Color revolutions: The Belarus case

This paper focuses on the 2006 presidential elections in Belarus and offers several explanations for the lack of regime change. It posits that the answers lie in the official interpretations of the historical past, the personal popularity of the president—acquired partly through his firm control over the media and persecution of his enemies—and the electorate's focus on economic rather than political issues or emphasis on democratic values. It notes also the importance of Russia as a player in Belarus, and Russia's ambivalent attitude toward the continuing dictatorship in Minsk.     

International diffusion and postcommunist electoral revolutions

Over the past decade, a number of elections in postcommunist regimes perched between democracy and dictatorship have led to the triumph of liberal oppositions over illiberal incumbents or their anointed successors. The international diffusion of these electoral revolutions reflects the interaction among five factors: the long term development of civil society, expanded opportunities for democratic political change, the rise of collaborative networks among international democracy promoters, regional exporters of democracy and local oppositions, and, finally, careful application of an electoral approach to regime transition. The cross-national diffusion of the electoral model in this region, however, may have run its course, largely because of less supportive local and international conditions.     

Rose,Orange, and Tulip: The failed post-Soviet revolutions

In 2003–2005, democratic revolutions overthrew the Georgian, Ukrainian, and Kyrgyz post-Soviet authoritarian regimes. However, disillusioned citizens witness today their new leaders creating a Bonapartist regime, entering into open conflict with former revolutionary allies or being forced to accept cohabitation with leaders of the previous regime. This article argues that despite internationally acclaimed civic mobilisation, civil society's weakness seriously affected the three revolutionary processes. These were in fact initiated, led, controlled, and finally subordinated by former members of the authoritarian regimes’ political elite. Finally, the supposedly democratic revolutions proved to be little more than a limited rotation of ruling elites within undemocratic political systems.     

Explaining the success and failure of post-communist revolutions

Since 1999, the post-Communist states have seen a series of attempts to overthrow semi-authoritarian governments, with the successful attempts known as the “colored revolutions.” However, not all such attempts have succeeded. This paper seeks to explain the variation in outcomes. Most accounts have focused on the development of grass-roots activist movements. The central argument here is that elites, and in particular security services, play a much more significant role in these revolutions than has generally been appreciated. This hypothesis is elaborated through a threshold model of protest, in which the central question is whether protests achieve a “tipping point” that makes them continue to grow larger until success is inevitable. The actions of elites, it is argued, play a decisive role in whether mass protests reach a tipping point. The argument is examined through a paired comparison of two failed attempts to overthrow governments through street protests (Serbia 1996–1997 and Ukraine 2001) with two successful cases (Serbia 1999 and Ukraine 2004). By studying cases with variation on the dependent variable, this paper seeks to improve the empirical and methodological basis of research on post-communist revolutions.     

Civil society,youth and societal mobilization in democratic revolutions

Youth have played an important role in mobilizing support for democratic revolutions during elections that have facilitated regime change. In Serbia (2000), Georgia (2003) and Ukraine (2004) youth led the way in organizing democratic coalitions among hitherto warring opposition parties that the authorities had successfully divided and ruled over. In the three countries used as case studies, youth dominated civil society and election monitoring NGOs. The article outlines a five fold framework and discusses the issues that help understand the role of youth in democratic revolutions as well as those essential conditions that lead to success. Regime change only proved successful during certain time period, in our case electoral revolutions when the authorities were at their weakest. Organization of youth groups led to the creation of Otpor (Serbia), Kmara (Georgia) and Pora (Ukraine) and provided the youth movements with structure and purpose. The training of these organized youth NGOs became a third important condition for success and often was undertaken with Western technical and financial assistance. The choice of strategies to be employed during elections was an important fourth feature. In the three country case studies, discussed in this article, the response of the authorities proved to be ineffective, weak and counter-productive.     

Democracy or autocracy on the march? The colored revolutions as normal dynamics of patronal presidentialism

What impact have Eurasia's 2003–2005 “colored revolutions” had on the state of democracy and autocracy in the region? The logic of patronal presidentialism, a set of institutions common to post-Soviet countries, suggests that the revolutions are at root succession struggles more than democratic breakthroughs generated by civic activists and foreign democratizing activity. This helps explain why Georgia is experiencing a new retreat from ideal-type democracy while only Ukraine, whose revolution weakened the patronal presidency, has sustained high political contestation after its revolution. This means that autocratic leaders clamping down on non-governmental organizations, free media, and their foreign supporters may have learned the wrong lessons, perhaps making their countries more susceptible to violent revolution than they were before.     

Marx’s critical political economy, ‘Marxist economics’ and actually occurring revolutions against capitalism

Abstract

Most revolutions against capitalism have occurred in ‘backward’ and Third World societies, and they have divided and disarrayed Marxisms in the West. One key reason, this paper argues, is intellectual. When, long ago, Marxists surrendered to the bourgeois challenge to Marx – neoclassical economics – developing, in place of Marx’s critical political economy, a ‘Marxist economics’, they lost touch with Marx’s analysis of capitalism as contradictory value production. That analysis could illuminate how capitalism’s contradictions drive its imperialist expansionism and how and why resistance to it must, equally necessarily, take national forms. As a result, major currents of Marxism in the West either have paid attention to imperialism and anti-imperialist resistance but without Marx’s analysis of capitalism as contradictory value production or have insisted that their (mistaken) conception of Marx’s analysis implies that capitalism has no necessary connection with imperialism. Neither tradition can actually develop Marxism to comprehend the actual historical record of revolutions since Marx’s time. Neither can inform new mobilisations against capitalism, whether in or outside its homelands. It is high time we return to Marx’s analysis of capitalism as value production and develop it.     

Disabling dissent: the colour revolutions,autocratic linkages,and civil society regulations in hybrid regimes

State elites in hybrid regimes have increasingly sought to manipulate the legal regulation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as part of the growing backlash against democracy assistance in nondemocratic countries around the world. Sophisticated laws detailing burdensome NGO registration procedures and complex regulations enabling invasive government oversight of NGOs represent upgraded forms of civic curtailment and democracy resistance. This paper analyses these significant developments in a systematic, cross-national fashion over time by constructing a new dataset of NGO legal barriers in hybrid regimes from 1995 to 2013. It demonstrates that the expansion of repressive NGO regulations are shaped by international factors, particularly autocratic linkages, in the form of trade or defence pacts with Russia and China, as well as authoritarian learning from the colour revolutions. It thus contributes to debates on autocracy promotion and authoritarian resurgence by moving beyond the regime level to focus on the sub-regime dimension of freedom of association.     

“Red legs”: Class and color contradictions in Barbados

In the colonies the economic substructure is also a superstructure. The cause is the consequence; you are rich because you are white, you are white because you are rich [Fanon, 1966]. We must recognize that ever since emancipation Negroes have occupied the lowest positions of any biological group in the societies of the British Caribbean; and although there is no clearly drawn race or caste line in these areas, prominence and prestige, wealth and power, have historically been distributed in terms of light pigmentation. [Smith, 1960].     

“Survival of the fittest:” Domestic and international dimensions of the authoritarian reaction in the former Soviet Union following the colored revolutions

This article examines the internal and external reactions by post-Soviet autocrats to the colored revolutions. First, the colored revolutions provoked incumbents in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and other post-Soviet countries to strengthen domestic efforts to preempt opposition challenges. Preemptive measures included restrictions on independent civil society, disruptions of independent electoral monitoring, promotion of pro-government civil society groups, and assaults on opposition and democracy assistance. Such actions, together with already existing endowments, allowed these regimes to survive. Next, the colored revolutions stimulated increased coordination among non-democratic states to squash opposition. Measures included counter-monitoring of elections to offset Western claims of fraud, and increased efforts at military and economic cooperation such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Simultaneously, Russia sought to destabilize Georgia and Ukraine through economic and, in Georgia, military pressure. This authoritarian backlash following the colored revolutions buttressed the surviving autocracies, which prospects for democratization have become even more bleak and distant.