J-curve hypothesis

J-curve hypothesis, in sociology and political science, theory that attempts to identify the reasons behind the collective rebellion of individuals who are perceived as victims of injustice. The J-curve hypothesis was introduced in 1962 by American sociologist James C. Davies, who believed that social and political unrest was precipitated by a brief period of sharp decline in economic development after a prolonged period of economic growth and improvement.

According to Davies’s hypothesis, persistent economic growth and advance lead to the development of psychological expectations that conditions will continue to improve. When such expectations are suddenly thwarted, individuals experience an intolerable gap between what they have come to expect and the realities of their circumstances. At this point, individuals are most likely to engage in collective revolutionary activity.

Background and history

In an article entitled “Toward a Theory of Revolution” (1962), Davies expounded on the writings of two prominent political thinkers, German philosopher Karl Marx and French political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville, who offered seemingly alternative visions of the causes of collective violence. In The Communist Manifesto (1848), Marx claimed that long-lasting deprivation would lead members of underprivileged groups to realize that they have “nothing to lose but their chains” and therefore should rise up to better their living and working conditions. Tocqueville believed that overwhelming oppression only leads to rebellion when there is a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Davies tried to integrate insights from both perspectives, hypothesizing that revolutions would be most likely to occur when a period of improvement is followed by a sharp worsening of circumstances.

Davies sought to illustrate the explanatory power of the J-curve hypothesis using several cases. One such case was the Dorr Rebellion of 1842, in which it seemed that a period of industrial prosperity in Rhode Island was followed by an economic depression. Disenfranchised workers and suffrage supporters led by lawyer and reformer Thomas Wilson Dorr, who had promoted the adoption of a new constitution, attempted to overthrow the existing charter government but failed in their endeavour.

Davies also argued that the events surrounding the Russian Revolution of 1917 adhered to the pattern predicted by the J-curve hypothesis. Until 1905, Russians had enjoyed the benefits of several decades of rapid industrial growth and greater political emancipation, before being confronted with a severe downturn in economic circumstances and a return to political repression. The rapidly increasing gap between the people’s subjective expectations of continued economic and political development and the objective reality of strict deprivation imposed by the tsarist regime, according to Davies, led Russian workers and intellectuals to band together in the revolutionary effort that succeeded in abolishing tsarism in 1917.

Soon after the publication of Davies’s article in 1962, the J-curve hypothesis became one of the most popular of the social scientific accounts of revolutionary antecedents. The basic logic of the hypothesis was incorporated into several versions of relative deprivation theory. The central tenet of relative deprivation theory, shared by proponents of the J-curve hypothesis, is that collective frustration results from the failure to meet subjective rather than objective standards.

J-curve and relative deprivation theory

Relative deprivation theory addresses how objective social situations are translated into subjective feelings of deprivation; it also examines the effects of deprivation and frustration on consequential behaviours, such as political violence. As a result, some of the most prominent researchers of relative deprivation theory have directly relied on the J-curve hypothesis, treating it as an apt description of one specific manifestation of relative deprivation.

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For example, American political scientist Ted R. Gurr, in his book Why Men Rebel (1970), argued that feelings of relative deprivation arise from a perceived discrepancy between what “is” and what “should be.” In his model, a significant gap between people’s expectations and their capabilities gives rise to conditions that can lead to social unrest. However, Gurr argued that the J-curve example is only one possibility for the creation of such a gap; he referred to it as a case of “progressive relative deprivation.” Furthermore, whereas Davies emphasized individuals’ past experiences in setting their expectations, Gurr and other researchers of the phenomenon of relative deprivation emphasized that intergroup comparisons can also contribute to a sense of frustration.

In a series of cross-national studies, Gurr and his collaborators showed that both short-term economic deprivation and long-term strains, such as social and economic discrimination, contribute to an increased likelihood of political insurrection. They also found that larger group-based inequalities, including differential opportunities for advancement of various social groups, can intensify feelings of envy and frustration directed against those who are privileged. These feelings can also create elevated and often unrealistic expectations of redress on the part of underprivileged groups.

The role of intergroup dynamics in the arousal of political violence remains unclear, however, as most research on the J-curve hypothesis has not systematically differentiated between egoistic deprivation (the feeling of personal deprivation relative to other individuals) and fraternalistic deprivation (the feeling of group deprivation relative to other groups).

Research on the J-curve hypothesis

Many of the studies attempting to support the J-curve hypothesis have been criticized for imprecise theoretical conceptualizations and inadequate empirical assessments. The J-curve hypothesis focuses on the rising and falling of the subjective expectations of individuals; however, research generally has made use of archival sources of data containing no direct measures of individual expectations.

The J-curve hypothesis has failed to attract consistent and valid empirical support. As everyday life seems to suggest, it is not the case that every form of injustice or violation of expectations brought on by a sudden setback produces support for collective action. Viewed in this light, one of the main strengths of the J-curve hypothesis, namely its theoretical parsimony, is also the source of its weakness.

Collective action, it seems, is extremely rare and most likely involves the dynamic interplay of a complicated set of social, psychological, and political variables. The attempt to explain group-based political rebellion solely (or even primarily) on the basis of an aggregation of individual-level processes, such as violation of expectations, has been tried and found wanting.