Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-cfpbc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-17T12:10:52.286Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Structure and Example in Modular Political Phenomena: The Diffusion of Bulldozer/Rose/Orange/Tulip Revolutions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 May 2007

Mark R. Beissinger
Mark R. Beissinger
Affiliation:
Princeton University, E-mail: mbeissin@princeton.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The article develops an approach to the study of modular political phenomena (action based in significant part on emulation of the prior successful example of others), focusing on the trade-offs between the influence of example, structural facilitation, and institutional constraints. The approach is illustrated through the example of the spread of democratic revolution in the post-communist region during the 2000–2006 period, with significant comparisons to the diffusion of separatist nationalism in the Soviet Union during the glasnost' era.Mark R. Beissinger is Professor of Politics, Princeton University (mbeissin@princeton.edu). The author is grateful to the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison for the opportunity to pursue research for this essay. He would also like to thank Nancy Bermeo, Valerie Bunce, Atul Kohli, Jon Pevehouse, Grigore Pop-Eleches, Edward Schatz, Jack Snyder, Al Stepan, Joshua Tucker, and two anonymous reviewers for their feedback on an earlier version of this article.

Type
Research Article
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , June 2007 , pp. 259 - 276
Copyright
© 2007 American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abdyrazakov, Sydyk. 2005. “Boiling Over.” Transitions Online, March 21.Google Scholar
Anteleva, Natalia. 2003. “How to Stage a Revolution.” BBC News December 4 (8:10 GT).Google Scholar
Barbash, Fred. 2003. “Bush: Iraq Part of Global Democratic Revolution.” Washington Post. November 6.Google Scholar
Beissinger, Mark R. 2002. Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Berlin, Isaiah. 1960. Introduction. In Roots of Revolution: A History of the Populist and Socialist Movements in Nineteenth Century Russia, by Franco Venturi. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Bojic, Sesa. 2005. Serbian group exports protest know-how. Civil Society [Rule of Law Foundation] March 19, at http://www.rol.org.ua/eng/article.cfm?deid=8.Google Scholar
Bujosevic, Dragan, and Ivan Radovanovic. 2003. The Fall of Milosevic: The October 5th Revolution. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bunce, Valerie J., and Sharon L. Wolchik. 2006. Favorable conditions and electoral revolutions. Journal of Democracy 17 (4): 5–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chivers, C. J. 2005. “How Top Spies in Ukraine Changed the Nation's Path.” New York Times, January 17: A1.Google Scholar
Cohen, Lenard J. 2001. Serpent in the Bosom: The Rise and Fall of Slobodan Milošević. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Deheryan, Suren. 2005. Voice of youth: Former student activist enters National Assembly. ArmeniaNow, February 11 at http://armenianow.com/eng/?issue_id=64.Google Scholar
DeNardo, James. 1985. Power in Numbers: The Political Strategy of Protest Rebellion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
DiMaggio, Paul J., and Walter W. Powell. 1983. The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review 48 (2): 147–60.Google Scholar
Dlugy, Yana. 2005. “Group Ready to Change Ex-Soviet World.” Agence France-Presse, January 2.Google Scholar
Eggleston, Roland. 2003. “Kyrgyzstan: OSCE Plans Police Training.” Eurasianet, August 9.Google Scholar
Eisinger, Peter. 1973. The conditions of political protest behavior in American cities. American Political Science Review 67 (1): 11–28.Google Scholar
Fairbanks, Charles H. Jr. 2004. Georgia's Rose Revolution. Journal of Democracy 15 (2): 110–24.Google Scholar
Foran, John. 1993. Theories of revolution revisited: Toward a fourth generation? Sociological Theory 11 (1): 1–20Google Scholar
Foran, John. 2005. Taking Power: On the Origins of Third World Revolutions. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Garfield, Bob. 2004. “Revolution, Inc.” National Public Radio, December 3.Google Scholar
Geddes, Barbara. 1999. What do we know about democratization after twenty years? Annual Review of Political Science 2: 115–44.Google Scholar
Gleditsch, Kristian Skrede. 2002. All International Politics Is Local: The Diffusion of Conflict, Integration, and Democratization. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Goldstone, Jack. 2001a. An analytical framework. In Revolutions of the Late Twentieth Century, ed. Jack A. Goldstone, Ted Robert Gurr, Farrokh Moshiri. Boulder, CO: Westview.Google Scholar
Goldstone, Jack. 2001b. Toward a fourth generation of revolutionary theory. Annual Review of Political Science 4: 139–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, Jeff. 2001. No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements, 1945–1991. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirschman, Albert. 1991. The Rhetoric of Reaction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, E. J. 1962. The Age of Revolution, 1789–1848. New York: New American Library.Google Scholar
Huntington, Samuel. 1991. The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman, OK: Oklahoma University Press.Google Scholar
Jenkins, J. Craig. 1983. Resource mobilization theory and the study of social movements. Annual Review of Sociology 9: 527–53.Google Scholar
Karatnycky, Adrian, and Peter Ackerman. 2005. How Freedom Is Won: From Civic Resistance to Durable Democracy. Washington, DC: Freedom House.Google Scholar
Karl, Terry Lynn. 1997. The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro-States. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Karmanau, Yuras. 2004. “Belarus Opposition Streams to Kiev.” Associated Press, December 20.Google Scholar
Karumidze, Zurab, and James V. Wertsch, eds. 2005. Enough!: The Rose Revolution in the Republic of Georgia 2003. New York: Nova Science Publishers.Google Scholar
Katz, Mark N. 1997. Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves. New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Khamidov, Alisher. 2002. “Kyrgyzstan's Unrest Linked to Clan Rivalries.” Eurasianet, June 5.Google Scholar
Korshak, Stephan. 2004. “Ukraine's ‘Orange Revolution’ and the Individuals Who Made It.” DPA, December 20.Google Scholar
Kuran, Timur. 1989. Sparks and prairie fires: A theory of unanticipated political revolution. Public Choice 61 (1): 41–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuzio, Taras. 2004. “Yanukovych-Gate Unfolds after Ukrainian Elections.” Eurasia Daily Monitor, December 3.Google Scholar
Kuzio, Taras. 2005a. “Details Emerge of Second Russian Plot to Assassinate Yushchenko.” Eurasia Daily Monitor, January 5.Google Scholar
Kuzio, Taras. 2005b. “Did Ukraine's Security Service Really Prevent Bloodshed During the Orange Revolution?” Eurasia Daily Monitor, January 24.Google Scholar
Linz, Juan J., and Alfred Stepan. 1996. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Lipset, Seymour Martin. 1960. Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.Google Scholar
MacWilliam, Ian. 2005. “Kyrgyzstan's Friendly Revolution.” BBC News. March 26 (14:58:22 GMT).Google Scholar
Mansfield, Edward D., and Jack Snyder. 2005. Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Muiznieks, Nils R. 1995. The influence of the Baltic popular movements on the process of Soviet disintegration. Europe-Asia Studies 47 (1): 3–25.Google Scholar
National Public Radio. 2004. “All Things Considered.” December 23 (Global NewsBank).Google Scholar
Noelle-Neumann, Elisabeth. 1984. The Spiral of Silence. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Page, Jeremy. 2005. “From West to East, Rolling Revolution Gathers Pace Across Former USSR.” The Times (London), February 19.Google Scholar
Pala, Christopher. 2004. “Ukraine's Election Crisis Has Had Dim Mirror Images in Other Former Soviet Republics.” New York Times, December 14, A17.Google Scholar
Palmer, R. R. 1959. The Age of Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760–1800. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Pevehouse, Jon. 2002. “Democracy from the Outside-In? International Organizations and Democratization.” International Organization 56 (3): 515–49.Google Scholar
Przeworski, Adam, Michael E. Alvarez, José Antonio Cheibub, and Fernano Limongi. 2000. Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-Being in the World, 1950–1990. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ross, Michael Lewin. 2001. “Does Oil Hinder Democracy?” World Politics 53 (3): 325–361.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rudé, George. 1966. Revolutionary Europe, 1783–1815. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Saidazimova, Gulnoza. 2005. “Kyrgyzstan: Could It Emerge As Another Ukraine or Georgia?” RFE/RL Newsline, March 22.Google Scholar
Selbin, Eric. 1997. Revolution in the real world: Bringing agency back in. In Theorizing Revolutions, ed. John Foran. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sewell, William H. Jr. 1996. Three temporalities: Toward an eventful sociology. In The Historic Turn in the Human Sciences, ed. Terrence J. McDonald. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Sharp, Gene. 1993. “From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation.” Cambridge, MA: Albert Einstein Institution.Google Scholar
Skocpol, Theda. 1979. States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Snyder, Jack L. 2000. From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Sodruzhestvo Nezavisimykh Gosudarstv. 2002. Sodruzhestvo Nezavisimykh Gosudarstv (statisticheskii ezhegodnik). Moscow: Mezhgosudarstvennyi statisticheskii komitet SNG.Google Scholar
Solovyov, Dmtry. 2005. “Kulov's Former Jailer Tips Him for Kyrgyz President.” Moscow Times, March 29: 2.Google Scholar
Spruyt, Hendryk. 1994. The Sovereign State and Its Competitors. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Stojanovic, Dusan. 2004. “Nonviolent Revolution for Export from Serbia.” Associated Press, October 31.Google Scholar
Tarrow, Sidney. 1998. Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics. 2d ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tarrow, Sidney. 2005. The New Transnational Activism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Thompson, Mark R. 2004. Democratic Revolutions: Asia and Eastern Europe. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Torbakov, Igor. 2005. “Russia Hopes to Stem Revolutionary Tide in CIS by Strengthening Ties with Kazakhstan.” EurasiaNet, February 23.Google Scholar
United States Institute of Peace. 2001. “Whither the Bulldozer? Nonviolent Revolution and the Transition to Democracy in Serbia.” Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Whitehead, Laurence, ed. 1996. The International Dimensions of Democratization: Europe and the Americas. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, Daniel. 2004. “Ukrainian Town Basking in the ‘Orange’ Afterglow: Westernized Lviv Supplied People and Spirit to the Protest in Kiev.” Washington Post December 15: A20.Google Scholar
Wilson, Andres. 2005. Ukraine's Orange Revolution. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Yablokova, Oksana. 2004. “Youthful Pora Charges Up the People.” Moscow Times, December 3.Google Scholar