Transitions from Postcommunism

McFaul, Michael

doi:10.1353/jod.2005.0049

Cited by 175 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…27 This is a more modest estimation of the importance of opposition unity, and one that fits more comfortably with any explanation of the Rose and Tulip revolutions when a multitude of opposition leaders vied with each other and where the parties were generally weak, fragmented, disunited and personality-driven.…”

Section: Opposition Unitysupporting

confidence: 56%

Roses and Tulips: Dynamics of Regime Change in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan

Beacháin

2009

Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics

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Section: Opposition Unitysupporting

confidence: 56%

Roses and Tulips: Dynamics of Regime Change in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan

Beacháin

2009

Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics

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“…David Marples (2006) points out that Belarus in 2006 was lacking every single of McFaul's (2005) conditions (see above), arguing that the president had a firm grip on the official ideology, and had been able to maintain his popularity in large segments of the population through his control over media, through his repressions of political opponents, and by maintaining close relations to Russia (Marples 2006). To this, Barbara Törnquist-Plewa (2001) adds the (most) successful Russification under the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, and a weak Belarusian identity.…”

Section: Belarusian Protests From Glasnost' To Lukashėnkamentioning

confidence: 99%

Public space in the Soviet city: A spatial perspective on mass protests in Minsk

Hansen

2017

Nordlit

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In many capitals, the central public square is the place where people go en masse when they wish to voice their discontent. The In the concept of democracy, the square has a central position. Historically, when people started to live in urban societies, the town square often became the natural meeting place -a space in which people deliberate, make policies and decide on a course of action. We find examples of this on the ancient Greek agora, the medieval Scandinavian ting, and the Slavic vecha.In our day and age, most of the decision-making has moved from the town square into political institutions, and the squares have been given other uses, such as for recreation and celebration. Yet, ever so often, people return to the square's original function. We have, to mention just a few recent examples, seen people gather on and occupy several squares in modern history: from the Tiananmen in 1989; to the squares of many postSoviet cities during the wave of 'colour revolutions' in the 2000s. We saw massive

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“…The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 created 15 states in the Baltic region and Central Asia. Seven of them emerged as democracies (Goehring and Schnetzer 2005;McFaul 2005;Rose et al 1998). …”

Section: Diffusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Democratization: Perspectives from Global Citizenries

Shin

2009

The Oxford Handbook of Political Behavior

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We live in a monumental era for the advancement of democracy. Invented so long ago in ancient Greece, democracy has spread around the globe for the first time ever during the past three decades. In all regions of the globe, democracy has emerged as the political system most preferred by the mass citizenry (Gallup-International 2005). Even economically poor and culturally traditional societies, once viewed as inhospitable to democratic development, now demand that free elections and other democratic institutions supplant undemocratic or personal forms of rule (Karatnycky and Ackerman 2005). Growing demands from ordinary citizens along with increased pressures and inducements from international communities have made democratization a global phenomenon (Carothers 1999).This phenomenon has given scholars and policymakers new insights into what constitutes a functional democracy. A political system can become institutionally democratic with the installation of competitive elections and multiple political parties. These institutions alone, however, do not make a fully functioning democratic political system. As Rose and his associates (1998, 8) aptly point out, these institutions constitute nothing more than "the hardware" of representative democracy. To operate the institutional hardware, a democratic political system requires the "software" that is congruent with the various hardware components (Almond and Verba 1963;Eckstein 1966). Both the scholarly community and policy circles widely recognize that what ordinary citizens think about democracy and its institutions is a key component of such software. Many experts, therefore, regard the mass citizenry's unconditional embrace of democracy as "the only game in town" as the hallmark of democratic consolidation (Bratton and Mattes 2001;Diamond 1999;Linz 1990;Rose 2001). This paper seeks to unravel the perspectives of ordinary citizens as they experience the introduction of democracy to their daily lives. How do these citizens take part in the process of transforming authoritarian rule into democracy? Does their active participation in this process contribute to the survival and growth of their new democratic regime? How broadly and deeply do they support democracy as both a political ideal and a reality? How does their level of support or demand for democracy compare with the level its institutions supply? Empirically, this paper addresses these and related questions with accumulations of factual and public opinion data. Key sources are Freedom House and four regional barometer projects monitoring democratization in Africa, East Asia, Latin America, and New Europe. Our analysis highlights regional differences in institutional and cultural dynamics by comparing citizens' reactions to democratic change across these regions.First this paper explicates the notion of democratization and clarifies a number of key conceptual issues. Next it examines the evolution of the current wave of global democratization, which Huntington (1991) popularized as the third wave. Thirdly, it...

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Transitions from Postcommunism

Cited by 175 publications

References 7 publications

Roses and Tulips: Dynamics of Regime Change in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan

Roses and Tulips: Dynamics of Regime Change in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan

Public space in the Soviet city: A spatial perspective on mass protests in Minsk

Democratization: Perspectives from Global Citizenries

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