ABSTRACT

The inability of the "differentiation model" to explain turmoil with any degree of precision has resulted in efforts to suggest new "middle level" variables which, coupled with the "differentiation model" would better link social structural change to behaviour. From the standpoint of existing theory, political instability ultimately refers to some aggregate of individual political behaviours which by their content or by their quantity—or both—threaten the existing distribution of values necessary to make binding decisions for a society. William Kornhauser was interested in explaining the emergence of "mass politics," a phenomenon which occurs "when large numbers of people engage in political activity outside of the procedures and rules instituted by a society to govern action". The "compounded" impact of primordially—and modernisation—based cleavage is seen as constituting an integrative load too heavy for the nascent political system to bear.