Violent revolution in the First World

Thinking out loud:

1) When was the last time a First World government collapsed largely because of riots or street demonstrations?

2) When was the last time a First World government was overthrown by armed revolutionaries?

Off the top of my head I'd say "1968" and "sometime in the 1920s, depending" But I'd be interested to hear what others think.

(Yes, "First World" is a very fuzzy category. Just trying to establish broad parameters here.)


Doug M.
 
1)
France during the Third Republic? The 1934 riots had a profound impact, and there was a lot of shuffling in the government. The governmental system of the Republic never fell, no, but the government it's self, the ministries, changed quite frequently, some barely lasting a week. This continued into the Fourth Republic established after WW2.
 
Thinking out loud:

1) When was the last time a First World government collapsed largely because of riots or street demonstrations?

2) When was the last time a First World government was overthrown by armed revolutionaries?

Off the top of my head I'd say "1968" and "sometime in the 1920s, depending" But I'd be interested to hear what others think.

(Yes, "First World" is a very fuzzy category. Just trying to establish broad parameters here.)


Doug M.

For number one I would have to go with the USSR, oh wait. That's a SECOND WORLD country. Damn you country classifications!

For number two I would probably say Tsarist Russia.
 
For number one I would have to go with the USSR, oh wait. That's a SECOND WORLD country. Damn you country classifications!

For number two I would probably say Tsarist Russia.

Tsarist Russia certainly wasn't first world. It was a developing nation in the truest sense of things. Even if we rejig the meaning of '1st world' at that time to mean European then Russia was still iffy to people of the time.

And ja, Iceland.
 
Icelandic state didn't collapse, the government did. Government has a different meaning in a parliamentary system than it does here in the US. The "government" is the cabinet of ministers from the majority faction in parliament. The reigns of the state merely changed hands
 
Thinking out loud:

1) When was the last time a First World government collapsed largely because of riots or street demonstrations?

2) When was the last time a First World government was overthrown by armed revolutionaries?

Off the top of my head I'd say "1968" and "sometime in the 1920s, depending" But I'd be interested to hear what others think.

(Yes, "First World" is a very fuzzy category. Just trying to establish broad parameters here.)

There is IMO two ways approaching the term "First World", either "European and North American NATO ally" or "high income country" as defined by the World Bank. Seeing that "Third World" was coined in 1952, can we really say "First World" countries have existed before, say, 1945? Of course we could adopt a wallersteinian world system approach and assign "First World" to the economic core nations at any given time, but that would make the question much too broad. Thus, I'd limit the scale to post-1945.

The first category is a matter of definition, like Jello_Biafra already pointed out. "First World" governments "fall" for political reasons all the time, like in Iceland. They very seldom "collapse" leaving behind anarchy and mayhem, and I can't remember any such event taking place during the last 60-odd years. At least not if we discount immediate WWII induced events such as the Greek Civil War.

If we take "First World" as "European and North American NATO ally", Portugal's "Carnation Revolution" of 1974 fulfills the second category. It was by "armed revolutionaries" even if the events were bloodless.

I guess Portugal in 1974 might be called "First World" in the economic sense too, even if it was poor in a European comparison.

(The same points could apply to Greece during the counter-coup of 1973.)
 
Thinking out loud:

1) When was the last time a First World government collapsed largely because of riots or street demonstrations?

Ukraine and Georgia come to mind

Doug M2 said:
When was the last time a First World government was overthrown by armed revolutionaries?

Off the top of my head I'd say "1968" and "sometime in the 1920s, depending" But I'd be interested to hear what others think.

(Yes, "First World" is a very fuzzy category. Just trying to establish broad parameters here.)


Doug M.

Armed revolutionaries as opposed to an army coup ? I don't see 1920s since you had all the aftermath of the Second World War to factor in

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
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Not a collapse, but plenty of violent riots have happened because of soccer in S. America. Would Argentina after the Falklands war count? Or are they second world?
 
The first one is Iceland, just over a month ago.

Latvian PM resigned due to poor economic conditions which caused riots in january. While he weathered that storm two parties withdrew their support so coalition collapsed.

Don't know if that counts as "protests causing collapse of gov't" but it's close
 
What happened in Greece that ended the junta there, by the way? It might've been something similar.

Vaguely.

Papadopoulos started liberalizing in early 1973, particularly by abolishing the monarchy and establishing "democratic" elections for president. This really just angered a lot of people, who saw it as him consolidating his power. The liberalizations actually allowed those people more freedom to organize, and the student of the National Polytechnic University began a mass protest/riot on 17 November. Papadopoulos sent in the army to crush the revolt, which it did.

Hardliners within the junta opposed any liberalizations, and used the Polytechnic uprising as an excuse to take power, so they organized a counter-coup and took power on 25 November. They were led by Dimitrios Ioannides. Motivated by the rise of the hardliners in Greece, the EOKA-B started a coup in Cyprus and ousted the civilian government, which led to the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus to protect ethnic Turks on the island. As a result, the Cypriot junta collapsed and the previous government was restored. Many Greeks felt the Turkish invasion would lead to all-out Greco-Turkish war, so Phaedon Gizikis, who Ioannides had appointed as nominal president, organized a meeting of pre-junta political leaders as well as the men in charge of the military, who decided to oust the junta by inviting exiled PM Constantine Karamanlis to return to the country to lead a national unity government leading into elections, and Ioannides was imprisoned.
 
If you go by the "NATO member" definition of First world, especially pre-1991, the most recent non-democratic transition of power was in 1980 in Turkey. In 1981 the 23-F coup managed to take control of the Spanish Cortes for around 2 days, but it never really governed.

The 1980 Turkish coup was led by Gen. Kenan Evern, who overthrew the civilian government as a result of social conflicts, the inability of the parliament to organize, and virtual economic collapse. His junta ruled for 2 years and produced a junta which was approved by an overwhelming majority (perhaps pressured), and under that constitution (which still lasts today), Evren was relatively-democratically elected to a 7-year term as president, after which he retired.

I wouldn't call either of these "armed revolutionaries," as they were military coups. There have been no true revolutions in NATO member countries since 1945, other than colonial revolts for independence. You have to go back a REALLY long time to find a country that's considered to be a developed country which had a true armed revolution which actually changed a government--probably 1936 to the Spanish Civil War. Whether or not you would consider Spain in 1936 to be economically developed is another thing.

As for the riots/demonstrations question, I would go with the May 68 revolts, which had a large impact on DeGaulle's decision to resign, but it definitely didn't lead to a complete change in government. I honestly cannot think of any examples where demonstrations and riots led to a change in government structure, simply a change in who was running the existing structure.
 
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