Who Defines Victory in a Political Revolution?

Coalitions, Competing Goals, and the Meaning of Institutional Change

In Who Will Fight for the Freedom to Choose a Political Community?, I ended by asking who would get to define victory—and who would still have the political strength to continue afterward.

That question deserves a closer examination.

A coalition may win a major reform without agreeing on what victory means. Suppose employers obtain easier access to foreign workers, while the workers themselves receive only temporary permission to remain and no political voice. Some members of the coalition may celebrate. Others may believe that the struggle has barely begun.

Who gets to call this a victory?

In Can Economic Freedom Lead to Political Equality?, I examined why economic gains do not necessarily produce political equality. In Who Has an Interest in Preserving Nationality-Based Privileges?, I asked who has the power and incentive to maintain existing rules. The problem here is different: even supporters of change may disagree about how to judge its results.

The World Citizen Revolution cannot avoid this problem. It seeks to make political-community membership a matter of freedom rather than an inherited limit. But the forces supporting parts of that change will not necessarily share the same final objective.

Winning a Reform Is Not the Same as Sharing a Goal

Political coalitions often begin with an objection rather than a complete institutional design.

Several groups may agree that an existing rule is harmful without agreeing on what should replace it.

An employer may object to restrictions on recruitment because they limit access to workers. A migrant may object because they restrict the freedom to build a life elsewhere. A resident may object because people who have lived in the community for decades remain without an electoral voice.

The objections can point toward the same legislative change, but they are not the same claim.

Consider a reform that creates a new, renewable residence permit. It may provide employers with greater flexibility and give prospective migrants opportunities previously closed to them. Those gains are real.

Yet the permit may offer no independent security of residence. Losing a job may still mean losing the right to remain. Years of residence may bring no path to equal political membership.

The reform has increased one kind of freedom while leaving other restrictions intact.

The question is not whether the reform should be praised or condemned in its entirety. We need to ask which objective it achieved, whose position improved, and which forms of dependence survived.

A partial gain is not necessarily a false victory. It becomes misleading when one group’s achievement is presented as the fulfillment of every group’s demand.

South Africa: Disagreement After Victory

South Africa’s transition from apartheid shows how disagreements can emerge among political allies after a historic victory.

In April 1994, South Africa held its first national democratic election in which adult citizens could vote regardless of race. The election followed years of struggle and negotiations, and a government of national unity took office. The final Constitution was adopted in 1996 and came into effect in 1997.

This was an extraordinary achievement in political equality. The formal racial restrictions that had governed participation were overturned.

The African National Congress (ANC) was allied with the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP). The Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) was central to the ANC’s 1994 program, which sought social and economic transformation alongside political democracy.

In June 1996, the government introduced Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR), a new strategy for economic growth, investment, and public finances. The government presented it as a way to implement the RDP’s goals. But COSATU raised strong objections, and the SACP expressed concerns about the strategy and the way it had been developed. The SACP’s initial response was more qualified than COSATU’s; disagreement within the alliance did not mean that every partner rejected GEAR in the same way.

The debate did not diminish the achievement of democratic elections. It concerned the direction of policy after victory, the meaning of the alliance’s economic commitments, and who had participated in decisions about the new strategy. People who fought together to end one system could differ over what the next stage of change required.

South Africa’s democratic transition and the World Citizen Revolution address different forms of political exclusion, but both raise questions about how allies judge the results of institutional change. Allies may agree that a transformation is necessary while disagreeing about how its success should be measured.

What Each Partner May Call a Victory

Consider again the hypothetical coalition seeking freer movement and equal political membership.

For a business that recruits across borders, victory might mean fewer administrative restrictions. Some employers might also favor secure residence for workers; others might place greater value on flexibility. They should not be treated as one group with a single interest.

For someone deciding whether to migrate, victory might mean a genuine choice among places to live and work. That choice remains limited if admission depends on a single employer or if departure is possible but entry elsewhere remains uncertain.

For long-term residents, victory might mean the ability to participate as equals in decisions governing the community where they live.

Existing citizens may support freer movement while wanting to protect collective self-government, public services, and institutional stability. These concerns cannot simply be dismissed as resistance to equality.

Within each group, people may also disagree. Temporary workers and people intending to settle may have different priorities. Citizens who favor local voting rights for residents may differ over national political membership.

These differences become harder to avoid when the coalition has to turn a shared demand into binding institutional rules.

Who receives entry rights? How secure is residence? Which political decisions are made by current citizens, and which must include all durable residents? What happens when people move between communities?

The disagreements now concern law and political power.

Two Tests of Political Victory

If coalition members define victory differently, the strongest may be able to impose their preferred terms. Political compromises can reflect differences in bargaining power as well as agreements about principle.

But political strength and theoretical justification are not the same thing.

The World Citizen framework needs criteria for judging reform that do not change whenever the composition of a coalition changes.

Here, Foot Democracy means the freedom to choose and join a political community, while Hand Democracy means participation in collective self-government.

A reform that expands recruitment but keeps residents dependent on an employer may increase mobility without securing the freedom to choose a political community. A reform that grants some local voting rights while preserving barriers to entry may strengthen Hand Democracy for some residents without resolving the broader problem of political-community choice.

These gains should be recognized. Neither should be mistaken for the full institutional objective.

The full institutional program described in The World Citizen Society cannot be realized merely because a political agreement has been reached.

Nor can the balance between collective self-government and individual political-community choice be specified completely in advance. Communities have legitimate responsibilities to govern common affairs. People also have a claim not to be confined indefinitely to the political position assigned by birth. Institutions must work through this tension rather than pretend it has vanished.

This leads to two tests of political victory.

First, what has the reform actually changed in people’s rights and opportunities?

Second, has it created institutions able to protect and extend those changes—or has it placed the people concerned in a new form of dependence?

The first test examines immediate results. The second asks whether those results can survive political conflict. Neither test can be answered simply by counting how many coalition partners signed an agreement.

Japan’s planned Employment for Skill Development system, which is intended to replace the Technical Intern Training system, offers a concrete example. Under the 2024 reform, workers will be able to change employers on their own initiative if specified conditions are met. By the first test, this is a meaningful expansion of freedom.

By the second test, however, we must ask whether the new arrangements will provide sufficient independence from employers and security of residence. Greater freedom to change jobs does not, by itself, guarantee either. The system is scheduled to take effect in April 2027, so its results cannot yet be judged from experience.

Who Speaks for Those Not Yet Included?

There is another problem with allowing a victorious coalition to define success for everyone. In Who Gets to Decide Who Belongs?, I examined the authority to determine political membership. The same issue reappears when those already represented declare a reform complete.

Some of the people most affected by membership rules may have had little power within the coalition itself.

Prospective migrants may live outside the territory where decisions are made. Foreign residents may lack a vote. Future residents cannot negotiate in the present. A reform can therefore be approved by all the recognized political parties while leaving the concerns of excluded people largely unrepresented.

That does not mean every affected person must agree before any rule can change. Political decisions cannot wait for universal consensus.

It means that the procedure for declaring victory should not be confused with the justice of the result. A coalition agreement is evidence that the participants reached an arrangement. It is not, by itself, proof that those excluded by the old system have become equal members under the new one.

The problem is especially important for a theory that questions inherited political membership. If existing citizens alone possess the power to decide whether outsiders can join them, the structure of political exclusion may reproduce itself even during reform.

The people concerned must become more than objects of sympathy. Over time, those who acquire rights of residence and membership need institutions through which they can contest further restrictions, protect earlier gains, and participate in decisions affecting their lives.

Their political agency is part of what success must mean.

Victory as a Continuing Political Judgment

One temptation is to postpone the difficult questions. First win freedom of movement, someone may say. Political equality can come later.

Sometimes reforms do proceed in stages. A gradual transition may be necessary because institutions, administrative capacity, and public agreement take time to develop.

But a sequence is not a guarantee.

Economic freedom does not automatically generate political equality. The people who gain from easier cross-border movement may have little incentive to support further changes once their own objectives have been met. Others may continue to struggle for secure residence or equal membership after the coalition has dissolved.

We should therefore distinguish a temporary compromise from a final settlement. A compromise can be worth supporting when it opens a path to further change. It can also become a new obstacle if those who benefited from the first reform use their influence to prevent the next.

This cannot be judged from the promises of the agreement alone. It requires attention to rights that people can exercise, institutions that can enforce them, and political organizations capable of resisting their withdrawal.

The World Citizen Revolution is not completed by one election, treaty, court judgment, or declaration. Rights have to be won, institutionalized, protected against reversal, and extended. Laws and courts matter enormously, but they cannot replace the political activity of the people whose freedom is at stake.

Return, finally, to the coalition that celebrated its reform.

The employers may have obtained easier recruitment. The migrants may have obtained new opportunities. Long-term residents may still be waiting for an equal voice. All three judgments can describe part of the same political event.

The question is not who celebrates most loudly.

Victory must be judged by the freedom and equality the new institutions actually secure—and by whether the people concerned can continue to shape those institutions themselves.

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Notes

1. The coalition is hypothetical. The opening and later examples illustrate possible differences among political interests. They are not claims that particular businesses, migrants, or citizens uniformly hold these positions.
2. South Africa as a limited comparison. The ANC’s alliance with COSATU and the SACP was different from the 1994 government of national unity. The RDP–GEAR debate concerned economic policy and internal consultation after democratic victory; it is not presented as an equivalent of political-community choice across national borders. The government’s account emphasized continuity between RDP and GEAR, while partners disputed policy content and procedure.
3. Japan’s 2024 reform. The planned Employment for Skill Development system permits worker-initiated transfers under specified conditions, including eligibility requirements and limits on receiving employers. Separately, the same 2024 legislative reform introduced additional grounds for revoking permanent resident status, including certain deliberate failures to fulfill public obligations. These rules concern a different category of residents, do not mean that any missed payment automatically leads to revocation, and are also scheduled to take effect in April 2027. The two sets of provisions should not be conflated.
4. Meaning of victory. The proposed evaluative tests are the author’s normative framework, not an empirical claim that all participants accept the same standard.

Further Reading

Books

• The World Citizen Revolution — The historical and political problem of institutional transformation.
• The World Citizen Society — Political-community choice and the institutional requirements of equal membership.

Related Essays

• Who Will Fight for the Freedom to Choose a Political Community?
• Can Economic Freedom Lead to Political Equality?
• Who Has an Interest in Preserving Nationality-Based Privileges?
• Who Gets to Decide Who Belongs?

References

1. South African Government. “Milestones of 20 Years of Freedom.” https://www.gov.za/issues/20years/milestones-20-years-freedom
2. Constitutional Court of South Africa. “Constitutional Democracy: 1994 Onwards.” https://www.concourt.org.za/index.php/42-the-history-of-the-constitution/constitutional-democracy-1994-onwards
3. South African Government. Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, Chapter 2, especially Section 19. https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/chapter-2-bill-rights
4. African National Congress. “The Reconstruction and Development Programme: Introduction to the RDP” (1994). https://www.anc1912.org.za/policy-documents-1994-the-reconstruction-and-development-programme-introduction-to-the-rdp/
5. South African Communist Party. The African Communist, Issue 145, Third Quarter 1996, discussion of the government macroeconomic framework and alliance debate. https://www.sacp.org.za/content/issue-145-third-quarter-1996
6. The Presidential Years (Nelson Mandela Foundation). “Alliance Contestation Around GEAR.” https://tpy.nelsonmandela.org/pages/part-vi-anc-and-the-transition/17-anc-and-the-transition/17-6-alliance-contestation-around-gear
7. Immigration Services Agency of Japan. “Q&A on the Employment for Skill Development System.” https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/applications/faq/ikusei_qa_00002.html
8. Immigration Services Agency of Japan. “Overview and Related Laws of the Employment for Skill Development System.” https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/03_00163.html
9. Immigration Services Agency of Japan. “Guidelines on Revocation of Permanent Resident Status.” https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/deportation/resources/nyukan_nyukan85_00002.html