Societies are transformed by total wars, which mobilize entire populations, penetrate society as a whole, and involve both civilian and military populations as direct targets of aggression, as well as resources for inflicting harm and destroying the enemy. Total wars bring about enormous (forced) movement of populations, as well as changes in gender roles and social class relations. Because most men are directly involved on the front lines of the war effort, new opportunities are created for women to become active in areas from which they were previously excluded. Also, because of the enormous sacrifices made by the general population and the real possibility of national defeat at the hands of the enemy, the rich also become more ready to make some sacrifices. During total wars, the rich–poor divide becomes smaller, as the rich make larger contributions toward the war effort. However, as discussed in this chapter, evidence suggests that this increase in political plasticity is only temporary. The rich–poor divide has increased enormously since World War II.

Ethnicity was supposed to become less and less important, as modernization and globalization take place. This chapter discusses how ethnicity has continued to be central to the lives of humans in the twenty-first century, and in some respects has become even more important. Ethnicity is often confused with race, even in academic research. Ethnicity is a social construct, whereas race is based on biological characteristics. Since the 1970s there has been ethnic mobilization and collective action in order to improve the conditions of disadvantaged ethnic groups. There has also been ethnic conflict and discrimination against ethnic minorities. Psychological research using the minimal group paradigm, as well as case studies of ethnic groups such as the Tutu and the Hutsi of Rwanda, demonstrates that there need only be minor or trivial differences between groups in order for individuals to show bias in favor of their ingroup. The arrival of large numbers of dissimilar others in North America and Western Europe has also added fuel to the fire of ethnic conflict.

The concept of political plasticity leads us to identify areas of human behavior that are highly resistant to change and need special planning in order to bring about reforms, and also areas that have more potential for change and, through their change, will bring about larger transformations in societies. In domains such as ethnicity, leadership, rich–poor divide, and religion, planning for change must be undertaken taking into account, first, the great obstacles to change and, second, the possibility of backward movement away from democracy. But there are other domains where political plasticity is much higher and which can bring about more widespread transformations. The illustrative example of women in education is discussed in this chapter. The rapid progress of women in education throughout much of the world since World War II has been truly astonishing. If managed well, the progress of women in education can lead to progress in other areas, including population control and global warming.

The electronics revolution was assumed to help democratization around the world. Enormous changes were expected to come about, opening up societies as people gained access to more and more information. The electronics revolution was supposed to open the world and open minds and societies around the world. In this sense, it was assumed that political plasticity would increase through electronic communications. However, as discussed in this chapter, the impact of the electronics revolution has been mixed and far more complex. First, dictators have learned to limit and censor electronic communications within their own borders (e.g., the Great Firewall of China). Second, dictatorships such as Russia and China have used electronic communications to influence events in countries around the world, working to strengthen dictatorships and weaken democracies. Third, the masses in democracies do not have the critical thinking skills needed to avoid being influenced by conspiracy theories and false information, spread by authoritarian strongmen (such as Donald Trump) and their supporters. Consequently, political plasticity has not been changed much through the electronic revolution. For example, mass participation in decision-making has not happened.

Globalization seemed like an irresistible, unstoppable force. Political plasticity seemed to be pushed to higher levels, as globalization accelerated and impacted all humankind. The development of larger units such as the European Union signaled, for many, the end of the nation state – a borderless world. Economic and technological forces seemed to be forcing globalization, and all humankind, down a one-way road. On closer examination, however, we realize that globalization has been taking place in a fractured manner: Just as economic and technological forces have been pushing us toward the global, basic identity needs have been pulling us back toward the local. Thus, just as Europe is integrating, there is Brexit and Basque and Scottish independence. Just as the North American Free Trade Agreement comes into place, there is Quebec nationalism and the effort by Quebec nationalists to break away from the rest of Canada. The deglobalization movement has been accelerated by the rise of authoritarian strongmen and their extremist nationalist supporters. As this chapter shows, it seems that basic identity needs and allegiances to local groups and nations have influenced developments, so that political plasticity remains limited in this domain.

Despite the war on poverty declared in different ways by various politicians in different countries since World War II, the rich–poor divide continues as it has been more or less the same for the last ten thousand years or so. Also, the rich–poor divide continues across revolutions and across societies that describe themselves using different labels, such as communist, capitalist, socialist, liberal-democratic, and Islamic. For example, the number of billionaires in communist China rivals that in the capitalist United States, and the rich–poor divide in Islamic Iran is even great than in most European countries. Various legitimizing ideologies are used to justify the rich–poor divide, with the rich using their power and resources to shape education, the media, religious ideology, and the various other avenues for socialization and communication. The tendency for both the rich and the poor to believe in a just world and to blame the victim is discussed in this chapter, in relation to false consciousness and legitimizing ideologies, to explain the continuity of societies with enormous rich–poor divides.

Modernization theory leads us to expect that religion will decline and disappear, as science and education advance and fact based explanations replace religious faith based explanations. But the expected trend of religious decline and disappearance has not come about, even when revolutions bring communist regimes to power and the official government position becomes atheist and antireligious. In discussing explanations for the continued centrality of religion in major societies, first the evolutionary roots of religion are considered in this chapter. One group of researchers believe that religion evolved as an adaptation, a behavior that confers advantages on an organism or species to become more successful in its environment. A competing explanation is that religion is a byproduct of human cognitive architecture. Also discussed are explanations of religion that focus on collective processes, such as Marxs idea of religion serving as the opium of the people, helping them to cope with the pains of everyday life. A similar idea underlies Terror Management Theory, which describes religion as a mechanism for people to cope with the knowledge that they are going to die. The continuity of religion is also associated with continuity in other domains of behavior.

Almost all psychological research relevant to revolutions focuses on the conditions in which collective action takes place to topple the ruling regime; almost no attention has been given to what happens after revolutions. Psychologists have homed in on relative deprivation, perceived injustice, identity processes, morality, and related factors as important in collection mobilization. But no serious attention has been given to the question of why after regime change almost all revolutionary governments fail to change mass behavior in line with their revolutionary ideals. The concept of political plasticity is applied in this chapter to explain this failure. Change at the macropolitical and macroeconomic levels can come overnight with the signing of a radical new constitution, but change of actual behavior in line with the ideals of the new constitution takes a much longer time, if it is possible at all. An example is the efforts of the Soviet communists to change behavior in line with their economic and political ideals of collective ownership and collective motivation.

Looking to the future, one of the factors that sustains continuity in human behavior is the eternal presence of potential dictators. Individuals with the personality characteristics of dictators are always present in all human groups. When the springboard to dictatorship becomes available, these potential dictators step forward to try to spring to absolute power. The eternally present potential dictator acts as a limiting factor on political plasticity so that progress toward democracy remains stunted, and at times there are reversals from democracy to dictatorship. But the potential dictator is not powerless as to when and how the springboard to dictatorship comes into place. As shown in this chapter, potential dictators use, and sometimes help manufacture, crisis incidents that create societal chaos – then they put themselves forward as the only individuals who can solve the crisis. Hitler used as his crisis incident the 1933 fire at the Reichstag building, Khomeini used the 1979–1980 invasion of the American Embassy in Tehran and the taking over of fifty American diplomats, Putin used the 1990 bombings of apartments in Moscow. In each case, the potential dictator helped to create a crisis, then used the crisis to spring to power. Trump attempted the same in the United States on January 6, 2021.