The Color Revolutions

Chapter 9. The End of an Era

C H A P T E R 9 The End of an Era T he Color Revolutions have receded into the past. They are no longer an important political factor in the former Soviet Union, nor have they precipitated, or are likely to precipitate, meaningful democratic advances. However, for a few brief years, they were important not only throughout the former Soviet Union, but beyond. Democratic activists throughout the region, as well as in countries like Lebanon or Iran, were inspired by the events of 2003–2005 in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan. Every time an election was stolen somewhere leading to public demonstrations, talk of Color Revolution heated up. None ever happened after 2005, but the Cedar, Twitter, and Green Revolutions were viewed as possibilities in Lebanon, Moldova , and Iran. However, when authoritarian and semi-authoritarian regimes fell in North Africa in 2011, it was the fall of Communism in 1989–1991, not the Color Revolutions, to which most comparisons were made. Equally significant, authoritarian and semi-authoritarian leaders, not only from Minsk to Almaty, but from Teheran to Beijing and Addis Ababa to Caracas, took steps to make sure Color Revolutions would not happen in their countries. Long after the last successful Color Revolution occurred, the fear persisted. There seems to be something of a contradiction here. If Color Revolutions had such a relatively minor effect on democracy and political development, why did they persist as a model, and as a perceived threat? One reason is that although Color Revolutions proved to have little to do with democracy , they clearly were effective means of ousting nondemocratic leaders , even if, as in the Kyrgyz case, that meant replacing them with equally authoritarian leaders. Thus, while Color Revolutions had little democratic effect, this should not be interpreted to mean they also had little effect on domestic political arrangements in the countries in which they occurred. 188 Chapter 9 Did the Color Revolutions Happen? It is easy, at least in the case of Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, to dismiss the notion that Color Revolutions were democratic breakthroughs. Even in Ukraine, where democracy moved forward between late 2004 and 2010, it occurred in a way that was more incremental than revolutionary. Color Revolutions cannot be unambiguously described as lost opportunities either. A third conclusion might be that with the benefit of a few years perspective, it turns out that the Color Revolutions were not opportunities for democratic breakthroughs at all, and that, in general, they were not as important as thought of at the time. One way to approach this question is to ask whether the change between Shevardnadze’s and Saakashvili’s Georgia, Akaev and Bakiev’s Kyrgyzstan, and Kuchma’s and Yushchenko’s Ukraine was more or less than what might be seen in a typical political transition in a western democracy such as the U.S., UK, or France. This is a useful approach because it recognizes that even in stable regimes there is some degree of change. As mentioned in the introduction , there are some transitions of power in Western democracies that led to greater policy changes than the Color Revolutions did. The election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932, Ronald Reagan’s victory in 1980, or the victory by the Conservatives that Margaret Thatcher headed in the UK in 1979 all created changes in their respective countries that led to more significant policy outcomes than those that occurred after the Color Revolutions. However , many Western elections, even when an incumbent party loses, bring only minor change. Kennedy and the Democrats taking over after Eisenhower and the Republicans in 1960 or Carter’s victory over Ford in 1976 are examples of such elections in the U.S. The Color Revolutions may be most appropriately seen as having had the impact on their respective countries of a moderately strong electoral change in a western country. The tendency to focus on change and the impact of specific events is certainly understandable, particularly given the excitement, imagery, and spin surrounding the Color Revolutions. However, it is clear now that the Color Revolutions were as much a story about continuity and the difficulty of making meaningful enduring political change as they were about change itself. A central lesson of the Color Revolutions, particularly the Orange and Rose Revolutions, where generational change was a large part of the transition, is that political habits, styles, and even regimes that are residues of the Soviet period are indeed very difficult to change. Saakashvili, Zhvania, and to a lesser...