AbstractAccelerating the rate of economic growth in developing countries has been an important aim of almost all development policies implemented over the past three decades. Experience has shown that such growth is often not sustainable and is likely to be interrupted by violent political changes. This paper attempts to identify the organizational factors that limit economic growth and create conditions conducive to the outbreak of political violence. A system dynamics model of the sociopolitical organization of a developing country is presented, and the model's behavior is studied using computer simulation.