Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Situating the ‘Tulip Revolution’

2008; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 27; Issue: 3-4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/02634930802535847

1465-3354

Sally N. Cummings, Maxim Ryabkov,

Labor Movements and Unions

Abstract The authors assess various writings on the 'coloured revolutions' more generally and the 'Tulip Revolution' specifically. They place this scholarship into three broad categories: an assessment of the Akaev years from a democratization and state-building perspective; the nature of and relationship between formal and informal institutions prior to and after March 2005; and, finally, the domestic and international factors behind mobilization. These correspond broadly to the three areas of enquiry by the contributors to this collection. Keywords: Kyrgyzstan'coloured revolution'democratizationinformal groupselitesstate building Notes 'Delegative democracies rest on the premise that whoever wins election to the presidency is thereby entitled to govern as he or she sees fit, constrained only by the hard facts of existing power relations and by a constitutionally limited terms of office' (O'Donnell 1994 O'Donnell, G. 1994. Delegative democracy. Journal of Democracy, 5(1): 55–69. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). See also Levitsky and Way (2002) Levitsky, S. and Way, L. A. 2002. Elections without democracy: the rise of competitive authoritarianism. Journal of Democracy, 13(2): 51–65. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]. Others believe this increase in types of democracy is a nuisance rather than of help (Armony and Schamis 2005 Armony, A. C. and Schamis, H. E. 2005. Babel in democratization studies. Journal of Democracy, 16(4): 113–128. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Berman argues against setting pre-conditions for democratization, known as 'sequencing', acknowledging the likelihood of a more turbulent and disorderly but eventually successful development. The key works Katz associates with these theories are, respectively Gurr (1970) Gurr, T. 1970. Why men rebel, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [Google Scholar], Skocpol (1979) Skocpol, T. 1979. States and social revolutions: a comparative analysis of France, Russia, and China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], Goldstone (1997) Goldstone, J. 1997. "Population growth and revolutionary crises". In Theorizing revolutions, Edited by: Foran, J. London: Routledge. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], Goodwin (2001) Goodwin, J. 2001. No other way out: states and revolutionary movements, 1945–1991, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], and Kargalitsky (2005 Kargalitsky, B. 2005. Riding the revolution tiger. Moscow Times, 31 March: 9 [Google Scholar], p. 9). For discussions of autonomous as opposed to factional or captured state, see Evans (1995) Evans, P. B. 1995. Embedded autonomy, states and industrial transformation, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]. In another paper, John Ishiyama and Ryan Kennedy (2001) relate presidentialism to the weakness of political parties. Robert Elgie (2005) Elgie, R. 2005. A fresh look at semipresidentialism: variation on a theme. Journal of Democracy, 16(3): 98–112. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] believes the rivalry between a strong Prime Minister and a strong President compromised democratic development in Ukraine before the Orange Revolution. Importantly for the study here, informal rules may reinforce the presidentialism as in many Latin American and African countries, but sometimes, as in Chile, they restrict the authority of a formally very powerful president. See M. McFaul (1999–2000 McFaul, M. 1999–2000. Getting Russia right. Foreign Policy, : 57–73. [Google Scholar], p. 66), where the author also suggests that state institutions require powerful societal groups to promote their reform. On collective action problems, see Olson (1965) Olson, M. 1965. The logic of collective action, New York: Schocken. [Google Scholar]. On relative deprivation, see Gurr (1970) Gurr, T. 1970. Why men rebel, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [Google Scholar]. See Tarrow (1996 Tarrow, S. 1996. Making social science work across space and time: a critical reflection on Robert Putnam's. Making democracy work. The American Political Science Review, 90(2): 389–397. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], p. 394): 'Electorates were deliberately mobilized on the basis of networks of mass organizations and political and recreational associations.' Related to this issue is the long-standing discussion among historians and social scientists about the place of singular events in history. See, for example, Tarrow (1996) Tarrow, S. 1996. Making social science work across space and time: a critical reflection on Robert Putnam's. Making democracy work. The American Political Science Review, 90(2): 389–397. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]. On the role of tipping 'thresholds', see Schelling (1978) Schelling, T. 1978. Micromotives and macrobehaviour, New York: Norton. [Google Scholar]. For an interesting review of the conspiracy theories surrounding colour revolutions, see Shlapentokh (2007) Shlapentokh, D. 2007. Dugin, Eurasianism and Central Asia. Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 40(2): 143–157. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]. Kyrgyzstan also did not benefit as Ukraine did from being in the vicinity of the European Union.