Debating the Color Revolutions: Getting Real About “Real Causes”

Way is correct that structural factors make competitive regimes more or less vulnerable, but he ignores the durability of even very weak regimes. In the color revolutions, defeat occurred because of the formation of a united opposition; collaboration among oppositions, civil society groups and international democracy promoters; ambitious campaigns to win public support, register new voters, and get out the vote; and widespread use of vote monitors. Thanks to such innovations, voters selected the opposition rather than staying home or supporting the regime, and very close elections in Ukraine, Serbia and Slovakia tilted in the favor of the opposition.

Structure agency, and process all are critical in explaining the uneven pattern of electoral change in postcommunist Europe and Eurasia.