ABSTRACT
The end of authoritarian or totalitarian rule and democratization can take many different paths – the death of a dictator, a popular revolution or simply unexpected election results – and lead to a variety of different outcomes. One recent tendency has been the ousting of authoritarian leaders through what have been christened ‘colour revolutions’. The term ‘colour revolutions’ is used to describe as a single phenomenon a number of non-violent protests that succeeded in overthrowing authoritarian regimes during the first decade of the twenty-first century. This has involved thousands of people, wearing coloured symbols, taking to the streets and showing their discontent with the current regime while the opposition, legitimated by such crowds, have been able to negotiate political change with the authorities. Geographically the term has tended to encompass only post-communist countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, though there is evidence that similar movements for change have been initiated in the Middle East (Lebanon, 2005) and Asia (Myanmar, 2007).
