[xorcist]

The answer is more often than not alternative c) all of the above.

Development may be a random walk, but there are plenty of people with interest in a certain outcome, and when they get the opportunity they will take it and try escalate the process. That's true in most things.

I also tend to believe that it is not a coincidence that so many societies right now flirt with authoritarianism, for example. We influence each other, even more so now that information is global and electronic.