The fate of the "color revolutions" -- the symbolically-named series of peaceful uprisings in the former Soviet Union -- have been terribly disappointing. In Georgia ("Rose," 2003), Ukraine ("Orange," 2004), and Kyrgyzstan ("Tulip," 2005), popular uprisings against entrenched leaders brought to power reform-minded politicians who pledged to transform post-Soviet dens of corruption into modern states. But in all three places, those promises of far-reaching change never really materialized. Yet scholars and democracy promotion organizations continue to mine them for lessons that might apply to the Arab Spring transitions. Here's why that's a mistake.
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In Georgia, where the endlessly energetic Mikheil Saakashvili embraced the West and free-market reforms with apparent gusto, elite corruption still continued apace. In Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko's public spats with one-time ally Yulia Tymoshenko were so vicious that Viktor Yanukovych -- the villain of the Orange Revolution -- managed to return to office as prime minister in 2006, and won election as president four short years later. In Kyrgyzstan, Tulip Revolution leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev quickly established himself as a political strongman and informally put his son Maksim in charge of all business transactions. After bloodshed erupted in 2010, when citizens refused to sit idly by, after a winter of power shortages and intense price shocks while the first family enriched itself, President Bakiyev fled to Minsk.
So much for the vaunted color revolutions, not one of which has produced a consolidated democracy.
Why did they fail? Quite simply, the rule of law never took root. Too often, the color revolution governments acted above or with little regard to the democratic legal standard to which they held their predecessors. For example, Georgia's record of protecting property rights was abysmal, Ukraine was inescapably seized by vendetta politics, and Bakiyev presided over Kyrgyzstan as though it were his personal fiefdom. Though the governments all professed a commitment to democracy and the rule of law, the maladies that typified the preceding regimes quickly came to describe the new governments. Supporters made a key mistake: They took the revolutions themselves as the apogee of democracy rather than focusing on the hard, grinding work of institution-building.
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Of the three, Georgia has made the most progress. However, Saakashvili's United National Movement (UNM) was spectacularly defeated in the 2012 parliamentary elections after its reformist credentials were undermined by a prison scandal that broke days before the elections. Prison guards were caught on tape sodomizing prisoners with broom handles, and knowledge of these practices allegedly went all the way to the top. For all of Georgia's pro-West rhetoric, the scandal showed just how incomplete the UNM's commitment to the rule of law had been.
To their credit, the UNM did make a dent. It transformed a notoriously bribe-seeking police force into one of the country's most trusted institutions and ended corruption in university admissions. By 2012, petty corruption had been virtually eliminated. At the same time, many of these reforms -- from firing the old police force en masse to rounding up corrupt ex-officials and "thieves in law" (and more than a few political enemies) -- were short on due process and often constitutionally questionable. Accusations of elite corruption (such as allegations that members of the ruling UNM and their relatives enjoyed special access to business opportunities) refused to die down.
Despite the prison scandal and evidence of high-level corruption, however, Georgia still has a genuine shot at becoming a consolidated democracy. As things stand now, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan do not.
Kyrgyzstan has teetered from crisis to crisis since Bakiyev fled the country in 2010. The new constitution, which shifted power from the president to parliament, has brought greater political instability to the country -- Kyrgyzstan is on its fourth government since 2010. In June 2010, ethnic violence erupted in the South between ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz and tensions still simmer. There are credible reports that many ethnic Uzbeks have fled the country. Almazbek Atambayev, who succeeded Roza Otunbayeva (the only former Kyrgyz president who does not live in exile), has consolidated power, installed a pliable prime minister, and shows little interest in rule of law reform.
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