The Colour Revolutions in the Post-Soviet Space: Illusion and Reality of the Post-Soviet Civil Disobedience (original) (raw)
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COLOR REVOLUTIONS IN THE POST-SOVIET SPACE: THE CASE OF GEORGIA
The objective of this thesis is to explain the dynamics bringing about the removal of the Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze from power through the ‘Rose Revolution’. Relying on an historical sociological approach, contrary to the society-centered and the state-centered studies in the literature on the ‘Rose Revolution’, this thesis argues that the coercive, administrative, extractive, distributive and regulative incapacitation of the Georgian state, which resulted in the loss of state autonomy vis-à-vis domestic and external political actors before the ‘Rose Revolution’, led to the removal of Shevardnadze. In fact, the society- centered studies, which exclusively focus exclusively on the political opposition, the NGOs and the mass media, fail to explain the dynamics of the ‘Rose Revolution’ since they neglect the role of the state. Likewise, the state-centered studies’ exclusive focus on the coercive aspect of the Georgian state capacity resulted in the insufficient explanation of the ‘Rose Revolution’ since they neglect other aspects of state capacity such as administrative, extractive, distributive and regulative. The thesis consists of six main chapters, introduction and conclusion. Chapter 2 develops the theoretical framework of the study. Chapter 3 explores the historical background. Chapter 4 examines the process leading up to the ‘Rose Revolution’. Chapter 5 and 6 analyze the ‘Rose Revolution’ and its aftermath. Before the concluding chapter, Chapter 7 compares the Georgian case with the other seven post-Soviet cases.
"In the past decade, we have witnessed an increasing capacity of political oppositions in post-socialist spaces to get people mobilised, interact with civil society movements and challenge a regime. Those events, labelled “colour revolutions” have affected the geopolitical order of the world by destabilising regimes in un-free countries of Eastern Europe, the former USSR and beyond. Starting from a framework elaborated in past years, according to which the output of a social and political movement in the former USSR depends on the combination of five factors (elites, opposition, external forces, civil society and people) this article analyses the importance of external influences to the success of what has been called a “colour revolution.” Drawing from the Rose Revolution in Georgia and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, it discusses the appropriateness of the term “colour revolution,” its social and political significance and spells out the possible ways external influences can impact on socio-political events in a country where a colour revolution is attempted. "
The Colour Revolutions in the Former Soviet Republics: Successes and Failures
"This book examines the significance of the colour revolution regime-change process – popular shorthand for non-violent protests that overthrew post-communist authoritarian regimes – the Georgian Rose Revolution (2003), the Ukrainian Orange Revolution (2004) and the Kyrgyzstani Tulip Revolution (2005) being the most dramatic examples. It covers the former Soviet republics comprehensively, including republics such as Russia where colour revolutions did not occur, despite apparently favourable conditions, and considers why some post-Soviet countries underwent a colour revolution and others not. Identifying the conditions for successful colour revolutions, it asks whether there is a revolutionary blueprint that has been exported and continues to be transferred to areas of the world under autocratic rule. The book examines the ideologies of the post-Soviet ruling regimes, showing how political elites integrated nationalism, populism and authoritarianism into political debates; analyzes anti-regime opposition movements, discussing the factors which led to the rise of such movements and outlining how the opposition movements were constituted and how they operated; and assesses the impact of external forces including the US, the EU and Russia. It evaluates the colour revolution phenomenon in its entirety, pointing out common features between different countries. "
Rose, Orange, and Tulip: The failed post-Soviet revolutions
Communist and Post-communist Studies, 2007
In 2003e2005, 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.
Roses and Tulips: Dynamics of Regime Change in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan
Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, 2009
The regime changes in Georgia (2003) and Kyrgyzstan (2005) that resulted in the overthrow of Presidents Shevardnadze and Akaev are widely considered to be part of a common phenomenon of ‘coloured revolution’ in the post-Soviet space. A key factor was the rise of successful opposition movements that dislodged the ruling regimes. However, in contrast with the widespread notion that opposition unity was a prerequisite for the overthrow of the presidents, opposition parties found it too difficult to coordinate their actions and their leaders could not agree how best to challenge the election results. Neither was it the case that the Rose and Tulip revolutions were orchestrated by Western agencies seeking to induce a change of government so as to further US interests in the region. Such analyses exaggerate the influence of foreign actors in the Rose and Tulip revolutions, and over-estimate the unity of purpose among the main opposition parties.
In 2003, after the Georgian President Eduard Shevarnadze tried to legitimize electoral fraud in order to prolong his power, a united opposition movement headed by the young lawyer Mikheil Saakashvili initiated public protests against the corrupt regime and removed the old political elite from power. Saakashvili supporters, representatives of the civil society and opposition parties, flooded central squares of the Georgian capital bringing hundreds of roses. Those flowers were just the first signs of serious changes that were to come in the post-Soviet space. One year later, in November 2004, thousands of Ukrainian citizens, wearing headscarves and bandages of orange color and freezing for several weeks in the tents at the central Independence square of Kiev, actually asserted the right to choose their president. Both explosions of public protests brought to power new democratic leaderships that assumed office soon after that. Thousands of people present at the inauguration of both Presidents could not check their tears. Later on, in late March 2005 the leaders of the organized public protests in the capital of the formerly Soviet Republic of Kyrgyzstan seized power ousting from the office President Akayev with little resistance from his side. The analysis of the repercussions of these internal developments for the regional system of international relations should be started from the definition of the major factors and processes, which shaped the post-soviet space architecture in the past decade. The first among these is the process of state and nation-building in the Newly Independent States. New political elites in the former Soviet states had a certain vision of their state-projects which, as a rule, harbored Euro-Atlantic aspirations and, in fact, removed relations with Russia as well cooperation in the post-Soviet space from the list of priorities in their foreign policy agendas. Second, these aspirations, along with the changes in Europe and its periphery, resulted in the involvement of outside players in the post-soviet region - US, NATO, EU and the Western European states, and, some regional actors, i.e. Turkey, China, Poland, etc. The third actor in the post-Soviet space remains Russia, which was considerably irritated by the emergence by the aforementioned (f)actors in its Near Abroad, since Moscow had its own quite different vision for the development of this space. However, despite those three (f)actors worked in diametrically opposite directions and their relations were rather frequently complicated, this interaction did not produce serious tensions in the formerly Soviet space, which could shake the regional system of international relations. As a result, 14 years after the collapse of the USSR, the regional international system still could not find its stable equilibrium. It rather found itself in the situation of unstable equilibrium which could not last for ever.
In this article, we have chosen to concentrate on three case studies, Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, to illustrate the way different political environments led to similar results. By this choice we do not intend to deny the importance of “failed revolutions” to the understanding of the phenomenon; however, we believe that a major contribution can be made to the debate given the amount of primary material we have collected in these three countries. Both authors have worked for the Soros funded Civic Education Project as Fellows in Georgia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan ( Ó Beacháin ) and Ukraine ( Polese ) and overall have spent more than half a dozen years living in the region. This has enabled them to witness some revolutions, gain an understanding of foreign NGOs working in the region, and meet with key actors at all levels of society. As a result this article is based, apart from an analysis of secondary sources and media monitoring, on participant observation and interviews both with key actors and “ordinary people”. Given the typology of the material in our possession we think it is valuable to debate, in the course of this article, the importance of external factors in the three chosen cases to provide material for a better conceptualisation of the phenomenon.
The Problem of Lasting Change: Civil Society and the Colored Revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine
Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-soviet Democratization, 2008
Civil society played a vital role in the colored revolutions of Georgia and Ukraine, exemplified by the activism of the youth groups Kmara and Pora. As democratic reform has stalled, however, these groups have found themselves increasingly marginalized because of the reemergence of authoritarian practices and elites. Only the renewed inclusion of civil society can restore the democratization process.