What Happened to the Colour Revolutions? Authoritarian Responses from Former Soviet Spaces

Abstract

In this paper we survey how colour revolutions have succeeded or failed in post communist spaces to identify the correlation between the attitude of the authorities, and their capacity to produce a backlash, and the failure of a colour revolution. By analysing the role of external forces in colour revolutions we explore problems associated with the export of democracy to post-socialist spaces, suggesting that colour revolutions have prompted a validation of actors, their performances and claims by the authorities that have then learned to use those techniques to challenge the opposition. This limited the effect of colour revolutions in the remaining countries.