Democracy promotion before and after the ‘colour revolutions’

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes Tucker, ‘Post-Communist Colored Revolutions’, 536; see also Fairbanks, ‘Revolution Reconsidered’. Cevallos, ‘Whither the Bulldozer?’. Explicit comparisons of the influence of external actors in the various ‘colour revolutions’ are still rare, although some serious research on this has begun. For one contribution with a focus on the role of the US, see Chaulia, ‘Democratization, NGOs, and “colour revolutions”’. For an excellent discussion of the role of diffusion in these processes, see the reactions by various scholars to the July 2008 article by Lucan Way (‘The Real Causes of the Color Revolutions’) and in Journal of Democracy 20, no. 1 (2009): 69–97. See Ambrosio, ‘Insulating Russia’; Silitski, ‘Preempting Democracy’. See in particular O'Donnell and Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule. On this role see Pridham et al., Building Democracy?; Whitehead, ‘The International Dimensions of Democratization’. Michael McFaul has been perhaps most explicit about conditions which facilitate a ‘colour revolution’. He states: ‘The factors for success include (1) a semi-autocratic rather than fully autocratic regime; (2) an unpopular incumbent; (3) a united and organized opposition; (4) an ability quickly to drive home the point that voting results were falsified; (5) enough independent media to inform citizens about the falsified vote; (6) a political opposition capable of mobilizing tens of thousands or more demonstrators to protest electoral fraud; and (7) divisions among the regime's coercive forces.’ See McFaul, ‘Transitions from Postcommunism’, 7. With regard to conditions relevant to democratization, it is useful to point to the five interacting ‘arenas’ posited by Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan to be associated with democracy: the rule of law, economic society, political society, the state apparatus, and civil society. See Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition, 7–15. Burnell, ‘Democracy Assistance’, 9. See especially Carothers, Aiding Democracy Abroad. Börzel and Risse, ‘EU Policies’. Burnell, ‘Democracy Promotion’, 114. Emphasis in original. Schmitter and Brouwer, ‘Democracy Promotion and Protection’, 11. Carothers, ‘Fallacy’, 23. Diamond, ‘Advancing Democratic Governance’, 31. Carothers, ‘Fallacy’; see also Carothers, Aiding Democracy Abroad. Youngs, ‘What Has Europe Been Doing?’. Fukuyama and McFaul, ‘Should Democracy Be Promoted’, 36. Finkel et al., ‘The Effects of U.S. Foreign Assistance’. Crawford, ‘Promoting Democracy. Part I and II’. The remaining literature on evaluation processes is largely of a technical nature and takes the form of reports produced by governmental agencies and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Carothers, ‘The Backlash’; Gershman and Allen, ‘The Assault’; Silitski, ‘Preempting Democracy’. Carothers, ‘Fallacy’, 114. Ibid. Ambrosio, ‘Insulating Russia’. See e.g. Aslund and McFaul, Revolution in Orange, as well as the literature mentioned in endnotes 25–28. McFaul, ‘Transitions from Postcommunism’; Kuzio, ‘Democratic Breakthroughs’. McFaul, ‘Ukraine Imports Democracy’. Beissinger, ‘Modular Political Phenomena’; Bunce and Wolchik, ‘Electoral Revolutions’; Cheterian, ‘Georgia's Rose Revolution’. Laverty, ‘Colored Revolutions’; Tucker, ‘Post-Communist Colored Revolutions’. Way, ‘Real Causes’. Cevallos, ‘Whither the Bulldozer?’; Edmunds, ‘Continuity and Change in Serbia’; Ramet and Pavlaković, Serbia Since 1989. D'Anieri, ‘Ukrainian Politics’; Flikke, ‘Ukraine's Post-Orange Transition’; Katchanovski, ‘The Orange Evolution’; Motyl, ‘Reflections on Ukraine's Orange Revolution’. Jawad, ‘Democratic Consolidation in Georgia’; Mitchell, ‘Democracy in Georgia’.