Revolutions, coups, and clashes: Using implicit motivations to predict the severity of intranational political unrest

Abstract

Research has found that war is likely to break out in times when leaders are high in power motives and low in affiliation, however research has been limited to conflicts between Western countries. We examine 4 revolutionary movements in the Philippines to examine whether this pattern applies to political violence across cultures and conflict types (i.e., within-country vs. between-country). We also explore the role of achievement motives in intranational political unrest. We gathered speeches during 4 times of civil unrest in the Philippines to study implicit motives at various levels of threat. All 4 occurred in the same country, city, and street in the Philippines, with some of the same actors. We scored speeches for power, affiliation, and achievement motives. The highest power and lowest affiliation motives occurred during the most violent conflict. In addition, we found that higher violence was associated with lower achievement motives