TY - JOUR
T1 - Why the pretense of pursuing democracy? The necessity and rationality of democratic slogans for civil revolutions
AU - Yukawa, Taku
AU - Hidaka, Kaoru
N1 - Funding Information:
The second rationale behind the semblance of democratic revolution is appealing to the international community to gain support for protest movements. First, protesters had to gain material support from the international community, especially the EU and the US. During the growing prodemocratic tide that followed the end of the Cold War, the pro-Western Shevardnadze administration had enjoyed enormous financial support from the West in the name of democratic assistance. Indeed, since the mid-1990s Georgia has received more money per capita from the US than any other post-Soviet country (Bunce and Wolchik, 2007: 5).
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2018.
PY - 2019/9/1
Y1 - 2019/9/1
N2 - While democratic revolutions are not uniform in their pursuit of democracy, they do have something in common: those calling for revolution and participating in demonstrations do so under the banner of democracy. However, studies have revealed that these citizens were not at first committed to democracy per se; rather, they took the opportunity to vent their frustration against the current regime because of their struggle against poverty and social inequality. Why, then, do citizens who are not pursuing democracy per se participate in revolutions under the banner of democracy? Previous studies have failed to clarify this point. To fill this gap, we outline three strategic rationalities and necessities behind the use of “democracy” as a common slogan to justify civil revolutions: 1) organizing large scale dissident movements in a country; 2) attracting international support; and 3) imitating successful examples from the past. Evidence from the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia and the 2005 Orange Revolution in Ukraine supports this theory.
AB - While democratic revolutions are not uniform in their pursuit of democracy, they do have something in common: those calling for revolution and participating in demonstrations do so under the banner of democracy. However, studies have revealed that these citizens were not at first committed to democracy per se; rather, they took the opportunity to vent their frustration against the current regime because of their struggle against poverty and social inequality. Why, then, do citizens who are not pursuing democracy per se participate in revolutions under the banner of democracy? Previous studies have failed to clarify this point. To fill this gap, we outline three strategic rationalities and necessities behind the use of “democracy” as a common slogan to justify civil revolutions: 1) organizing large scale dissident movements in a country; 2) attracting international support; and 3) imitating successful examples from the past. Evidence from the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia and the 2005 Orange Revolution in Ukraine supports this theory.
KW - democratic revolution
KW - democratization
KW - mass protest
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U2 - 10.1177/2057891118792627
DO - 10.1177/2057891118792627
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85070239531
VL - 4
SP - 242
EP - 257
JO - Asian Journal of Comparative Politics
JF - Asian Journal of Comparative Politics
SN - 2057-8911
IS - 3
ER -