The color revolutions of Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004) and Kyrgyzstan (2005) promised these countries substantive democratization, which was supposed to end the immoral practices of post-Soviet imitation democracies, foster market-driven prosperity, and open the way into the prestigious club of European nations. High hopes, alas, quickly sank into renewed cynicism. Prevalent opinion put blame on the personal faults of leaders or even entire peoples said to lack democratic values and modern dispositions. A better explanation, however, might draw on the insights of macro-historical sociology, extending its reinterpretation of early modern revolutions and Western patterns of democratization into the early twenty-first century. […]
Memo #:
100
Series:
2
PDF:
PDF URL:
http://www.gwu.edu/~ieresgwu/assets/docs/pepm_100.pdf
