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Abstract
Peaceful revolutions known as ‘coloured revolutions’ have overthrown the previous paradigm known as ‘transition’: rapid privatization and democratization reforms, to move post-socialist societies to a Western model of governance. In a number of post-Soviet countries, transition did not lead to the promised results. To understand this failure, the economic side of transition – mass privatization – should be contrasted with the political side – democratization and political pluralism. The coloured revolutions reflected the rehabilitation of political change after a decade of change driven by economic priorities. Yet the recent wave of revolutions, in their turn, are led under neo-liberal banners, promising more privatization, restructuring, and cutting of social spending, an ideology that seems anachronistic when set against the needs of our times.
Notes
In fact, transition in post-Soviet countries was a triple metamorphosis if one adds state- and nation-building on the list of tasks to be completed.
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The ‘shrinking’ of the state was not limited to states of the Soviet type, but was a global phenomenon starting with the US and the UK under the neo-liberal regimes of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher from the early 1980s, and a decade later in most European countries.
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From 1992 to 2002 Russia's population fell from 148.7 million to 143.6 million: see David E. Powell, ‘Death as a Way of Life: Russia's Demographic Decline’, Current History, Vol.101, No.657 (2002), pp.344–8 (p.344).
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For a study arguing for the possibility of simultaneous economic and political reforms, see Valerie Bunce, ‘Democratization and Economic Reform’, Annual Review of Political Science, Vol.4 (2001), pp.43–65.
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Only print media with limited circulation were tolerated outside the control of the central government, while electronic media with a capacity for national broadcasting were brought under state control.
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Carothers, op. cit, p.16.
Slobodan Milošević was a former Yugoslav Communist Party functionary and head of the Belgrade city party committee in 1984 and became head of the Serbia branch of the party in 1986; Eduard Shevardnadze was the minister of interior of Soviet Georgia, and later the first secretary of the Georgian Communist Party from 1972 to 1985 when he was called to Moscow as the minister of foreign affairs of the Soviet Union, before becoming the second president of independent Georgia in 1992; Leonid Kuchma was a manager at Yuzmash factory in Dnepropetrovsk in eastern Ukraine, before becoming a member of the parliament from 1990 to 1992, and nominated prime minister from 1992 to 1993; Askar Akaeyev was an academician trained as a physicist in Leningrad and Moscow, and became a senior professor at the polytechnic institute in Frunze (now Bishkek) in 1977, and head of the Kyrgyz academy of sciences in 1989, the year in which he was elected a deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union.
Andrew Wilson, Ukraine's Orange Revolution (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), pp.62-3.
See Transparency International, ‘Corruption Perception Index 2003’, available at <http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2003>, accessed 31 Jan. 2009.
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Joshua A. Tucker, ‘Enough! Electoral Fraud, Collective Action Problems, and Post-Communist Colored Revolutions’, Perspectives on Politics, Vol.5, No.3 (2007), pp.535–51 (p.536).
Author's interview with Srdja Popović, one of the founders of Otpor, Belgrade, March 2007. Otpor was active in Serbia, Kmara in Georgia, and PORA in Ukraine.
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‘Ukrainian President Announces Top-Level Dismissals’, TV 5 Kanal, BBC Monitoring Service, 8 Sept. 2005.
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V.I. Lenin, The State and Revolution (London: U Books, 1968).
Defence spending constituted a quarter of the state budget in Georgia in 2007: Civil Georgia, ‘Increased Defence Spending Priorities Outlined’, 9 Sept. 2007, available at <http://www.civilgeorgia.ge/eng/article.php?id=15760>, accessed 10 Feb. 2009.
Author's interview with Gigi Tevzadze, rector of Ilia Chavchavadze University and one of the main architects of the education reform in Georgia, Tbilisi, 15 May 2007.
Laurence Broers, ‘After the “Revolution”: Civil Society and the Challenges of Consolidating Democracy in Georgia’, Central Asian Survey, Vol.24, No.3 (2005), pp.333–50.
After the victory of the revolution, the five-cross flag of the National Movement was adopted as the new national flag of Georgia, as if to underline this unity between party and state.
M. Alkhazashvili, ‘Poverty Up in Georgia’, The Messenger, 24 April 2007.
International Crisis Group, ‘Kyrgyzstan: A Faltering State’, Asia Report, No. 109 (16 Dec. 2005), pp.4–10.
Sulkhan Molashvili, the former chairman of the state audit agency and close ally of ex-president Shevardnadze, was arrested in July 2004, accused of corruption and misappropriating three million laris. He suffered a heart attack under torture, and after treatment he was returned to jail: see ‘Court Remanded Ex-Audit Chief’, Civil Georgia, 17 July 2004.
Zaal Anjapariodze, ‘Georgian Media Mogul Forced out of Business’, Jamestown Foundation, Eurasia Daily Monitor, 14 Oct. 2004, available at <http://www.jamestown.org/programs/edm/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=27000&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=175&no_cache=1>, accessed 31 Jan. 2009; and Célia Chauffour, ‘Médias: qui tient les rênes du 4e pouvoir en Géorgie?’ [Media: Who Holds the Reins of 4th Estate in Georgia], Caucaz.com, 1 Jan. 2004, available at <http://www.caucaz.com/home/breve_contenu.php?id=29>, accessed 31 Jan. 2009; and ‘Reports: Rustavi 2 TV Changes Hands’, Civil Georgia, 20 Nov. 2006, available at <http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=14127>, accessed 31 Jan. 2009.
Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions, A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p.4.
I am grateful to Ronald Grigor Suny who in a conversation brought this distinction to my attention.
See, among others, Dankwart A. Rustow, ‘Transition to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model’, Comparative Politics, Vol.2, No.3 (1970), pp.337–63.
Mark R. Beissinger, ‘Promoting Democracy: Is Exporting Revolution a Constructive Strategy?’, Dissent Magazine, Winter 2006, pp.84–9.
Janine Zacharia, ‘U.S. Democracy Aid for Ex-Soviet States Falls Despite Bush Call’ (Washington, DC: Bloomberg), 11 May 2005, available at <http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=1000087&sid=adRHerUOowAU&ref=top_world_news>, accessed 13 April 2009.
Simon Sradzhyan and Carl Schreck, ‘FSB Chief: NGOs a Cover for Spying’, Moscow Times, 13 May 2005.
Reporters Without Borders, ‘Number of Journalists Seeking Asylum at Embassies in Baku Increases to 24’, 13 June 2007, available at <http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=22331>, accessed 31 Jan. 2009.
For a discussion on recent theories of revolution, see Jack A. Goldstone, ‘Toward A Fourth Generation of Revolutionary Theory’, Annual Review of Political Science, Vol.4 (2001), pp.139–87.