While Iran’s Green protest movement may have dropped off the news agenda, it is poised for a mass mobilization on November 4 when it is due to hijack the official demonstrations commemorating the 1979 invasion of the American Embassy in Tehran.
But the diminishing prospects of an Iranian color revolution may not be such a bad development since such power shifts have largely failed to deliver sustainable democracy, according to a new analysis of electoral revolutions worldwide .
Katya Kalandadze of New York’s Syracuse University and Mitchell A. Orenstein of Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC, considered all instances of electoral revolutions – successful and abortive – since 1991, concluding that even when successful they “have shown insignificant or no democratic progress in their wake.”
A more effective strategy for democratization would focus less on elections and address some deeper underlying issues retarding democratic progress:
………many of the countries where electoral revolutions take place lack important prerequisites for democratization, including high per capita income and high linkage with the international community. Electoral revolutions are powerful moments of mass protest and civic participation, but their lack of effectiveness requires rethinking this strategy of democratization.
Recent Comments