ABSTRACT
A recurring theme in the democracy promotion literature over the past ten years has been the need for external actors engaged in democracy promotion to take the local context of the relevant country into account when designing and implementing their efforts. This conclusion starts from the premise that the ‘colour revolutions’ in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine can serve as a test case for the ability of external actors to deal with changing local contexts. Drawing on the other articles in this special issue, it compares the contexts in these three countries before and after the ‘colour revolutions’ and assesses the responses of external actors to these contexts. In addition, it goes beyond these three cases to examine three non- ‘revolutionary’ environments (Russia, Belarus and Azerbaijan), in which there have also been both domestic and foreign policy responses to the ‘colour revolutions’. The article concludes that each ‘revolution’ resulted in a boost in external funding both overall and for democracy promotion, as well as in a shift of funding away from civil society and towards state actors. This and other evidence indicates that external donors were more interested in a particular outcome than in elements of process where democratization is concerned. They appeared to support civil society less out of a conviction that it is an important component of an underlying democratic structure and more as an instrument for achieving a specific result, that is the overthrow of a certain leader or regime. The analysis presented here indicates that future democracy promotion strategies should go beyond partnering with individuals and organizations to strengthen underlying political and societal structures which can contribute to sustainable democratization.
