Adopting a particular non-linear perspective resolves numerous paradoxes about collective political behaviour. Self-organized criticality occurs if the sensitivity of individuals or groups to each other's actions increases with the passage of time, and, therefore, sudden changes may occur as cascades. In this way scandals, betrayals, miscalculations and other seemingly insignificant actions can sometimes cause cabinet dissolutions, strikes, riots, electoral landslides, wars and a multitude of other phenomena that, until now, have seemed to have had nothing in common.