Political movement Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Political movement - Essay Example ( Schock, 2005), has made a study of the phenomenon of non-violent resistance in authoritarian contexts by taking the political movements in six countries as comparative case studies. The countries he put under this socio-analytical scanner are South Africa, Burma, Philippines, Nepal, Thailand and China. He further makes a distinction between the movements as those won a democratic victory and those who failed under repression. South Africa, Nepal, Philippines and Thailand are the winning examples of democracy, while Burma and China still remain under the autocratic rule. The study is limited in time, its purview being a rather historically short period which extents from 1980 to 2005. In his book, Kurt Schock’s attempt is focussed on evolving a set of cause-effect equations underlying these successes and failures. The social movements of Burma and South Africa are particularly significant to our review of this work, as the former failed just after reaching the brink of success, while the latter persevered and went up to the victory post in full glory and flamboyance. In view of the great momentum that both political movements achieved in late 80s, it was only natural to expect both to be victorious. The search for a reason to why this did not happen led Schock to point out certain factors key to the success of a non-violent social movement under an authoritarian regime. Kurt Schock says that, two basic conditions must be met for a resistance movement to contribute to political transformations. First, â€Å"the challenge must be able to withstand repression, and second, the challenge must undermine state power† (2005, p.49). These are the two broad yardsticks used to analyse the social movements in Burma and South Africa. He also theorizes that social and political transformation occurs only after a sustained period of challenge in which multiple forms of