'Coloured Revolution' as a Political Phenomenon

Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics

Volumn 25, Issue 2-3, 2009, Pages 113-135

  Lane, David ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 76649104503     PISSN: 13523279     EISSN: 17439116     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13523270902860295     Document Type: Article

References (62)

1. Philippe C. Schmitter and Terry Lynn Karl, 'What Democracy is. and is Not', in Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner (eds.), The Global Resurgence of Democracy (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), pp.49-62 (p.49).
2. Mark Beissinger, for example, considers them to be 'modular political phenomena' in that action was based on the 'emulation of the prior successful example of others': Mark R. Beissinger, 'Structure and Example in Modular Political Phenomena: The Diffusion of Bulldozer/Rose/Orange/Tulip Revolutions', Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 5, No.2 (2007), pp.259-76 (p.259).
3. Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy (Boston, MA: Albert Einstein Institution, 2003).
4. Joseph Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: Public Affairs, 2004).
5. Joseph Nye, 'Why Military Power Is No Longer Enough', The Guardian, 31 March 2002, available at , accessed 19 Feb. 2009.
6. George W. Bush, 'Inauguration Speech 2005', available at , cited in Aidan Hehir, 'The Myth of the Failed State and the War on Terror: A Challenge to the Conventional Wisdom', Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, Vol.1, No.3 (2007), pp.307-32.
7. Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993).
8. Valerie J. Bunce and Sharon L. Wolchik, 'International Diffusion and Postcommunist Electoral Revolutions', Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol.39, No.3 (2006), pp.283-304 (p.284).
9. Ibid., p.288.
10. Ibid., p.295.
11. See the discussion in M. Steven Fish, Democracy Derailed in Russia (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p.18.
12. John Dunn, 'Capitalist Democracy: Elective Affinity or Beguiling Illusion?' Daedalus, Vol.136, No.3 (2007), pp.5-13 (p.10).
13. Natalya Narochnitskaya (ed.), Oranzhevye seti: ot Belgrada do Bishkeka [Orange Networks: From Belgrade to Bishkek] (St. Petersburg: Aleteyya, 2008).
14. Active in Ukraine, for example, were Soros's Renaissance Foundation, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Freedom House, the Carnegie Foundation, the National Endowment for Democracy, the German Marshall Fund, the National Center on Nonviolent Conflict, the Project on Transnational Democracies, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy.
15. Ascot Manutscharjan, 'State of Emergency in Armenia', available at , accessed 11 Nov. 2008.
16. Other commentators have asserted that the opposition led by Levon Ter-Petrossian claimed victory even before the election took place: Vicken Cheterian, 'From Reform and Transition to "Coloured Revolutions"', Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol.25, Nos.2-3 (2009), pp. 136-60 (p.146).
17. Charles Tilly, European Revolutions 1492-1992 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), p.234.
18. Goodwin defines a revolution as any and all instances in which a state or government is overthrown by a popular movement in an extra-constitutional or violent manner: Jeff Goodwin, No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements, 1945-1991 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
19. Raymond Tanter and Manus Midlarsky, 'A Theory of Revolution', Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol.11, No.3 (1967), pp.264-80, for example, define four different types of 'revolution': mass revolution, revolutionary coup, reform coup, palace revolution (p. 265).
20. Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979), p.4.
21. Tilly, European Revolutions, p.9.
22. Radnitz points to the uneven distribution of land in Kyrgyzstan as a cause of discontent and protest: Scott Radnitz, 'What Really Happened in Kyrgyzstan?', Journal of Democracy, Vol.17, No.2 (2006), pp.132-46 (pp.142-3);
23. see also, on unemployment in Ukraine, David Lane, 'The Orange Revolution: "People's Revolution" or Revolutionary Coup?', British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Vol.10, No.4 (2008), pp.525-49.
24. Radnitz contends (in line with the reasoning of this essay) that local elites, losing candidates, their acquaintances, neighbors and extended families were the driving forces in the Kyrgyz revolution: see Radnitz, 'What Really Happened in Kyrgyzstan?', p.137.
25. OSCE: Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
26. ODIHR: Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, based in Warsaw.
27. Beissinger, 'Structure and Example', p.260.
28. See Lane, 'The Orange Revolution', for an account taken from focus groups of the motives of participants in Ukraine.
29. Radnitz, 'What Really Happened in Kyrgyzstan?', p.132.
30. Ibid., p.133.
31. Ibid., p.140.
32. Ibid., p.133.
33. Based on report by election observers, Clive Payne, 'A Visit to Kyrgyzstan', Nuffield Newsletter, Nuffield College (Oxford), 2008, No.4.
34. Laurence Broers, 'After the "Revolution": Civil Society and the Challenges of Consolidating Democracy in Georgia', Central Asian Survey, Vol.24, No.3 (2005), pp.333-50 (p.334).
35. Opposition leader Eka Beselia, quoted in Morning Star (London), 8 Nov. 2008.
36. Eka Beselia, 'Accidental Murders, Coincidence or Not?', interview, available at , accessed 19 Feb. 2009.
37. Ted Robert Gurr, Why Men Rebel (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970), Ch.1.
38. This strategy was used in the Serbian, Ukrainian, Georgian and Azerbaijan protests and illustrated in a documentary film by Tania Rakhmanova, 'The Democratic Revolutionary Handbook', France, 2006.
39. Data cited in Beissinger, 'Structure and Example', p.264.
40. My thanks here to David Stuckler for comments and suggestions on my earlier draft.
41. See estimates of the support for the Oranges in Lane, 'The Orange Revolution'.
42. Andrew Wilson, Ukraine's Orange Revolution (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2005), p.187.
43. Other writers have emphasized the role of international links, even considering the international element to be a fourth element in transformation: see M.A. Orenstein, S. Bloom and N. Lindstrom (eds.), Transnational Actors in Central and East European Transitions (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008).
44. Bunce and Wolchik, 'International Diffusion', p.266.
45. Ibid., p.291.
46. Christopher Lamont, 'Contested Sovereignty: The International Politics of Regime Change in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia', Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol.25, Nos.2-3 (2009), pp.181-98, p.190.
47. Presidency Conclusions, Lisbon European Council, 23-24 March 2000, cited in Lamont, 'Contested Sovereignty', which is also the source of the other quotations.
48. Wojciech Ostrowski, 'The Legacy of the "Coloured Revolution": The Case of Kazakhstan', Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol.25, Nos.2-3 (2009), pp.347-68.
49. See note 37.
50. See, for example, Beissinger, 'Structure and Example', pp.268-70, who calls the process 'elites learning' to limit the spread of insurgency; the crucial question is why some elites should 'learn' and seek to restrict 'revolutionary success', whereas others may copy the process.
51. On Belarus, see Vitali Silitski, 'Preempting Democracy: The Case of Belarus', Journal of Democracy, Vol.16, No.4 (2005), pp.83-97;
52. on China see Jeanne Wilson, 'Coloured Revolutions: The View From Moscow and Beijing', Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol.25, Nos.2-3 (2009), pp.369-95.
53. Elena Korosteleva, 'Was There a Quiet Revolution? Belarus After the 2006 Presidential Election', Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol.25, Nos.2-3 (2009), pp.324-46;
54. the quotation from Max Weber is cited from Ian Clark, 'Legitimacy in a Global Order', Review of International Studies, Vol.29, special issue (Dec. 2003), pp.79-95 (p.79).
55. 'How would you evaluate L. Kuchma's actions as president? 1 as lowest grade and 10 the maximum'; source: N. Panina, Ukrains'ke suspil'stvo: sotsiologichni monitoring 1992-2006 [Ukrainian Society: Sociological Monitoring 1992-2006] (Kyiv: Institut sotsiologii NAN Ukraini, 2006); data for some of the tables are available only in the edition for 2005.
56. On the clan-like nature of political power see Kathleen Collins, 'Clans, Pacts and Politics in Central Asia', Journal of Democracy, Vol.13, No.3 (2002), pp.137-52.
57. See Lane, 'The Orange Revolution'.
58. Ukrainian PORA leader speaking on the documentary, 'The Democratic Revolutionary Handbook' (see note 37).
59. See for example, the website of A-INFOSNEWSSERVICE, available at . It carried accounts of demonstrations in Murmansk in 2005 attended by 2000 participants and organized by the Party of Pensioners and the Communist Party, and also anarchists:,http://www.ainfos.ca/index24/index24-05/index.html., accessed 19 Feb. 2009.
60. Margaret Thatcher famously described Mikhail Gorbachev, a few months before his accession to power in March 1985, as a man with whom she felt she could do business.
61. This is detailed for Russia and China in Wilson, 'Coloured Revolutions: The View from Moscow and Beijing'.
62. IISEPS poll, available at , cited in Vitali Silitski, 'Preempting Democracy: The Case of Belarus', Journal of Democracy, Vol.16, No.4 (2005), pp.83-90 (p.90).