The race to succeed Nicola Sturgeon has plunged the SNP into turmoil

Revolutions present a paradox, observes Timur Kuran, a Turkish-American political scientist. Before the event, they often appear unlikely. When a collapse does occur—as in France in 1789 or Iran in 1979—they catch the world by surprise. Yet in hindsight those same revolutions appear inevitable, as the fragility of the previous regime is laid bare. Professor Kuran explains this contradiction through what he terms “preference falsification”: the tendency of people to pretend to be content with the status quo when there is no viable opposition, only to air their grievances at the first flicker of change.