Jedburgh
08-17-2007, 01:49 PM
ISN Security Watch, 16 Aug 07: The Algebra of Revolution (http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?id=17994)
How many protesters in the streets does it take to bring an authoritarian government down? What is more conducive to a democratic revolution's success: the support of the majority or the decisive actions of a minority? Can an active but small group achieve change even if their support by the "passive" majority is very low? And - vice-versa - can a government stay in power even if a majority of the population is against it?
These questions are raised by the success of the celebrated - and feared - "color revolutions" in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine, and by the failure of the model to replicate itself in Belarus and Azerbaijan. Many different groups seek answers to them: observers, analysts and political scientists who wish to understand and draw lessons from these transnational political experiences; civil-society activists and organisations which attempt to provide resources of thinking and tools of change for people on the ground; and politicians, both those who seek to foment revolution and those who are eager to prevent and stifle it.
This article offers a model which - without aspiring to an exhaustive explanation - proposes a new way of evaluating the factors at work during a revolutionary situation, if not of forecasting its outcome; as well as introducing a different viewpoint and language in understanding the revolutionary process.....
How many protesters in the streets does it take to bring an authoritarian government down? What is more conducive to a democratic revolution's success: the support of the majority or the decisive actions of a minority? Can an active but small group achieve change even if their support by the "passive" majority is very low? And - vice-versa - can a government stay in power even if a majority of the population is against it?
These questions are raised by the success of the celebrated - and feared - "color revolutions" in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine, and by the failure of the model to replicate itself in Belarus and Azerbaijan. Many different groups seek answers to them: observers, analysts and political scientists who wish to understand and draw lessons from these transnational political experiences; civil-society activists and organisations which attempt to provide resources of thinking and tools of change for people on the ground; and politicians, both those who seek to foment revolution and those who are eager to prevent and stifle it.
This article offers a model which - without aspiring to an exhaustive explanation - proposes a new way of evaluating the factors at work during a revolutionary situation, if not of forecasting its outcome; as well as introducing a different viewpoint and language in understanding the revolutionary process.....