Rethinking the Coloured Revolutions
The communist world was supposed to have had its revolution in 1989. But the demise of the Soviet Union came two years later, at the end of 1991; and then, perplexingly, a series of irregular executive changes began to take place the following decade in countries that were already postcommunist. The focus in this collection is the changes that took place in Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan between 2000 and 2005 that have together been called the coloured revolutions: of no particular colour in Serbia, but Rose in Georgia, Orange in Ukraine and Tulip in Kyrgyzstan.
Apart from exploring political change in the coloured revolution countries themselves, the contributors to this collection focus on countries that did not experience this kind of irregular executive change but which might otherwise be comparable (Belarus and Kazakhstan among them), and on reactions to democracy promotion in Russia and China. Throughout, an effort is made to avoid taking the coloured revolutions at face value, however they may have been presented by local leaders and foreign governments with their own agendas; and to place them within the wider literature of comparative politics.
This book was previously published as a special issue of Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics.
David Lane is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
Stephen White is a Professor at the Department of Politics, University of Glasgow, UK.
First published 2010
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This book is a reproduction of the Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, vol. 25, issues 2-3. The Publisher requests to those authors who may be citing this book to state, also, the bibliographical details of the special issue on which the book was based.
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ISBN13: 978-0-415-81479-9
Vicken Cheterian is a Geneva-based researcher, director of programmes at the research organization CIMERA. His research interests are conflicts, peace-building, nationalism, transition and democratization, and environment and security. His latest book is War and Peace in the Caucasus, Russias Troubled Frontier (2008). The author would like to thank Andre Liebich for valuable comments on an earlier version of this essay.
David J. Galbreath is a senior lecturer at the University of Aberdeen in the Department of Politics and International Relations. He is the author of two books dealing with the OSCE, including Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (2007). His current research project is funded by the Leverhulme Trust and focuses on the relationship between the EU, OSCE, and Council of Europe since the end of the Cold War in relation to minority rights protection in Central and Eastern Europe.
John Heathershaw is Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Exeter. He has a PhD from the LSE and has previously held teaching and research posts at the University of Notre Dame, the American University in Central Asia, and Kings College, London. He spent most of the period 20015 living and working in Kyrgyzstan.
Elena Korosteleva is Lecturer in European Politics at the Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University. Her principal publications include: The Quality of Democracy in Post-Communist Europe (edited with D. Hutcheson, 2006); Postcommunist Belarus (edited with Stephen White and John Lwenhardt, 2005), Contemporary Belarus: Between Democracy and Dictatorship (edited with Rosalind Marsh and Colin Lawson, 2003). She is now the principal investigator for the ESRC project Europeanising or Securitising the Outsiders? Assessing the EUs Partnership-Building Approach with Eastern Europe (RES-061-25-0001).
Christopher Lamont is currently an RCUK postdoctoral fellow in the Transitional Justice Institute at the University of Ulster. He previously lectured at the University of Glasgow, and was a Fulbright fellow at the University of Zagreb (20023).
David Lane is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. His previous posts include Professor of Sociology at the University of Birmingham, and Reader in Sociology at the University of Essex. He has written extensively on the USSR and state socialism, Marxism and socialism, class and stratification; his more recent writings have focused on transformation of state socialism, globalization and civil society, and the enlargement of the European Union. Research in this article was supported by a grant from the Leverhulme Trust.
Ian McAllister is Distinguished Professor of Politics at the Australian National University, Canberra. He has been chair of the 50-nation Comparative Study of Electoral Systems project since 2003. His most recent book, with David Farrell, is The Australian Electoral System (2005).
Vlad Mykhnenko is a Research Fellow at the University of Nottingham, engaged in exploring the fields of critical political economy, post-communist studies, and economic geography. Previously, he acted as an International Policy Fellow at the Open Society Institute Budapest, before working as a Research Fellow at the University of Glasgow.
Donnacha Beachin is Lecturer and Marie Curie Fellow at the School of Law and Government, Dublin City University. Previously, he was a Civic Education Project and Academic Fellowship Program Visiting Fellow in Georgia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. He was an election observer during the 27 February and 13 March votes in Kyrgyzstan that led to the Tulip revolution.
Wojciech Ostrowski recently completed a PhD at the School of International Relations, University of St Andrews. He has published a book entitled Politics and Oil in Kazakhstan, (2009).
Abel Polese is a Marie Curie Fellow at the Institute of Geography of the University of Edinburgh. He has previously been a research fellow at the Hannah Arendt Institute, Dresden, and a visiting lecturer at the Institute of Theology and Liberal Arts of Odessa. Research for this study was funded through a Marie Curie Fellowship, ref. no. PIOF-GA-2008-219691.
Stephen White is James Bryce Professor of Politics at the University of Glasgow, and Adjunct Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bologna Center and the Institute of Applied Politics in Moscow. His recent books include Developments in Russian Politics 7 (co-edited, 2009) and a revised paperback edition of Party Politics in New Democracies (co-edited, 2009).
Jeanne L. Wilson is a Professor of Political Science at Wheaton College, Norton, MA, and a Research Associate at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University. Her interests are in comparing Russia and China as political actors especially with respect to the impact of external factors on domestic behaviour.
