Social unrest

Rebellion, uprising, or insurrection is a refusal of obedience or order. It refers to the open resistance against the orders of an established authority. The term comes from the Latin verb rebellō, "I renew war" (from re- ("again") + bellō ("I wage war/I revolt"). The rebel is the individual that partakes in rebellion or rebellious activities, particularly when armed. Thus, the term rebellion also refers to the ensemble of rebels in a state of revolt.

A rebellion originates from a sentiment of indignation and disapproval of a situation and then manifests itself by the refusal to submit or to obey the authority responsible for this situation. Rebellion can be individual or collective, peaceful (civil disobedience, civil resistance, and nonviolent resistance) or violent (terrorism, sabotage and guerrilla warfare.)

In political terms, rebellion and revolt are often distinguished by their different aims. If rebellion generally seeks to evade an oppressive power, a revolt seeks to overthrow and destroy that power, as well as its accompanying laws. The goal of rebellion is resistance while a revolt seeks a revolution. As power shifts relative to the external adversary, or power shifts within a mixed coalition, or positions harden or soften on either side, an insurrection may seesaw between the two forms.

The following theories broadly build on the Marxist interpretation of rebellion. They explore the causes of rebellion from a wide lens perspective. Rebellion is studied, in Theda Skocpol's words, by analyzing "objective relationships and conflicts among variously situated groups and nations, rather than the interests, outlooks, or ideologies of particular actors in revolutions".

Karl Marx's analysis of revolutions sees such expression of political violence not as anomic, episodic outbursts of discontents but rather the symptomatic expression of a particular set of objective but fundamentally contradicting class-based relations of power. Indeed, the central tenet of Marxist philosophy, as expressed in Capital, is the analysis of society's mode of production (technology and labor) concomitant with the ownership of productive institutions and the division of profit. Marx writes about "the hidden structure of society" that must be elucidated through an examination of "the direct relationship of the owners of the conditions of production to the direct producers". The mismatch, between one mode of production, between the social forces and the social ownership of the production, is at the origin of the revolution. The inner imbalance within these modes of production is derived from the conflicting modes of organization, such as capitalism within feudalism, or more appropriately socialism within capitalism. The dynamics engineered by these class frictions help class consciousness root itself in the collective imaginary. For example, the development of the bourgeoisie class went from oppressed merchant class to urban independence, eventually gaining enough power to represent the state as a whole. Social movements, thus, are determined by an exogenous set of circumstances. The proletariat must also, according to Marx, go through the same process of self-determination which can only be achieved by friction against the bourgeoisie. In Marx's theory revolutions are the "locomotives of history", it is because rebellion has for ultimate goal to overthrow the ruling class and its antiquated mode of production. Later, rebellion attempts to replace it with a new system of political economy, one that is better suited to the new ruling class, thus enabling societal progress. The cycle of rebellion, thus, replaces one mode of production by another through the constant class friction.

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