The race to succeed Nicola Sturgeon has plunged the SNP into turmoil
The preference-falsification theory of revolution comes to Edinburgh
Revolutions present a paradox, observes Timur Kuran, a Turkish-American political scientist. Before the event, they often appear unlikely. When a collapse does occur—as in France in 1789 or Iran in 1979—they catch the world by surprise. Yet in hindsight those same revolutions appear inevitable, as the fragility of the previous regime is laid bare. Professor Kuran explains this contradiction through what he terms “preference falsification”: the tendency of people to pretend to be content with the status quo when there is no viable opposition, only to air their grievances at the first flicker of change.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “A party turned upside down”
Britain March 25th 2023
- The machine that runs Britain’s state needs an overhaul
- “Honest” Boris Johnson looks done for
- The race to succeed Nicola Sturgeon has plunged the SNP into turmoil
- Louise Casey says the Met is institutionally misogynistic
- The British government attempts to take on the NHS’s workforce problems
- Editing Roald Dahl for sensitivity was silly
From the March 25th 2023 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionDiscover more
British MPs vote in favour of assisted dying
A monumental social reform is closer to being realised
The slow death of a Labour buzzword
And what that says about Britain’s place in the world
Britain’s Supreme Court considers what a woman is
At last. Britons had been wondering what those 34m people who are not men might be
Can potholes fuel populism?
A new paper looks at one explanation for the rise of Reform UK
Are British voters as clueless as Labour’s intelligentsia thinks?
How the idea of false consciousness conquered the governing party