and the revolutionary opposition are reconstructed in opposition to one another. Each side defines themselves in opposition to the other group, and extremists control relationships between the two sides.