The color revolution virus and authoritarian antidotes: Political protest and regime counterattacks in post-communist spaces

Demokratizatsiya

Volumn 19, Issue 2, 2011, Pages 111-132

  Polese, Abel ^a   Beacháin, Donnacha O ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH   (United Kingdom)

^b DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY   (Ireland)

Author keywords

authoritarian regimes; color revolutions; democratization; former Soviet spaces; social movements

Indexed keywords

AUTHORITARIANISM; DEMOCRATIZATION; ELECTION; POLITICAL RELATIONS; POPULAR PROTEST; SOCIAL MOVEMENT;

EID: 79958735618     PISSN: 10746846     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3200/DEMO.19.2.111-132     Document Type: Article

References (103)

1. Etienne de la Boetie, Discours de la servitude volontaire, Paris: Mille et une nuits ([1548], 1997).
2. Abel Polese, "The Future is Orange", Transitions Online, November 2004.
3. Donnacha O'Beacháin and Abel Polese, "From Roses to Bullets: The Rise and Decline of the Color Revolution Phenomenon in the Post-Soviet Space", in Uwe Backes, Tytus Jaskulowski, and Abel Polese (eds.), Totalitarismus und Transformation - Defizite der Demokratiekonsolidierung in Mittel-und Osteuropa (Gottingen: V&R, 2009):63-100.
4. Karl Griewank, der neuzeitliche Revolutionbegriff (Frankfurt, Suhrkamp: (1955) [1973]);
5. and James Rule, Theories of Civil Violence (Berkley: University of California Press, 1988).
6. Michael McFaul, "Ukraine Imports Democracy: External Influences on the Orange Revolution", International Security 32, no. 2, (2007):45-83
7. Valerie Bunce and Sharon L. Wolchik, "Favorable Conditions and Electoral Revolutions", Journal of Democracy 17, no. 4, (2006):5-18; (Pubitemid 44747065)
8. although "electoral revolution" was also used by Vladimir Tismaneanu, "Electoral Revolutions", Society 35, no. 1(1997):61-65
9. In this respect, we look forward to see if the recent events in the Middle East and North Africa will call for a new definition, given that no visual color terms have been used.
10. Donnacha O'Beacháin and Abel Polese, "Introduction: What's in a Color?", in O'Beacháin and Polese (eds), The Color Revolutions in the Former Soviet Republics: Successes and Failures (London: Routledge, 2010).
11. Bunce and Wolchik. "Transnational networks, diffusion dynamics, and electoral revolutions in the post-Communist world", Physica A 378, no. 1(2007):92-99;
12. for a definition of political opportunities see Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movements (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998)
13. Celeste Wallander, "Ukraine's Election: The Role of One International NGO", CISI Report, March 2005, available at http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/0503-ukraine-en.pdf (accessed March 20, 2011).
14. A common matrix is visible since they seem all to use nonviolent methods classified by Gene Sharp. Evidence can be the fact that Sharp's book From Dictatorship to Democracy has been translated in Burmese and Chin, Arabic and two dozen of other languages. Also, some PORA activists declared they were training opposition leaders outside of the CIS region, see Polese, "Ukraine 2004: Informal Networks, Transformation of Social Capital and Colored Revolutions", Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 24, no. 2-3 (June 2009).
15. Anders Aslund, Michael McFaul (eds.), Revolution in Orange: The Origins of Ukraine's Democratic Breakthrough (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006);
16. Bunce and Wolchik, op. cit. 2007;
17. Paul D'Anieri, "The Last Hurrah: the 2004 Elections and the Limits of Machine Politics", Communist and Post-Communist Studies 38, no. 2, (2005):231-249; (Pubitemid 40771419)
18. Taras Kuzio, "Ukraine's Orange Revolution. The Opposition's Road to Success", Journal of Democracy 16, no. 2, (2005):117-130; (Pubitemid 40652855)
19. Ecaterina McDonagh, "Is Democracy Promotion Effective in Moldova? The Impact of European Institutions on Development of Civil and Political Rights in Moldova, Democratization 15, no. 1(2008):142-161;
20. McFaul, 2007, op. cit.;
21. and Andrew Wilson, Ukraine's Orange Revolution, (Yale University Press, 2006).
22. For limits see O'Beacháin and Polese, "American Boots and Russian Vodka: The Importance of External Factors in Color Revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan", Totalitarismus Und Demokratie 5, no. 1(2008):87-113.
23. Thomas Carothers, In the Name of Democracy: US Policy Toward Latin America in the Reagan Years (Berkley, CA: University of California Press, 1991);
24. Jeroen de Zeeuw and Krishna Kumar, Promoting Democracy in Postconflict Societies (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2006)
25. Bunce and Wolchik, "Defeating Dictators: Electoral Change and Stability in Competitive Authoritarian Regimes", World Politics 62, no. 1(2010):43-86;
26. D'Anieri 2005, op. cit.; Kuzio 2005, op. cit.;
27. and Stephen White, "Is there a Pattern?", Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 25, no. 2, (2009):396-412.
28. Joerg Forbig and Pavol Demes (eds), Reclaiming Democracy (Washington, D. C.: German Marshall Fund, 2007);
29. Olena Nikolayenko, "The Revolt of the Post-Soviet Generation: Youth Movements in Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine." Comparative Politics 39, no. 2, (2006):169-188;
30. Joshua Tucker, "Enough! Electoral Fraud, Collective Action Problems, and Post-Communist colored Revolutions", Perspectives on Politics 5, no. 3, (2007):537-553;
31. Polese 2009, op. cit.; Simon Tordjman, "Surfing the Wave: Civil Society Development and Colored Revolutions", Totalitarismus und Demokratie 5, no. 1, (2008):43-66;
32. Tarrow 2005, op. cit.; Florian Bieber, "The Serbian Opposition and Civil Society: Roots of the Delayed Transition in Serbia", International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society 17, no. 1, (2003):73-90;
33. Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom, Foreign Funding, Foreign Assistance and NGO Funding in Russia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006).
34. Kuzio 2005, op. cit.;
35. and Tucker 2007, op. cit.
36. David Lane, "Colored Revolutions' as a Political Phenomena", Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 25, no. 2, (2009):113-135.
37. Lucan Way, "The Real Causes of the Color Revolutions", Journal of Democracy 19, no. 3(2008):259-276;
38. Steve Levitsky and Lucan Way, Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
39. O'Beacháin and Polese 2010, op. cit.
40. Kurt Weyland, "The Diffusion of Revolution: '1848' in Europe and Latin America", International Organization 63(2009):391-423.
41. Mark Beissinger, "Structure and Example in Modular Political Phenomena: The Diffusion of Bulldozer/Rose/Orange/Tulip Revolutions", Perspective on Politics 5, no. 1(2007):249-264;
42. Paul Manning, "Rose-Colored Glasses? Color Revolutions and Cartoon Chaos in Postsocialist Georgia", Cultural Anthropology 22, no. 2(2007):171-213;
43. Andres Schipani-Adúriz, "Banana Revolutions and Banana Skins", Transitions Online 7, September 2005;
44. and Schipani-Adúriz, "Through an Orange-Colored Lens: Western Media, Constructed Imagery, and Color Revolutions", Demokratizatsiya 15, no. 1(2007):87-115. (Pubitemid 46851970)
45. Bunce and Wolchik 2010, op. cit.: 77.
46. Anthony Giddens, Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and Contradiction in Social Analysis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979).
47. Margaret Archer, Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1995):65.
48. Passive support here refer to Sharp's (1993) definition. A when citizens are unhappy with a decision or a regime but do not openly oppose them they are de facto accepting it
49. Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy (Boston: Albert Einstein Institute, 1993).
50. O'Beacháin and Polese 2010, op. cit.
51. Mark Thompson, Democratic Revolutions (London: Routledge, 2003);
52. and Peter Ackerman, and Jack DuVall, A Force More Powerful (New York: Palgrave MacMillian, 2001).
53. Martin Butora, M, "OK'98 A Campaign of Slovak NGOs for Free and Fair Elections", in Pavel Demes and Forbig Joerg (eds), Reclaiming Democracy (Washington, DC: German Marshall Fund, 2007):21-52.
54. Michael Dobbs, "U. S. Advice Guided Miloševic Opposition: Political Consultants Helped Yugoslav Opposition Topple Authoritarian Leader", The Washington Post, December 11, 2000;
55. and Robert Cohen, "Who Really Brought Down Miloševic?", New York Times Magazine, November 26, 2000, available at http://www.nytimes.com/ library/magazine/home/20001126mag-serbia.html (accessed March 20, 2011).
56. Srdja Popovic, "An Analytical Overview of the Application of Gene Sharp's Theory of Nonviolent Action in Miloševic's Serbia", January 31, 2001, available at http://nonviolentaction. net/?p=70 (accessed March 20, 2011).
57. Thompson 2003, op. cit.
58. Slobodan Homen, a student leader who travelled several European capitals, including Budapest to meet US officials and democracy consultants, cited in Dobbs.
59. Marlene Spoerri, "Uniting the opposition in the run-up to the electoral revolution: Lessons from Serbia 1990-2000", Totalitarismus und Demokratie 5, no. 1(2008), 67-86, here 81.
60. The Washington Post, November 25, 2003, A22.
61. V. Yaroshevsky, "Why the Russian Authorities Failed in Ukraine, an Interview with Olga Kryshtanovskaya", Novaya Gazeta, December 9, 2004.
62. Eduard Shevardnadze, interview with Donnacha O'Beacháin, Tbilisi, October 24, 2008.
63. O'Beacháin and Polese 2008, op cit., 95-97.
64. Mark Beissinger, "Structure and Example in Modular Political Phenomena: The Diffusion of Bulldozer/Rose/Orange/Tulip Revolutions", Perspectives on Politics 5, no. 1(2007):249-264.
65. Rina Prijivoit (then chief political editor of MSN), interview with Donnacha O'Beacháin, March 10, 2005 and Zamira Sydikova (then editor-in-chief of Respublika newspaper, now Kyrgyzstan Ambassador to the United States and Canada), interview with Donnacha O'Beacháin, March 11, 2005.
66. Edil Baisalov (then head of the Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society), interview with Donnacha O'Beacháin, Bishkek, March 12, 2005.
67. Alisher Khamidov, "Kyrgyzstan's Revolutionary Youth: Between State and Opposition", SAIS Review 26, no. 2, (2006):85-93.
68. Burul Usmanalieva, interview with Donnacha O'Beacháin, Bishkek, March 9, 2005.
69. Mirsuljan Namazaliev (leader of Birge), interview with Donnacha O'Beacháin, Bishkek, May 30, 2008.
70. David Lewis, The Temptations of Tyranny in Central Asia (London: Hurst, 2008).
71. International Crisis Group, Kyrgyzstan: After the Revolution (Bishkek and Brussels: ICG, 2005)
72. and International Crisis Group, Kyrgyzstan: A Faltering State, (Bishkek and Brussels, ICG, 2005).
73. This section is benefits from many interviews conducted in Kyrgyzstan by Donnacha O'Beacháin in September and October 2010, in particular those conducted with Edil Baisalov, who was appointed presidential chief of staff by interim president Roza Otunbayeva and with Kyrgyzstani academics Shairbek Juraev, Emir Kulov, Bermet Tursunkulova, Azamat Temirkulov and Burul Usmanalieva.
74. In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852), Karl Marx wrote that "Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce"
75. We are not suggesting here that what occurred in Kyrgyzstan in 2010 constitutes a color revolution. For one thing, the uprising did not occur in the context of national elections.
76. Foreign Ministry of Tajikistan Information Chief, Igor Sattarov quoted in Kathy Gannon, "Islamists See Opening in Central Asia Chaos", Associated Press, March 24, 2005.
77. Robert Legvold, "US pundit speculates "rose revolution' unlikely in Central Asia", BBC Monitoring, March 14, 2005.
78. Donnacha O'Beacháin, in conversation with Soros Foundation employees, Almaty, January 2005.
79. One of the authors, Donnacha O'Beacháin, was given a diplomatic card by the Uzbek authorities simply for being indirectly employed by the Soros Foundation in Tashkent. These cards were summarily withdrawn in 2004.
80. Press Service of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, "Islam Karimov Excludes Possibility of 'Color' Revolution", available at http://2004.press-service.uz/eng/rechi-eng/rechi-eng32. htm (accessed March 20, 2011).
81. Unlike Nazarbayev, Karimov and Niyazov, Rakhmon in Tajikistan had not reached the position of General Secretary of his country's branch of the Communist party but instead was a staunch party member who had attained the rank of collective farm director.
82. Press Service of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, "Islam Karimov Excludes Possibility of 'Color' Revolution", available at http://2004.press-service.uz/eng/rechi-eng/rechi-eng32. htm (accessed March 20, 2011).
83. Rick Fawn, "Battle over the box: international election observation missions, political competition and retrenchment in the post-Soviet space", International Affairs 82, no. 6(2007):1133-1153.
84. O'Beacháin, "The Necessary Lie: Political Parties and Elections in Central Asia", in David Louis Dasseault (ed.), The Commonwealth of Independent States: Form and Substance (Helsinki: Kikimora/Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki, 2007) 269-298.
85. O'Beacháin, "Parliamentary Elections in Kazakhstan, September and October 2004", Electoral Studies 24, no. 4, (2005):762-769;
86. Rico Isaacs, "The Parliamentary Election in Kazakhstan, August 2007", Electoral Studies 27, no. 3, (2008):381-385.
87. Six members were nominated by the president and six by the presidentially controlled upper house of parliament.
88. OSCE-ODIHR, "International Observer Mission: Presidential Elections, Republic of Belarus-19 March 2006", available at http://www.osce.org/ documents/html/pdftohtml/18437-en.pdf-s.html, (accessed March 20, 2011).
89. Ostensibly the NGO was shut down for not paying taxes on an EU grant, which legally should have been exempt from taxation.
90. UNHCR, "Human Rights Watch World Report 2006 - Belarus" (2006), available at http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/publisher,HRW,BLR,43cfae (accessed March 20, 2011).
91. Alyaksandr Kazulin, interview with Donnacha O'Beacháin, August 2009.
92. Vincuk Viacorka, interview with Donnacha O'Beacháin, August 2009.
93. Pontis Foundation, "Belarus Brief", March 19, 2006, available at http://www.nadaciapontis.sk/tmp/asset-cache/link/0000014871/Belarus-Brief- Sunday-March-19-2006.pdf (accessed March 20, 2011).
94. Zmister Dashkevich, interview with Donnacha O'Beacháin, August 2009.
95. Alyaksandr Milinkievic, interview with Donnacha O'Beacháin, August 2009.
96. One of the authors (Donnacha O'Beacháin) was present in Belarus for the election campaign, and witnessed the post-election demonstration and sequence of events that led to the mass arrests. The author also attended the OSCE's post-election press conference.
97. "Belarus closes down OSCE office after poll criticisms", BBC News, December 31, 2010, available at www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12100765 (accessed March 20, 2011).
98. The name of one of the more visible movements, MAGAM, was Azeri for "it's time", the same term used by PORA in Ukraine. See Eurasia Insight (2005b);
99. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (2005a);
100. BBC (2006);
101. and Levan Ramishvili, interview with Donnacha O'Beacháin, Tbilisi, January 24, 2008.
102. "Rose, Orange Revolutions' Protagonists Against 'Color Revolution' in Azerbaijan", Eurasia Daily Monitor, November 1, 2005.
103. "Ukrainian Authorities Release Azerbaijani Oppositionist", Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, October 20, 2005.