psr1300029 xxx (xxx) June 17, 2013 20:48

American Political Science Review Vol. 107, No. 3 August 2013

doi:10.1017/S0003055413000294 c© American Political Science Association 2013

The Semblance of Democratic Revolution: Coalitions in Ukraine’sOrange RevolutionMARK R. BEISSINGER Princeton University

Using two unusual surveys, this study analyzes participation in the 2004 Orange Revolution inUkraine, comparing participants with revolution supporters, opponents, counter-revolutionaries,and the apathetic/inactive. As the analysis shows, most revolutionaries were weakly committed

to the revolution’s democratic master narrative, and the revolution’s spectacular mobilizational successwas largely due to its mobilization of cultural cleavages and symbolic capital to construct a negativecoalition across diverse policy groupings. A contrast is drawn between urban civic revolutions like theOrange Revolution and protracted peasant revolutions. The strategies associated with these revolution-ary models affect the roles of revolutionary organization and selective incentives and the character ofrevolutionary coalitions. As the comparison suggests, postrevolutionary instability may be built intourban civic revolutions due to their reliance on a rapidly convened negative coalition of hundreds ofthousands, distinguished by fractured elites, lack of consensus over fundamental policy issues, and weakcommitment to democratic ends.

I t is widely acknowledged that the character ofrevolution has changed dramatically over the lastseveral decades. Rather than violent, protracted

projects of social change aimed at transforming semi-agrarian societies (Skocpol 1979; Huntington 1968),most contemporary revolutions are compact urban up-risings that articulate demands for civil and politicalfreedoms. If one understands revolution as a mass up-rising against an established government involving con-tested claims to sovereignty, with the aims of displacingthe incumbent regime and substantially altering the po-litical or social order (Goldstone 2001, 142; Tilly 1993,8–9; Trotsky 1932, 206), then since 1980 there havebeen approximately 42 revolutions worldwide involv-ing at least 10,000 civilian participants that successfullydisplaced incumbent rulers; two-thirds (28) of thesewere urban civic revolts that primarily articulated de-mands for political and civil freedoms and/or free-and-fair elections.1 Most did in fact result in some degreeof fairer electoral competition and broader civil and

Mark R. Beissinger is Henry W. Putnam Professor, Department ofPolitics, Princeton University, 237 Corwin Hall,Princeton, NJ 08544-1013 (mbeissin@princeton.edu)

The author wishes to express his appreciation to the Institute ofSociology of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (and in particu-lar, Viktor Stepanenko) for access to the data from the Institute’sMarch 2005 Monitoring survey, as well as Valery Khmel’ko, DmytroKhutkyy, and Tatiana Petrenko of the Kyiv International Institute ofSociology (KIIS) for access to the data from the KIIS December 10–14, 2004 survey. The author also thanks Chris Achen, Valerie Bunce,Stathis Kalyvas, David Laitin, Nolan McCarty, Grigore Pop-Eleches,Sidney Tarrow, and three anonymous APSR reviewers for commentson earlier drafts. Earlier versions were presented at Brown Univer-sity, George Washington University, Princeton University, Universityof Bremen, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Uppsala University,and at the 2011 American Political Science Association conventionin Seattle.1 These figures are based on the following revolutionary episodesidentified by the author that involved at least 10,000 civilianparticipants and in which the incumbents were successfully dis-placed (those identified as urban civic revolutions—involving therapid concentration of protestors in urban spaces and the artic-ulation of demands for political and civil freedoms and/or free-and-fair elections—are marked with an asterisk): ∗Sudanese AprilRevolution (1985), ∗Philippines People Power Revolution (1986),

political freedoms in their immediate wake, though inmany cases these achievements subsequently eroded.These “democratic” revolutions materialized in severaltransnational waves: the “people power” revolutions ofEast Asia; the revolutions associated with the collapseof European communism; the electoral revolutions ofthe early 2000s; and the Arab Spring revolts of the2010s. Unlike peasant revolutions or rebellions wagedin small population settings, these revolutions and oth-ers modeled on them relied primarily on the disruptiongenerated by massing hundreds of thousands of civil-ians in central urban spaces in a concentrated periodof time so as to generate pressure on an incumbentregime and induce key members of the ruling coalitionto defect (Thompson 2004).

This study examines the implications of the under-lying strategic choice within urban civic revolutions togenerate large numbers in a concentrated period oftime for the questions of who participates in revolutionand how participants relate to one another, to rev-olutionary organization, and to the dominant master

∗June Uprising in South Korea (1986–87),∗East German Revo-lution (1989), ∗Romanian Revolution (1989), ∗Velvet Revolution(1989), ∗Bulgarian Revolution (1989), ∗Beninese Revolution (1989–90), People’s Movement in Nepal (1990), Somali Revolution (1986–91), ∗Estonian Singing Revolution (1988–91), ∗Lithuanian Revolu-tion (1988–91), ∗Latvian Singing Revolution (1988–91), ∗1991 Rus-sian Revolution, ∗March 1991 Revolution (Mali), Chechen Revo-lution (1991), ∗Madagascar Revolution (1991), Georgian Civil War(1991–93), Rwandan Civil War (1990–94), First Liberian Civil War(1989–96), Taliban Revolution (1994–96), First Chechen War (1994–96), Congo Civil War (1996–97), ∗Indonesian Revolution (1998),Kosovo War for Independence (1990–99), ∗Serbian Bulldozer Revo-lution (2000), ∗EDSA II Revolution (2001), ∗Madagascar ElectoralRevolution (2002), Second Liberian Civil War (1999–2003), ∗RoseRevolution (2003), ∗Orange Revolution (2004), Second SudaneseCivil War (1983–2005), ∗Tulip Revolution (2005), Cedar Revolution(2005), ∗Nepalese April Revolution (2006), ∗Thai Silk Revolution(2006), Thai PAD Revolution (2008), ∗Malagasy Uprising (2009),∗Second Kyrgyz Revolution (2010), ∗Tunisian Revolution (2011),∗Egyptian Revolution (2011), ∗Libyan Revolution (2011). Therewere, of course, many other instances of popular revolts and civilwars in which incumbents were not displaced or which did not involveat least 10,000 civilian participants.

1

psr1300029 xxx (xxx) June 17, 2013 20:48

The Semblance of Democratic Revolution August 2013

narratives that accompany these revolutions. Whatbinds revolutionaries together in collective actionwithin urban civic revolutions? How might this differfrom other forms of revolution that extend over a pro-tracted period of time or occur within small populationsettings? And how might these differences affect thecharacter of postrevolutionary governance? What arethe motivations for participation in urban civic revolu-tions, and how are revolutionaries distinguished fromothers who choose to navigate these upheavals differ-ently? As Petersen (2001) noted, the choices withinrevolutions are more complex than simply the decisionto rebel or not to rebel. Yet, rarely do we have system-atic information about who participates in revolutionsand how individuals differentially behave within rev-olutionary situations. In the absence of such informa-tion, when large numbers of citizens are massed on thestreets, they tend to be construed as “the people” ortreated as members of larger social aggregates (e.g., themiddle class, youth, or workers). Without informationabout the beliefs of participants, there is a tendencyto interpret their motivations through the lens of themaster narratives that oppositions articulate to mobi-lize them. Yet, we know little about whether these mas-ter narratives actually mirror participants’ values andbeliefs, how participants compare with other membersof society who navigated these revolutionary episodesdifferently, and which social categories operate as realpoles of belief or identification.

In this respect, the wave of electoral revolutions thatswept across the postcommunist region in the earlyto mid-2000s presented an unusual research opportu-nity. These revolutions occurred in the wake of falsi-fied elections, so that societal members faced a formalopportunity to express their preferences vis-a-vis theincumbent regime (even if these preferences were notalways accurately recorded in official counts). More-over, public opinion polling was a central element ofthe revolutionary model that spread across these so-cieties, with the use of alternative vote counts as away of measuring the “true” distribution of electoralpreferences (Beissinger 2007; Bunce and Wolchik 2011;McFaul 2010). In this study I analyze two highly un-usual and detailed surveys taken during and imme-diately after the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraineto examine what, if anything, revolution participantsshared in common, and how their values, beliefs, back-grounds, and lifestyles were similar to or different fromthose who supported the revolution but did not protest,protested in defense of the incumbent regime, opposedthe revolution but did not protest in defense of the in-cumbent regime, and remained apathetic in the midstof revolutionary upheaval. On the basis of this analy-sis, I argue that participants in the Orange Revolutionwere distinguished from these other groupings primar-ily by shared cultural practices and symbolic capitalrather than by their commitment to democratic valuesand mobilized primarily against the incumbent regimerather than for a common set of values or policies. Thisleads to what I call the semblance of democratic revo-lution that is characteristic of many urban civic revolu-tions: whereas elite-articulated master narratives and

demands in urban civic revolutions revolve around at-taining civil and political freedoms and/or free-and-fairelections, and the media are often quick to code theselarge mobilizations against autocracy as struggles fordemocracy, the majority of those who participate arepropelled not by a commitment to democracy, but bymotivations unrelated to democratic change.

This illusive quality of many seemingly “democratic”revolutions, I argue, is largely the product of the strat-egy of mobilizing, in a highly concentrated period oftime, very large numbers as a way of challenging au-thoritarian regimes in an urban setting. In general, thelarger the number of individuals mobilized into revo-lutionary action, the more variegated the individualsparticipating necessarily will be (Marwell and Oliver1993), and the more incentive there is for revolutionaryleadership to act as a convener of anti-incumbent sen-timent than a provider of organizational or ideologicalcoherence. This problem is compounded when revolu-tionary mobilization occurs on a temporal scale of daysand weeks. In revolts that depend heavily on the rapidlyassembled power of numbers, the motivations to en-gage in revolutionary action for most participants arelikely to relate only weakly to the overt and proximategoals of revolutionary master narratives (Klandersman2010). In such circumstances, cultural difference andshared symbolic capital are one way to facilitate rapidmobilization across disparate societal groupings. As Ishow, in the case of the Orange Revolution, democraticmaster narratives functioned as a holder for a wide va-riety of grievances and purposes, assembled togetherthrough common identities and symbols rather thancommon values or selective incentives.

In a significant number of cases, urban civic revo-lutions like the Orange Revolution have led to unsta-ble democratic results, providing a temporary increasein civil and political freedoms, followed by authori-tarian backtracking. As I suggest through the OrangeRevolution example, some of the reasons for this arelikely built into the processes underlying urban civicrevolution: its reliance on a rapidly convened negativecoalition of hundreds of thousands, distinguished inparticular by fractured elites, lack of consensus overfundamental policy issues, and weak commitment todemocratic ends.

CONSTITUTING THE COLLECTIVE INURBAN CIVIC REVOLUTIONS

What binds individuals together in revolutionary col-lective action within urban civic revolutions, what dis-tinguishes them from those who do not participateor who participate against revolution, and how mightthis differ from how revolutionary collectives are com-posed in other types of revolutions? One answer tothese questions, rooted in Parsonian sociology, focuseson the role of shared values. Johnson (1982) arguedthat social revolutions were the product of the dis-synchronization of societal value systems, with rev-olutionary movements functioning as articulators ofnew forms of legitimation that reintegrate societal

2

psr1300029 xxx (xxx) June 17, 2013 20:48

American Political Science Review Vol. 107, No. 3

members around an alternative set of values (for acritique, see Skocpol 1979, 12–13). Within the democ-ratization literature there is a longstanding tradition,rooted in modernization theory, that views liberaliz-ing political change—whether through revolution orreform—as the result of underlying shifts in societal val-ues and orientations brought about by education, therise of a new middle class, generational shifts in values,or alterations in social capital (Inglehart and Welzel2005; Lipset 1959; Putnam 1993).2 Indeed, many of theearly interpretations of the Orange Revolution empha-sized the ways in which Orange revolutionaries repre-sented an assertion of democratic values against thepredations of a corrupt and repressive hybrid regime.Writing on the pages of Foreign Affairs, Karatnycky(2005) exemplified the euphoria of Western democ-racy promoters over the dramatic events in Kyiv at theend of 2004: “The entire world watched, riveted bythis outpouring of the people’s will in a country whoseinternational image had been warped by its corruptrulers.” In Karatnycky’s explanation, the surprisinglylarge numbers participating in the revolution were theresult of a fundamental transformation of values withinUkrainian society over the previous decade. “Authenticdemocratic values were being reinforced by a new gen-eration that had grown up initially under glasnost, andlater with a broad awareness of democratic practicesaround the world” (for similar narratives with respectto the Arab Spring, see Alexander 2011). Some linkedthis transformation in values to the emergence of a newgeneration of Ukrainians educated in Western ideas,exposed to American and European media, and well-traveled abroad. Others ascribed it to the developmentof a genuine civil society and the increased social cap-ital and self-organization that accompanied it (Diuk2006; Stepanenko 2006). According to these accounts,one should expect one or more of the following hy-potheses to be true:

H1: Participants in the Orange Revolution were support-ive of democratic values and (H1A) displayed greatercommitment to democratic values than others in society.

H2: Participants in the Orange Revolution came dispro-portionately from the younger generation, which (H2A)displayed a greater commitment to democratic values thanits elders.

H3: Participants in the Orange Revolution were recruitedprimarily from those who participated in civil society as-sociations, who (H3A) share a stronger commitment todemocracy than those who did not participate in civil so-ciety associations.

A second common answer to what binds participantsin revolutions together is shared grievances. There isa long tradition in the study of revolution that rootsrevolution in a single overarching grievance such as ahigh level of inequality (Boix 2008), a sense of eco-nomic deprivation (Gurr 1970), or subsistence crises

2 For the opposing view that dissociates value-change from democ-ratization, see Rustow 1970.

(Scott 1976). Tucker (2007), for instance, argues thatin the Orange Revolution participants shared com-mon grievances over the issue of regime corruptionand utilized the focal point represented by electoralfraud to overcome collective action problems and rootout rampant government corruption from their dailylives. Others have contended that the act of electoralfraud in and of itself was a dominant grievance motivat-ing massive protests (Thompson and Kuntz 2004). Yetwhether electoral fraud in the Orange Revolution wasa dominating, suddenly imposed grievance or merely“the straw that broke the camel’s back” and a potentmobilizational opportunity is unclear.

There is, however, a contrasting literature withinthe study of revolution that would lead one to expectthat urban civic revolutions aggregate diverse sets ofgrievances. A number of studies of social revolutionsuggested that multiclass alliances were critical to rev-olutionary success. Dix (1984) ascribed the differentialsuccess of revolutionary movements in Latin Americato their ability to construct a “negative coalition” unit-ing different classes around common rejection of theruling regime. The concept of a “negative coalition”(a coalition displaying highly diverse preferences onmost major politically salient issues but united primar-ily by their common rejection of a particular outcome)has gained significant currency within the literature onrevolutions (Goldstone 1994; Goldstone 2011; Good-win 2001).3 Indeed, Goldstone argues that one of themain differences between social movements and rev-olutions is that social movements are chiefly focusedon one particular set of issues, while in revolutions“the actions of groups seeking quite different goalscombine to create broadly linked protests, such thatthe regime cannot deal with all these protests and isoverwhelmed” (1994, 148). While certainly almost allrevolutions could be characterized as negative coali-tions to some degree, one might expect revolutionaryprocesses that concentrate hundreds of thousands intourban spaces in a matter of days to accentuate a lack ofconsensus over ends, given that revolutionary organi-zation in such situations cannot play much of any role inproviding ideological coherence or in filtering partic-ipants, and maximizing participation usually involvesattaining cooperation across widely divergent opposi-tional groups. By contrast, in revolutions taking place insmall population settings and over a protracted periodof time (such as in peasant revolutions), revolutionaryorganization is more capable of controlling the com-position of participants, either through weeding outdissenters and undesirables or through indoctrination,thereby providing a greater degree of organizationaland ideological coherence. Still, what allows a negativecoalition to come into existence in some circumstancesbut not others is not clear. For Dix (1984) moderate

3 The concept bears some resemblance to the notion of a “coalition ofminorities” that Downs (1957, 55–60) used to explain how a rationalopposition might take advantage of the paradox of voting to defeat arational incumbent by constructing a platform of minority-pleasingpositions on key issues, so that an absence of consensus potentiallyleads to a cycling of governments.

3

psr1300029 xxx (xxx) June 17, 2013 20:48

The Semblance of Democratic Revolution August 2013

elements are pushed into a loose coalition with mili-tants simply due to the variety of alienating policiesundertaken by the regime (See also Goodwin 2001).Yet we know many cases in which outrageous regimebehavior does not succeed in creating such coalitions.

Thus from the literature one is left with contrastingexpectations about who might have participated in theOrange Revolution:

H4: Participants in the Orange Revolution were mobi-lized primarily by a dominant motivating grievance suchas corruption, inequality, electoral fraud, or economic de-privation.

H5: Participants in the Orange Revolution constituted anegative coalition, mobilizing largely against the incum-bent regime due to regime behaviors that alienated themand, for varied reasons, impelled them into common op-position.

For proponents of the collective action paradigm,neither common values nor common grievances aresufficient for motivating revolutionary action, sincemost individuals prefer that others bear the costs ofactivism, leading to free-rider problems. Rather, whatbinds revolutionaries together or pulls them apartare selective incentives wielded for or against partic-ipation by revolutionary movements and incumbentregimes (Tullock 1971; Hardin 1995; Lichbach 1995).Here again, the contrast between urban civic revolu-tions and other forms of revolution is instructive. Insmall population settings (such as in peasant revolu-tions) revolutionary movements are usually organizedas vanguard parties, militias, or conventional armiesthat monitor individuals within local populations, pro-viding selective threats and rewards so as to stimulaterecruitment and minimize resistance (Popkin 1979; We-instein 2007). In large urban settings, however, wherethe goal is to mobilize very large numbers in a con-centrated window of time, revolutionary movementsface difficult challenges deploying selective incentives;they normally cannot monitor individuals within largeanonymous population centers, clearly differentiate orcontrol who participates and who does not, or providemore than the weakest of selective incentives (rockconcerts and soup kitchens—both used during OrangeRevolution by the opposition—are simply not powerfulenough selective incentives to motivate large numbersto engage in high-risk activism).4 By contrast, fear ofgovernment reprisal is usually an important factor in-hibiting individuals from joining urban revolutionarycauses (Olsson-Yaouzis 2010)—perhaps even more im-portant than for revolutions within small populationsettings, where the reach of the government may bemore limited. Thus in urban civic revolutions one might

4 Both surveys of Orange Revolution participants examined in thisstudy cast doubt on the effectiveness of positive selective incentivesoffered by urban civic revolutionary movements. Only 5 percent ofOrange Revolution participants believed that people participated inthe revolution in order to experience solidarity or to be with friendsand acquaintances, or because they were compelled to participate bytheir superiors or were paid money to participate.

expect that those most likely to participate would bethose best able to avoid government retaliation (ei-ther because the government has difficulty identify-ing them, or because it cannot deploy effective neg-ative incentives against them) rather than those whoreceive selective incentives from revolutionary move-ments. Whereas peasant and rural-based revolts rely onterrain to prevent government identification and retali-ation (Fearon and Laitin 2003), urban civic revolutionsrely on large numbers to render problematic the iden-tification of individuals by government for purposes ofretaliation. Moreover, participants who have their ownindependent resources are less likely to be affected bynegative selective incentives deployed by government.In this respect, in addition to predicting that successfulurban revolutions require large numbers, the collectiveaction paradigm would lead us to believe the following:

H6: Participants in the Orange Revolution were those withgreater income and resources and those who derived theirincome and resources independently of the government—i.e., the better off and those not employed in the publicsector.

A final answer often given to what binds individu-als together in revolutionary collective action is com-mon ties. Some have argued that high-risk activism re-quires the presence of strong network ties (friendships,personal acquaintances, and face-to-face relationships)that pull individuals who otherwise might not have theresolve to participate into collective action (McAdamand Paulson 1993). Writing about partisan resistance toSoviet rule, Petersen (2001) observed that strong tight-knit communities constituted the backbone of recruit-ment for clandestine rebellion and guerilla warfare,and these types of strong ties typically form the basisfor rural-based revolution. However, strong face-faceties might be less relevant a mechanism of recruitmentwithin revolutions that seek to concentrate hundredsof thousands in an urban setting within a compressedperiod of time. Granovetter (1973) has spoken of theutility of weak ties in processes that rely upon the diffu-sion of information and influence, as one might expectto be the case in revolutionary processes within a largeurban environment. Goldstone (1994, 154) combinedthese perspectives, arguing that revolutionary mobi-lization is promoted by situations of strong ties withingroups but weak ties across groups. Still others such asSlater (2009) or Beissinger (2002) emphasize the abil-ity to wield symbolic power across diverse groups andindividuals as critical for mobilizing the large numbersnecessary for revolutionary success. Thus, according tothese divergent perspectives, one might alternativelyexpect the following:

H7: Participants in the Orange Revolution were recruitedprimarily from individuals connected through strong, face-to-face ties.

H8: Participants in the Orange Revolution were recruitedprimarily from individuals connected through weak ties.

4

psr1300029 xxx (xxx) June 17, 2013 20:48

American Political Science Review Vol. 107, No. 3

H9. Participants in the Orange Revolution were re-cruited primarily from individuals with strong identitiesand shared symbolic capital.

Below, I evaluate these hypotheses through two un-usual surveys taken at the time of the 2004 OrangeRevolution in Ukraine. As the results indicate, not onlydid Orange revolutionaries display weak commitmentto the democratic values represented in the master nar-rative of the revolution, but they were a surprisinglydiverse group in terms of their opinions on the majorissues of the day in Ukraine, forming a negative coali-tion united primarily by shared symbols and identities,weak ties, and their extreme rejection of the incumbentregime.

IDENTIFYING ORANGE REVOLUTIONARIES,COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARIES,SUPPORTERS, AND OPPONENTS

As Kuran (1995) observed, revolutions often occur sud-denly, taking observers and participants by surprise. Itis therefore unusual to have a cross-sectional recordof the backgrounds, attitudes, and lifestyles of thosewho participated in a revolution, let alone to be able tocompare these with some precision to other membersof society. But this is in essence what the Monitoringsurvey, conducted in early March 2005 by the Insti-tute of Sociology of the National Academy of Ukraine,represents.

The Orange Revolution from November 21, 2004through January 10, 2005 is widely considered one ofthe most spectacular displays of urban revolutionaryprotest on the European continent since the end ofthe Cold War. Up to a million citizens turned out onMaidan, the main square of Kyiv, in temperatures ascold as −12 degrees centigrade, to call for the annul-ment of falsified elections and an end to the incumbentregime of Leonid Kuchma.5 The 2005 Monitoring sur-vey was not designed specifically as a study of OrangeRevolution participation. Monitoring surveys had beenconducted by the Institute of Sociology every year since1994 as a means for analyzing trends within Ukrainiansociety (Panina 2005). The survey typically consistedof two parts: a battery of questions repeated annually,and one-time questions designed to probe particular

5 Some analysts do not believe the Orange Revolution qualifies asa revolution. Bunce and Wolchik (2011), for example, speak of itas a “democratic breakthrough” rather a revolution, while Hale(2005, 135) views it as part of a “cyclical process of elite contestationand consolidation,” and Way (2008) refers to it as an “authoritarianturnover.” However, the decision to hold a new election was forcedon the authorities by mass action involving millions of protesterson the streets, and substantively the revolution put an end to thegrowing authoritarian character of the Kuchma regime. By the def-inition of revolution used here, it was a mass uprising involving theemergence of competing centers of sovereignty, each claiming to bethe legitimate government. Orange candidate Viktor Yushchenkowas actually sworn in as president on Maidan in front of a largecrowd of onlookers, even before the fraudulent electoral resultsdeclaring pro-incumbent candidate Viktor Yanukovych as winnerwere announced.

issues.6 In the case of the March 2005 Monitoring sur-vey, a series of one-time questions were added concern-ing the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election and theevents of the Orange Revolution that accompanied it.Respondents were asked to identify the candidate forwhom they voted in each of the three rounds of the 2004presidential election, whether they had participated inany demonstrations during the Orange Revolution andin what manner, their beliefs about why people partici-pated in the Orange Revolution protests, and their atti-tudes about what these events represented and whetherthey had improved conditions in Ukraine. Assumingthat those who voted for Yanukovych did not demon-strate for Yushchenko (and vice versa), in essence thesequestions allow one to identify five distinct groups withrespect to the revolution (Figure 1): (1) revolutionaries(those who voted for Yushchenko in the third roundof voting on December 26, 20047 and who also partici-pated in protests during the Orange Revolution: 18.6%of respondents); (2) revolution supporters (those whovoted for Yushchenko in the third round but did notparticipate in any demonstrations: 36.3% of respon-dents); (3) revolution opponents (those who votedfor pro-incumbent candidate Viktor Yanukovych orvoted against all candidates in the third round butdid not participate in protests: 31.5% of respondents);(4) counter-revolutionaries (those who participatedin protest demonstrations but voted for Yanukovych,voted against all candidates, or willingly chose not vote:2.0% of respondents);8 and (5) the inactive or apathetic(those who, in the midst of the most hotly contestedelection in Ukrainian history and revolutionary eventsthat swept up millions, neither voted nor participated inany protests: 8.6% of respondents).9 The place of non-participant supporters, counter-revolutionaries, revo-lution opponents, and the apathetic are ignored in mostanalyses of revolution. In this respect, the 2005 Mon-itoring survey provides a unique perspective throughwhich to analyze revolutionary activity.

There are obvious issues with using a retrospectivesurvey of revolutionary participation. Attitudes andbeliefs may themselves be affected by the experienceof revolution, and bandwagoning and preference falsi-fication are inherent parts of the revolutionary process.

6 The 2005 Monitoring survey was based on a representative sampleof 1,801 adult Ukrainians (18 years or older) using a combinationof stratified, random, and quota sampling and was conducted fromMarch 2–30, 2005 in all provinces of Ukraine. For details on samplingprocedures, see Panina 2005, 17–18.7 I use the third round of voting as the clearest expression of whetheran individual supported or did not support the Yushchenko candi-dacy. The first round included numerous other candidates, and thesecond round occurred prior to the onset of the revolutionary events.8 During the Orange Revolution there were pro-incumbent demon-strations organized by the Yanukovych campaign, the largest ofwhich included about 70 thousand participants.9 A small portion (1.4% of the sample) refused to indicate whetherthey had voted in the presidential election or whether they had par-ticipated in any demonstrations. These respondents were droppedfrom the analysis. Another 1.7% was disqualified from voting andwas also dropped from the analysis (only two respondents indicatedthat they had participated in the Orange Revolution protests butwere disqualified from voting).

5

psr1300029 xxx (xxx) June 17, 2013 20:48

The Semblance of Democratic Revolution August 2013

FIGURE 1. Political Groupings in the Orange Revolution (Monitoring Survey)

18.6%

36.3%

8.6%

31.5%

2.0%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

We are fortunate to have available another survey thatprovides some leverage on the extent of these kinds ofinaccuracies within the Monitoring survey. A nation-ally representative survey of 2,044 adults (18 or older)was conducted by the Kyiv International Institute ofSociology (KIIS), December 10–14, 2004—in the im-mediate wake of the demonstrations but prior to thethird round of the presidential vote—that also askedrespondents not only whether they had participated indemonstrations after the second round of voting, butalso for whom they intended to vote in the upcomingthird round of the election. The KIIS survey was a bare-bones survey focusing almost entirely around votingand protest behavior. But as it was taken prior to thefinal outcome of the revolutionary events, it may havebeen a more accurate expression of who participated inthe protests, though a less accurate reflection of votingpreferences (12.2% of the sample did not know at thetime for whom they would vote or did not indicate anelectoral preference). The KIIS survey found a slightlylower rate of protest participation overall (18.2% ofUkrainian society, as opposed to 20.6% in the Monitor-ing survey). However, only 13.6% of respondents in thesurvey were revolutionaries (participated in protestsand declared their intention to vote for Yushchenko inthe third round), 4.0% were counter-revolutionaries(had participated in protests and intended to votefor Yanukovych), and another 0.7% participated inprotests but did not yet know for whom they would voteor failed to give an electoral preference. Moreover,in the KIIS survey 26.9% were revolution supporters(intended to vote for Yushchenko but did not partic-ipate in protests), 35.7% were revolution opponents(did not participate in protests but intended to votefor Yanukovych), and 18.6% had not participated inprotests and were undecided about how they wouldvote or failed to give an electoral preference (Figure 2).

It is hard to know which represents the “true” dis-tribution of preferences and behaviors during the Or-ange Revolution: the Monitoring survey, the KIIS sur-vey, or the official election results. All three containsome significant inaccuracies. According to the officialelection results, 77% of eligible voters participated inthe third round of presidential voting in Ukraine onDecember 26; by contrast, 88% of Monitoring surveyrespondents claimed to have voted, and 95% of theKIIS sample said that they intended to vote. In theMonitoring survey 62% of those who claimed to havevoted indicated that they voted for Yushchenko, eventhough the official results indicated that Yushchenkoreceived only 52% of the votes. In the KIIS survey only43% of those who indicated that they would participatein the third round of voting also indicated that theywould vote for Yushchenko (significantly below theofficial results). In the Monitoring survey, 6% of thoseclaiming to have voted said that they voted against allcandidates, even though the official results showed thatthis was only 2% of the electorate (in the KIIS surveythis was 3.2% of those intending to vote). The numberclaiming to have voted for the incumbent regime can-didate Yanukovych is significantly lower in the Moni-toring survey (31%) than the 44% that he received atthe polls (39% in the KIIS survey among those whointended to vote). It is possible that the degree of sup-port for Yanukovych in the official elections results wasinflated, given widespread reports of election irregular-ities in eastern and southern Ukraine (OSCE 2005, 36–37; Myagkov, Ordeshook, and Shakin 2005, 91–131).It is also possible that response rates to the Moni-toring and KIIS surveys differed among Yushchenkoand Yanukovych supporters, given that the surveysasked questions that Yanukovych supporters might notwant to answer. Still, taking all these cues into ac-count, it seems clear that some degree of “preference

6

psr1300029 xxx (xxx) June 17, 2013 20:48

American Political Science Review Vol. 107, No. 3

FIGURE 2. Political Groupings in the Orange Revolution (KIIS Survey)

13.6%

26.9%

18.6%

35.7%

4.0%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

falsification” was present in the Monitoring survey—though probably no greater than 10–12% of the sample.Some respondents in the Monitoring survey claimedto have voted for Yushchenko when they did not goto the polls or voted instead for Yanukovych. Someclaimed to have voted against all candidates when infact they voted for Yanukovych. Some claimed to haveparticipated in the protests on the Orange side whenthey had not participated in any protests at all. And thenumber of counter-revolutionaries was likely twice aslarge as the Monitoring survey indicated (though stillquite small).

Nevertheless, these surveys provide us with roughlyaccurate estimates of participation in the Orangerevolution—estimates that accord with many of thestylized facts that have circulated about the revolution.Projecting the results of both surveys on Ukraine’sadult population of 36 million, they indicate that some-where between 4.9 and 6.7 million people participatedin the revolution on the Orange side across variousparts of Ukraine, while between 700 thousand and 1.4million participated in protests on the Blue side (in sup-port of the incumbent regime). Both surveys show thatmore Ukrainians supported the revolution than op-posed it, but they also both indicate that Ukrainian so-ciety was more closely divided over regime change thanthe homogenizing images of the enormous crowds onMaidan might have suggested. The official electoral re-sults of the third round of voting indicated that Orangesupporters outnumbered revolution opponents on theorder of about 6 to 5; the Monitoring survey records amargin of 8 to 5, while the KIIS survey showed a narrowmargin of 11 to 10 among likely voters. Nevertheless,protest mobilization by revolution supporters far out-numbered mobilization by revolution opponents (by afactor of almost 9 to 1 in the Monitoring survey, andin the KIIS survey by a factor of almost 4 to 1). I will

explore some of the reasons for this below. But thesepatterns suggest that the outcomes of revolutionaryepisodes are due as much to the passivity of potentialregime supporters as to the effective mobilization ofregime opponents.

Despite some of its inaccuracies, the Monitoring sur-vey still presents an unusually rich and detailed portraitof Ukrainian society’s participation in and attitudes to-ward the Orange Revolution. In all, the survey asked atotal of 357 questions covering a wide variety of topics.In addition to questions about the respondent’s age,gender, and marital and family status, level of educa-tion, place of residence, religion, nationality, languageuse, and economic and material situation, the surveyasked respondents about their attitudes toward pri-vatization, Ukraine’s geopolitical orientation, citizen-ship and language policy, and political institutions. Itasked about respondents’ political self-identification,participation in civil society associations, trust in otherpeople and in institutions, evaluations of political lead-ers, interactions with the state over the previous 12months, attitudes toward various nationalities, theirbiggest fears and what they desired more in their lives,health and drinking habits, height and weight, the sizeof their living space and how well it was heated, howthey spent their free time and what consumer goodsthey owned, thoughts of migration within Ukraine orabroad, access to the internet and cell-phone owner-ship, and numerous other questions. Never before hassuch an extensive record of the personal habits, be-haviors, attitudes, and backgrounds of participants ina revolution been available (though this was not theovert purpose of the survey). Moreover, the surveyprovides us with the unusual opportunity to comparerevolutionaries on all these attributes with counter-revolutionaries, revolution supporters, revolution op-ponents, and the apathetic or inactive.

7

psr1300029 xxx (xxx) June 17, 2013 20:48

The Semblance of Democratic Revolution August 2013

FIGURE 3. Age Categories by Political Groupings in the Orange Revolution

29

20

20

19

17

10

24

33

41

40

42

44

15

12

7

8

6

5

29

33

30

31

33

39

3

2

2

2

2

2

0 20 40 60 80 100

25 or younger

26 to 35

36 to 45

46 to 55

56 to 65

66 or older

Revolu�onaries Revolu�on supporters Apathe�c/inac�ve

Revolu�on opponents Counter-revolu�onaries

To illustrate, from the Monitoring survey we learnthat, controlling for the age of respondents, revolu-tionaries were more than eight times more likely to befrom Western Ukraine, twice as likely to attend churchand to be internet users, 58% more likely to be male,and 24% more likely to say that they had true friendsthan the rest of the adult population of Ukraine.10 Bycontrast, controlling for age, counter-revolutionarieswere twice as likely be male, three times more likely tospeak Russian at home and to have engaged in physi-cal exercise sometime in the previous seven days, fourtimes more likely to be dissatisfied with the conditionof their homes, and almost six times more likely tobe from a single province of Ukraine (Donetsk) thanthe Ukrainian population as a whole.11 In short, therichness of the survey and the ability to identify differ-ent categories of the population with respect to theirparticipation in and attitudes toward revolution makesthe Monitoring survey a unique record in the study ofrevolutionary politics more generally.12 Below, I usethe Monitoring survey (and a few questions from theKIIS survey, when relevant) to assess who participatedin the revolution, what motivated them to participate,and how they differed from those who failed to partic-ipate, opposed the revolution, or remained entirely onthe sidelines.

THE HETEROGENEITY OF ORANGEREVOLUTION PARTICIPANTS

With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the fun-damental shift in societal values that some initially be-

10 All of these differences were statistically significant at the 0.01level or better.11 All of these differences were statistically significant at the 0.05level or better.12 For studies that have utilized the aggregated results of the Moni-toring survey, see Lane 2008; Stepanenko 2005; White and McAllister2009.

lieved lay beneath the Orange Revolution (H1, H2, andH3) was a chimera. However, this was already evidentimmediately after the revolution in the results of theMonitoring survey. To be sure, the younger generationof Ukrainians played a conspicuous role in the rev-olution. According to the Monitoring survey, those 25years old or younger constituted 23% of participants inthe Orange protests (though only 19% of the Ukrainianpopulation as a whole), and there is a statistically signif-icant relationship between age and revolutionary par-ticipation (t = 5.77, p < 0.001). But while Ukrainianyouth participated disproportionately, it was still thecase that the vast majority of Ukrainian youth (71%)did not participate in any protests at the time, andslightly less than half of all young people (46%) eithervoted against the Orange camp or did not vote at all(Figure 3). Indeed, when one looks at Yushchenko’selectoral support by age group, youth actually showedless of a propensity to vote for Yushchenko than othergroups (particularly, those between 36 and 65), andsignificantly more young people remained inactive orapathetic throughout the revolution than was true ofother age groups.

Similarly, politically oriented civil society associa-tions such as Chysta Ukraina (Clean Ukraine), Znayu(I Know), Pora (It’s Time), or the Committee ofUkrainian Voters played critical roles in mobiliz-ing voters to the polls and to the Maidan protests.And the activist presence was conspicuous at theOrange protests. According to the Monitoring sur-vey, 21% of Orange revolutionaries belonged to atleast one social or political association broadly de-fined (compared to 16% of the Ukrainian popula-tion as a whole), and there was a statistically sig-nificant relationship between participation in civilsociety associations and participation in the revolu-tion (chi2 (1) = 5.74, significant at the 0.05 level).But the overwhelming majority of revolution partici-pants had never participated in any civil society associ-ations, and counter-revolutionaries were actually more

8

psr1300029 xxx (xxx) June 17, 2013 20:48

American Political Science Review Vol. 107, No. 3

heavily involved in civil society associations (34%) thanrevolutionaries.13

More importantly, the Monitoring survey reveals noshared commitment to basic democratic values amonga majority of Orange Revolution participants (H1A,H2A, and H3A). The survey asked, for instance, “Inyour opinion, do you believe that Ukraine needs amulti-party system?” Only 34% of revolutionaries fa-vored a multiparty system for Ukraine, while 38% op-posed it, and 28% did not know how to answer thequestion. Moreover, there was no statistically signifi-cant difference between the way that revolutionariesresponded to this question and how other groupingsresponded.14 Thus, a mere eight to ten weeks after whatwas considered by some at the time to be one of themost spectacular manifestations of “democratic” revo-lution of the early twenty-first century, only a third ofthose who had participated in the revolution supportedone of the core features of democracy in its stripped-down, Schumpeterian form (multiparty competition),and more participants actually opposed a multipartysystem than favored it. Although the revolution hadbeen sparked in significant part by abuses of presi-dential power, Orange revolutionaries and revolutionsupporters were much less likely to oppose the in-troduction of direct presidential rule that would limitseverely the power of the legislature than were rev-olution opponents and counter-revolutionaries.15 AndOrange Revolution participants were just as likely toagree with the statement “Several strong leaders cando more for the country than laws and discussion”as were Orange Revolution opponents and counter-revolutionaries.16 Among revolutionaries, no relation-ship existed between age or civil society associationparticipation and how people answered these ques-tions, while among all respondents only a relationshipexisted between age and support for a multiparty sys-tem. Thus, once the revolution gained power, commit-ment among revolutionaries to democratic values andnorms was conspicuously weak. But even in the midstof the revolution, a majority of those who participatedwere not primarily motivated by the desire to defend

13 Counter-revolutionaries were somewhat more likely to participatein sports clubs, professional associations, and trade unions, whilerevolutionaries were somewhat more likely to participate in religiousassociations and political parties.14 Certainly, some portion of the weak support for a multipartysystem among Orange revolutionaries is attributable to a generalmistrust of political parties among Ukrainians. But this is not a fullexplanation. Fifty-seven percent of Orange Revolution participantsbelieved that there were political parties that could be trusted withpower (only 10% believed that there were none). Even among thoseOrange Revolution participants who said that they trusted politicalparties, only 42% supported a multiparty system for Ukraine.15 The question asked “How do you feel about the introduction ofdirect presidential rule in Ukraine, with the president taking on fullpowers in order to pull the country out of crisis, limiting the functionsof parliament?” Only 11% of revolutionaries and 12% of revolutionsupporters opposed this proposal under any circumstances, com-pared with 30% of counter-revolutionaries and 28% of revolutionopponents (chi2(8) = 57.64, significant at the 0.001 level).16 Thus 61% of revolutionaries agreed with this statement, comparedwith 60% of revolution supporters, 48% of the inactive/apathetic,62% of revolution opponents, and 69% of counter-revolutionaries.

democratic values. The KIIS survey asked respondentsto name two main reasons why people protested inthe revolution. Only 40% of revolutionaries picked “todefend the values of a just, democratic society”—morethan other groupings, but still a minority of revolutionparticipants.

When one examines their attitudes on the majorissues of the day in Ukraine, a surprising degree ofdiversity is apparent among Orange Revolution partic-ipants, with opinions often diverging significantly fromthe positions endorsed by “Our Ukraine.” In additionto its official embrace of democracy and stance againstthe corruption and electoral fraud of the Kuchma gov-ernment, “Our Ukraine” stood for an unabashedlypro-Western orientation in Ukrainian foreign policy.Its economic platform has been described as “a liberalmarket program with a social orientation,” supportingincreasing minimum welfare benefits while “empha-sizing tax cuts, deregulation, and creation of a levelplaying field” (Aslund 2005, 337–338). It favored con-tinued emphasis on privatization, including reprivatiza-tion of some large enterprises and privatization of land(though without the speculative land sales which werethen common). And while “Our Ukraine” projected animage of civic nationalism that was inclusive, it opposedproviding the Russian language with official status—akey issue of contention in Ukraine, and one that clearlyassociated it with Ukrainian speakers.

However, when one looks at the attitudes of Or-ange revolutionaries on these same issues, one findslittle consensus, as the negative coalition hypothesis(H5) might expect. A bare majority (53%) favored amixed economy, while almost a quarter favored re-turn to a centrally planned economy, and 9% favored alaissez faire economy. While most Orange revolution-aries (63%) said they supported the development ofprivate enterprise in Ukraine, a slight majority (56%)were against privatization of large enterprises, and half(54%) did not believe that the sale or purchase ofland should be allowed. In terms of foreign policy, only46% of Orange revolutionaries believed that Ukraineshould develop relations primarily with the West, while22% favored an orientation toward Russia or the CIS,and 33% believed Ukraine should remain independentand rely on its own resources. Moreover, only 30% ofOrange revolutionaries were positive about the ideaof Ukraine joining NATO (even though Yushchenkolater pushed NATO membership as a priority oncehe came to power). And while two-thirds of OrangeRevolution participants opposed giving official statusto the Russian language, about 18% thought this was agood idea, and another 14% were unsure.

The diversity of Orange revolutionaries is evenmore evident when one examines their political self-identification. When asked to identify which posi-tions on the political spectrum were closest to theirs(Figure 4), 34% identified themselves as nationalistor national-democratic, 24% as socialist or social-democratic, 5% as Christian-democratic, and 4% asGreens, while 26% indicated that they did not iden-tify with any specific political position. Thus Orangerevolutionaries were largely split into three, roughly

9

psr1300029 xxx (xxx) June 17, 2013 20:48

The Semblance of Democratic Revolution August 2013

FIGURE 4. Political Self-Identification among Political Groupings in the Orange Revolution

equal groupings: the moderate left (socialists, social-democrats, and greens), those identifying with nation-alist goals (nationalists and national-democrats), andthose who did not identify with any political position.As Figure 4 shows, Orange Revolution participantswere actually more diverse in the political groupingsthey contained than Orange supporters, revolution op-ponents, counter-revolutionaries, or the inactive andapathetic. Despite the fact that 90% of Orange revo-lutionaries had voted for Yushchenko already in thefirst round of the presidential election on October 31(before the onset of the protest campaign), 46% indi-cated that their electoral support of Yushchenko wasconditional upon endorsements by other politicians—inparticular, Yulia Timoshenko (36%), Oleksandr Moroz(18%), and Anatoliy Kinakh (13%). Thus the factionalgroupings that composed the Orange coalition at theelite level reflected themselves downward in the coali-tional and conditional nature of mass participation inthe revolution’s critical events.

To further identify groupings among revolutionaries,I performed a latent class cluster analysis of revolutionparticipants. Latent class cluster analysis is a finite mix-ture approach used to identify groupings of individualswho share similar interests, values, characteristics, orbehaviors. Individuals are classified into clusters basedupon the probabilities of their membership, which (un-like traditional k-means cluster analysis) are estimateddirectly from the model. Moreover, unlike traditionalk-means clustering, latent class cluster variables can be

continuous, nominal, or ordinal (Vermunt and Magid-son 2002).17 As a basis for identifying groupings of rev-olutionaries (n = 247), I used nine questions from theMonitoring survey that captured differences of opin-ion on the major issues of Ukrainian politics: attitudestoward a multiparty system (i.e., democracy); attitudestoward privatization of large enterprises, privatizationof land, the right to buy and sell land, and the gen-eral role of the state in the economy; attitudes towardUkraine’s possible NATO membership and its foreignpolicy orientation; attitudes toward whether Russianshould be accorded official status; and how revolution-aries identified themselves on the political spectrum. Iused the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) and theAkaike Information Criterion with a per-parameterpenalty of 3 (AIC3) to adjudicate between modelswith different numbers of clusters (Andrews and Cur-rim 2003; Fonseca 2008). The lowest BIC suggested athree-cluster model, while the lowest AIC3 suggested afour-cluster model. However, a small number of caseswere classified into the fourth cluster of the four-clustermodel (4% of the sample), and the cluster profile wassimilar to another cluster in the model. Therefore Iused the three-class model.

Figure 5 displays the cluster profile plot for thethree clusters of Orange revolutionaries, each of whichconstituted about a third of the participants in the

17 Latent Gold 4.5.0 was used to perform the analyses.

10

psr1300029 xxx (xxx) June 17, 2013 20:48

American Political Science Review Vol. 107, No. 3

FIGURE 5. Profile Plot for Three-Cluster Model of Participants in the Orange Revolution

0.00

0.20

0.40

0.60

0.80

1.00

Pro-market na�onalist An�-market na�onalist Socialist

revolution. Based on the pattern of their responses,I have labeled the three clusters as antimarket na-tionalists, socialists, and promarket nationalists. Pro-market nationalists most closely approximated theofficial positions of “Our Ukraine.” They strongly sup-ported a multiparty system, privatization of large en-terprises and land, buying and selling of land, and aWestern foreign policy orientation and NATO mem-bership for Ukraine, but strongly opposed official sta-tus for the Russian language. While by and largethey favored a mixed economy, they constituted thebulk of those who believed state interference in themarket should be minimized. When asked to iden-tify themselves on a political spectrum, they predom-inantly chose “nationalist” or “national-democratic.”Like their promarket counterparts, antimarket nation-alists identified themselves predominantly as “nation-alist” or “national-democratic.” They favored a West-ern orientation for Ukraine and were more favorablypredisposed to NATO membership for Ukraine thanopposed (though predominantly undecided). Of thethree groupings they were also the most opposed toaccording Russian official status. But unlike promarketnationalists, they were strongly against privatizationof large enterprises, privatization of land, and buyingand selling of land, and were sharply divided over thedesirability of a multiparty system in Ukraine. Likeantimarket nationalists, socialists were against privati-zation of large enterprises, privatization of land, andbuying and selling of land. While more than half fa-vored a mixed economy, a significant portion (41%)

supported a return to central planning. But unlike theother groupings, they favored a pro-Russian foreignpolicy, opposed participation in NATO, and were sig-nificantly divided over the desirability of making Rus-sian an official language. They also did not supporta multiparty system. When asked to identify wherethey stood on the political spectrum, most identifiedthemselves as socialist, social-democratic, or moderateleft.

In sum, there is solid evidence for the coalitionalcharacter of Orange Revolution participation (H5),with a majority of revolutionaries weakly identifyingwith the values espoused in the revolution’s masternarratives, and with striking dissensus over the funda-mental issues of Ukrainian politics. But if Orange revo-lutionaries were so highly divided and weakly commit-ted to the revolution’s democratic master narratives,what united them and distinguished them from thosewho did not participate, opposed the revolution, orremained apathetic?

THE COLLECTIVE IN ORANGE COLLECTIVEACTION

There was in fact one issue over which Orange rev-olutionaries were in complete agreement and thatdifferentiated them from others: their extreme dis-dain for the incumbent administration, as the negativecoalition hypotheses (H5) would predict. Figure 6shows that Orange revolutionaries were far more

11

psr1300029 xxx (xxx) June 17, 2013 20:48

The Semblance of Democratic Revolution August 2013

FIGURE 6. Evaluation of Incumbent Regime by Revolutionary Activity

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10How do you evaluate the activity of Leonid Kuchma as President of Ukraine?

Counter-revolutionaries

Revolution opponents

Inactive/apathetic

Revolution supporters

Revolutionaries

Notes: Diamonds represent median scores on a 10-point scale (with 1 as the lowest evaluation and 10 as the highest evaluation).Shaded boxes represent the 25th and 75th percentiles, and whiskers extend to the largest and smallest values that are not outliers.

unified in their negative evaluations of the incumbentLeonid Kuchma than revolution supporters, revolutionopponents, counter-revolutionaries, and the inactiveor apathetic. Evaluations of Kuchma were on averagenegative among all groups, including revolution oppo-nents and counter-revolutionaries—an explanation forwhy the incumbent regime failed to mobilize largernumbers to its defense, even though electoral prefer-ences were closely divided in Ukrainian society. Rev-olution opponents and counter-revolutionaries werenot necessarily incumbent regime supporters, but wereprimarily opposed to those challenging the incum-bent regime. Indeed, in the KIIS survey only 43%of counter-revolutionaries indicated that support forYanukovych was one of the two main reasons for par-ticipation in the protests.

But the extreme distribution of evaluations of theincumbent regime among revolutionaries is striking.Sixty percent of Orange revolutionaries gave Kuchmaa rating of 1 (the lowest possible rating) on a 10-pointscale, while 93% gave him a score of 3 or less (the me-dian score for those who supported the revolution butdid not participate). All three clusters of revolution-aries were practically identical in their distributions,with mean scores of 1.7, 1.8, and 1.7, respectively. Bycontrast, revolution supporters, who also evaluated theincumbent regime negatively, were much more dividedin their opinions. Reasons for the extreme dislike ofKuchma among revolution participants varied. Cer-tainly, electoral fraud was a key proximate cause: itwas identified in the KIIS survey by two-thirds of rev-

olutionaries as one of the two main reasons for whypeople participated in the protests. But when asked inthe Monitoring survey to name the main reasons for cit-izen activism during the revolution (respondents couldname more than one), revolutionaries most commonlycited “protest against the authorities” (57%), but withsignificant numbers also choosing “an awakening ofnational consciousness” (41%), “hope for improvedliving standards” (39%), “concern for the future ofone’s children” (33%), “an emotional protest againstinjustice” (33%), “dislike of one of the candidates”(30%), and “a choice between good and evil” (22%).Thus contrary to the overarching grievance theory(H4), beneath the veneer of opposition to electoralfraud, Orange revolutionaries were actually quite frag-mented over the main reasons they were protesting,with some motivated more by issues of identity, othersmore by economic issues, and still others by their beliefin the need to defend democracy. However, they wereall united in their extreme rejection of the incumbentregime—and different from other groupings in that re-gard.

There were other ways in which Orange revolution-aries differed from those who opposed the revolutionor who stood on the sidelines. Orange revolutionar-ies were more highly networked and had higher levelsof social capital than other groupings (H7 and H8).Orange revolutionaries were more likely to reportthat they had true friends (chi2 (8) = 22.05, signif-icant at the 0.01 level), less likely to report feelingsof loneliness than other groupings (chi2(16) = 37.17,

12

psr1300029 xxx (xxx) June 17, 2013 20:48

American Political Science Review Vol. 107, No. 3

FIGURE 7. Identity Markers across Orange Revolution Participants, Supporters, Opponents, andthe Apathetic/Inactive

0.00

0.20

0.40

0.60

0.80

1.00

Proud to be Ukrainian

Primarily local or regional iden�ty

Iden�fies primarily as

ci�zen of Ukraine

Ukrainian as na�ve

language

Speaks primarily

Ukrainian at home

Speaks primarily

Russian at home

Greek catholic or

catholic

Lives in West

Lives in Center

Par�cipate Support Inac�ve Oppose

significant at the 0.01 level), more likely to be in-ternet users (chi2(4) = 57.42, significant at the 0.001level), more likely to attend church (chi2(4) = 40.06,significant at the 0.001 level), and scored higher oninterpersonal trust (chi2(8) = 35.08, significant atthe 0.001 level) than revolution supporters, revolu-tion opponents, counter-revolutionaries, or the inac-tive/apathetic. And as the collective action paradigm(H6) would predict, they were more likely than othergroupings to work in the private sector (chi2(4) =21.98, significant at the 0.001 level), where they weremore insulated governmental control, while counter-revolutionaries were more likely to be employed bythe state (chi2(4) = 12.68, significant at the 0.05 level),and therefore more likely to be subject to governmentselective incentives.

Moreover, Orange revolutionaries were consider-ably better off than other groupings. They had consider-ably more living space per member of their households(34.0 square meters) than revolution supporters (26.1),revolution opponents (22.4), counter-revolutionaries(19.2), and the inactive or apathetic (23.1). Out of a listof 15 consumer goods, Orange revolutionaries ownedsignificantly more than all other groupings. The Mon-itoring survey asked individuals to identify their classposition using seven-point class scale (with 1 as thelowest position and 7 as the highest position). A smallproportion of Orange revolutionaries (12%) identifiedthemselves in the two lowest positions–in contrast to27% of revolution supporters, 26% of revolution op-ponents, 22% of counter-revolutionaries, and 25% ofthe inactive or apathetic. Similarly, only 18% of Or-ange revolutionaries reported that in the previous 12

months there had been times when they could not af-ford to buy basic food items (as opposed to 20% ofrevolution supporters, 31% of revolution opponents,31% of counter-revolutionaries, and 30% of the in-active and apathetic). Thus the Orange Revolutionwas disproportionately a middle class revolution—nota revolution of the have-nots, but disproportionately arevolution of the want-mores. Participants were morelikely than other groupings in society to have indepen-dent resources that might render government selectiveincentives less potent (H6).18

Finally, Orange revolutionaries were connected byties of identity and language use that sharply dis-tinguished them from revolution opponents, counter-revolutionaries, and the apathetic or inactive (H9).As Figure 7 shows, whereas 92% of Orange revolu-tionaries (and 81% of revolution supporters) claimedUkrainian as their native language, only half of theinactive and apathetic and 31% of revolution oppo-nents did. Moreover, 74% of Orange Revolution par-ticipants reported that they spoke primarily Ukrainianat home, while 70% of Yanukovych voters as a wholereported that they primarily spoke Russian at home.Quite literally, Orange revolutionaries and opponentsof the revolution “spoke different languages” in their

18 By contrast, counter-revolutionaries were much more dependenton the government for employment and possessed far fewer inde-pendent resources. This, along with their smaller numbers and thefact that 39% were from a single province (Donetsk), suggests thatgovernment selective incentives played a relatively important role intheir mobilization.

13

psr1300029 xxx (xxx) June 17, 2013 20:48

The Semblance of Democratic Revolution August 2013

FIGURE 8. Identity Markers across Clusters of Orange Revolution Participants

0.00

0.20

0.40

0.60

0.80

1.00

Proud to be Ukrainian

Primarily local or regional iden�ty

Iden�fies primarily as

ci�zen of Ukraine

Ukrainian as na�ve

language

Speaks primarily

Ukrainian at home

Speaks primarily

Russian at home

Greek catholic or

catholic

Lives in West

Lives in Center

Pro-market na�onalist An�-market pp Socialist

everyday lives. In the Ukrainian context language andidentity are inextricably linked with place of residence,and region also played a critical role in differentiatingthose who participated in the revolution from thosewho opposed it or stood on the sidelines. Fully halfof Orange revolutionaries were residents of WesternUkraine, the historical center of Ukrainian national-ism, even though Western Ukraine is home to only 18%of the Ukrainian population. Approximately 30% ofOrange revolutionaries identified themselves as GreekCatholics or Catholics (concentrated largely in West-ern Ukraine), as opposed to about 9% of the Ukrainianpopulation as a whole. In all, 90% of all revolutionariescame from Western and Central Ukraine, even thoughthese regions account for about half of the country’spopulation. Similarly, 90% of those who opposed therevolution hailed from the East and South.

These differences translated into very different at-titudes toward the Ukrainian state. Whereas 79% ofOrange revolutionaries indicated that they were “veryproud” or “mostly proud” of being a citizen of Ukraine,only 32% of revolution opponents did (42% amongcounter-revolutionaries, though they were also themost likely to indicate that they were not proud of beinga citizen of Ukraine). When asked how they primarilyidentified themselves, revolutionaries overwhelminglychose “Citizen of Ukraine” (almost twice as frequentlyas revolution supporters, opponents, and the apathetic)and were much less likely to choose a local or regionalidentity than other groupings. Civic nationalism wasone of the main tropes of the Orange revolt, and thosewho participated in the revolution were precisely thoseto whom such appeals resonated (Arel 2007; Kuzio2010).

Figure 8 also shows that while these differences inthe language and identity differentiated Orange Revo-lution participants from other groupings, revolution-aries were in fact relatively homogenous on thesesame indicators, even across the three clusters of rev-olutionaries identified earlier. All three clusters wereoverwhelmingly proud to be Ukrainian, identified pri-marily as citizens of Ukraine (as opposed to localresidents, representative of their ethnic groups, orcitizens of the former USSR), and overwhelminglyspoke Ukrainian at home. Thus the revolution’s par-ticipants consisted of a coalition of groupings withstarkly different views on the major issues of Ukrainianpolitics and a relatively weak commitment to the rev-olution’s master narrative, but sharing an extreme re-jection of the incumbent regime, thicker network tiesthan others, a weaker vulnerability to the selective in-centives of the regime, and a high degree of shared sym-bolic capital through common vectors of language andidentity.

PREDICTING REVOLUTIONARIES,SUPPORTERS, OPPONENTS, AND THEAPATHETIC

The evidence so far has pointed to the presence ofseveral factors underpinning individual participation inthe Orange revolution: the possession of independentresources; the personal ties and networks of individu-als; and identities, cultural practices, and conceptions ofcommunity. As a further test, I subjected these findingsto multivariate analysis to identify the independent ef-fects and relative influence of each on participation in

14

psr1300029 xxx (xxx) June 17, 2013 20:48

American Political Science Review Vol. 107, No. 3

and attitudes toward the revolution. Because of theirsmall number, I combined counter-revolutionarieswith revolution opponents, thus giving the dependentvariable four outcomes: remain inactive, oppose therevolution, support the revolution without participat-ing in it, or participate in the revolution.19 I then con-ducted a multinomial logistic regression of the rel-ative risk that an individual would fall into one ofthese four categories. For independent variables, inaddition to gender and age as control variables, Iused arrays of questions that probed the effects ofsocial capital and network ties (interpersonal trust;a friendship ties index;20 whether a person partici-pated in civil society associations; internet usage; andchurch attendance), culture and identity (whether aperson was Greek Catholic or Catholic, identified asOrthodox; claimed Ukrainian as a native language;21

spoke Ukrainian at home; and identified primarily as aUkrainian citizen over other identity categories),22 andthe degree to which individuals likely were reliant ongovernment resources (class position, measured as self-identified class23 and the number of major consumergoods owned, and employment in the private or publicsector). Since multinomial logistic regression computesthe risk of being a member of a category relative to therisk of being a member of another category, I providethe results for the six possible combinations of compar-isons (Table 1).24

What stands out is how powerfully identity (H9) (inparticular, language and religion) shaped individualattitudes toward and participation in the revolution(for similar conclusions, see Arel 2007; Way 2010). Notonly did these factors sharply differentiate revolutionsupporters and participants from those who opposedthe revolution or remained completely inactive, butthey also powerfully shaped whether an individual de-cided to participate in the revolution or only supportit at the ballot box. Thus controlling for other factors,simply if an individual claimed Ukrainian as a nativelanguage, the odds that this person would choose to

19 A five-outcome model was tested, but Wald and likelihood-ratio tests indicated the advisability of collapsing the counter-revolutionary option with the oppose option.20 This five-point variable combined two related questions: the fre-quency with which a person experienced feelings of loneliness; andwhether they believed they were lacking true friends.21 There is ambiguity over the meaning of “native language” inUkraine. It may refer to the language of one’s nationality, the lan-guage one grew up speaking, or the language in which one feels mostcomfortable (Arel 2002).22 I did not use region of residence due to the fact that it is a holderfor other relationships and is highly correlated with language use,religion, and identity tested for here. Indeed, when region is in-cluded in the regression, the effects of speaking Ukrainian at homeon whether an individual participated in or merely supported therevolution completely disappear, implying that a significant part ofthe effect of region revolved around language use.23 The seven-point class scale was reduced to a five-point scale dueto the small number of respondents who identified themselves in thetop two categories.24 A suest-based Hausman test indicated that the assumption ofindependence of irrelevant alternatives held true. The regressionwas repeated using robust standard errors, with no major shifts insignificance levels.

participate in the revolution rather than merely supportit at the ballot box increased by 117%. If a person spokeUkrainian at home, the odds of participation increasedby another 72%. Irrespective of any other factors or in-fluences, if someone both claimed Ukrainian as a nativelanguage and spoke Ukrainian at home (41% of thesample), there was a 0.29 predicted probability that heor she would participate, holding all other variables attheir means. Similarly, if a person claimed to be GreekCatholic or Catholic (9% of the sample), the odds ofparticipation in the revolution over merely supportingit at the ballot box increased by 323% (whether thisperson attended church made no difference). Simplybeing Greek Catholic meant that there was a 0.45 pre-dicted probability of participation, holding all othervariables at their means. The effects of language andreligion in differentiating revolutionaries from revolu-tion opponents or the apathetic and inactive were evenmore substantial.

A second result that stands out is how weak ties(H8), in particular, the role of the internet, exercised amore substantial effect on participation than strong ties(H7) (i.e., personal friendship networks, participationin a civil society organizations, or attendance at church)or other forms of social capital. Being an internet user(10% of the sample) increased the odds of participa-tion over simply supporting the revolution by 215%,and internet users had a 0.29 predicted probability ofparticipation, holding all other variables at their means.By contrast, participating in a civil society association(H3) (16% of the sample) increased the odds of par-ticipating in rather than just supporting the revolutionby only 72% (a 0.19 predicted probability of partici-pation, holding other variables at their means), whilechurch attendance and thickness of friendship ties hadno systematic effect on participation, controlling forother variables. Having a high level of interpersonaltrust increased the odds of participation over supportby only 21%.

Finally, there is mixed evidence for factors associatedwith selective incentives (H6). As noted earlier, gov-ernment repression is a key reason why urban civic rev-olutions rely on the power of numbers in the first place.And individuals with more resources (those higher inthe class hierarchy and who owned more consumergoods) were significantly more likely to be revolutionparticipants rather than supporters, opponents, or toremain inactive. Thus, those who identified themselvesat the very top of the class hierarchy (11% of the sam-ple) had a 0.20 predicted probability of participation,while those who identified themselves at the bottomof the class hierarchy (8% of the sample) had onlya 0.10 predicted probability of participation (holdingall other variables constant at their means). But placeof employment had a less clear-cut effect. If a personworked in the private sector (24% of the sample), theodds of participation over support increased by 52% (a0.19 predicted probability of participation), and thoseworking in the private sector were also more likelyto participate in the revolution than to be inactive orto oppose it. But state employment had no statisticallysignificant effect on patterns of participation other than

15

psr1300029 xxx (xxx) June 17, 2013 20:48

The Semblance of Democratic Revolution August 2013

TABLE 1. Multinomial Logistic Regression of the Odds of Participating in, Supporting,Opposing, or Remaining Inactive in the Orange Revolution

Partic Partic Partic Support Support Inactivevs. vs. vs. vs. vs. vs.

Variable Support Inactive Oppose Inactive Oppose Oppose

Gender (0 = female, 1 = male) 41.0% 84.8% 70.5% 31.0% 20.9% −7.7%(2.13)∗∗ (2.56)∗∗ (2.87)∗∗∗ (1.27) (1.32) (−0.38)

Age (18–97) −1.9% 1.2% −1.9% 3.1% 0.1% −3.1%(−3.48)∗∗∗∗ (1.50) (−3.07)∗∗∗ (4.56)∗∗∗∗ (−0.07) (−4.65)∗∗∗∗

Interpersonal trust (1–3) 21.0% 20.3% 18.3% −0.6% −2.2% −1.6%(2.20)∗∗ (1.44) (1.69)∗ (−0.05) (−0.28) (−0.14)

Friendship ties index (1–5) 5.4% 21.6% 11.8% 15.3% 6.1% −8.0%(0.86) (2.24)∗∗ (1.61) (1.90)∗ (1.14) (−1.12)

Participates in civil society orgs 71.9% 142.8% 46.3% 41.2% −14.9% −39.7%(0/1) (2.64)∗∗∗ (2.69)∗∗∗ (1.65)∗ (1.13) (−0.85) (−1.70)∗

Uses internet (0/1) 214.5% 75.5% 218.0% −44.2% 1.1% 81.2%(4.24)∗∗∗∗ (1.63) (4.05)∗∗∗∗ (−1.74)∗ (0.04) (1.90)∗

Attends church in spare time 22.9% −9.0% 66.7% −26.0% 35.6% 83.2%(0/1) (1.01) (−0.30) (1.99)∗∗ (−1.09) (1.46) (2.10)∗∗

Greek catholic/catholic (0/1) 322.8% 1574.0% 1050.0% 295.9% 172.0% −31.3%(4.66)∗∗∗∗ (3.56)∗∗∗∗ (4.95)∗∗∗∗ (1.77)∗ (2.15)∗∗ (−0.44)

Orthodox (0/1) 10.4% 44.1% 62.3% 30.5% 47.0% 12.6%(0.42) (1.20) (1.95)∗ (1.04) (2.18)∗∗ (0.49)

Claims Ukrainian as native 117.1% 339.1% 589.6% 102.3% 217.6% 57.0%language (0/1) (2.81)∗∗∗ (4.64)∗∗∗∗ (7.17)∗∗∗∗ (2.97)∗∗∗ (7.28)∗∗∗∗ (1.99)∗∗

Speaks Ukrainian at home (0/1) 71.6% 361.8% 823.8% 169.1% 438.3% 100.0%(2.72)∗∗∗ (5.18)∗∗∗∗ (9.58)∗∗∗∗ (3.79)∗∗∗∗ (9.21)∗∗∗∗ (2.44)∗∗

Identifies primarily as Ukrainian 55.3% 85.1% 105.3% 19.2% 32.2% 10.9%citizen (0/1) (2.62)∗∗∗ (2.58)∗∗∗ (3.81)∗∗∗∗ (0.86) (2.00)∗∗ (0.52)

Self-identified class (1–5) 22.7% 28.3% 23.4% 4.6% 0.6% −3.9%(2.57)∗∗∗ (2.19)∗∗ (2.30)∗∗ (0.47) (0.09) (−0.41)

Consumer goods owned (1–10) 13.6% 20.6% 11.7% 6.2% −1.7% −7.4%(3.58)∗∗∗∗ (3.58)∗∗∗∗ (2.72)∗∗∗ (1.27) (−0.53) (−1.67)∗

Works in private sector (0/1) 52.1% 85.5% 67.5% 22.0% 10.1% −9.7%(2.02)∗∗ (2.14)∗∗ (2.16)∗∗ (0.77) (0.50) (−0.40)

Works in public sector (0/1) 0.3% 98.3% −14.8% 97.8% −15.1% −57.1%(0.01) (2.28)∗∗ (−0.71) (2.57)∗∗ (−0.93) (−3.24)∗∗∗

Notes: n = 1,625. Coefficients represent the percentage increase in the odds of being in the first category over the second thatis associated with a one-unit increase in the independent variable, with z scores presented in parentheses. For the regressionas a whole, the likelihood ratio chi-square = 896.58 (significant at the 0.001 level) and the count R square (accuracy rate ofprediction) is 0.58.∗ significant at the 0.10 level; ∗∗significant at the 0.05 level; ∗∗∗significant at the 0.01 level; ∗∗∗∗significant at the 0.001 level.

to differentiate the inactive and apathetic (who wereless likely to be employed by the state) from othergroups. In short, if there were threats made by the in-cumbent regime against participation in the revolutionamong those working in the public sector, there is noevidence that these threats were effective in deterringpublic employees from participating (as perhaps onemight expect in a case of successful revolution).

REVOLUTIONARY COALITIONS ANDPOSTREVOLUTIONARY GOVERNANCE INURBAN CIVIC REVOLUTIONS

Whereas the common stylized image of the “coloredrevolutionary” is someone young, civic in habits, anddemocratic in values, the Monitoring and KIIS surveys

convincingly demonstrate that Ukraine’s revolution-aries defied these stereotypes. Orange revolutionarieswere highly diverse in their preferences on most ofthe major issues of the day, and most were weaklycommitted to the values of the revolution’s democraticmaster narratives. Instead, the Orange Revolution be-came a venue through which people with varied be-liefs and preferences who, for different reasons, werealienated from the incumbent regime linked up andacted collectively. Orange revolutionaries shared nocommon visions of values or public policy, and formany participation was conditional on the endorse-ment of specific politicians, so that the factions fromwhich the revolutionary coalition was built at the topreflected themselves down into the composition of thecrowd. Despite this, Orange revolutionaries knew whatthey stood against. They held Kuchma, for disparate

16

psr1300029 xxx (xxx) June 17, 2013 20:48

American Political Science Review Vol. 107, No. 3

reasons, in common disdain. Moreover, they wereunited by language, identity, and common cultural cap-ital, reflecting the regional divisions that dominate con-temporary Ukrainian politics. Indeed, it is hard to avoidthe overwhelming evidence that identity trumped ide-ology (and nearly everything else) in defining who par-ticipated in the revolution, facilitating the formationof a negative revolutionary coalition across disparatepolicy groupings. Thus, much of the spectacular mo-bilizational success of the Orange Revolution can beattributed to the degree to which it pulled upon widelyshared symbolic capital to mobilize participants withhighly diverse preferences into a negative coalitionagainst a regime that was widely understood as rep-resenting a competing communal segment of society.

The absence of comparable attitudinal and behav-ioral data for individual participants in other revolu-tions makes it difficult to know the extent to whichthese patterns are replicated in other urban civic revo-lutions. The data that are available suggest that otherurban civic revolutions likely share some, though notall, of the key characteristics of the Orange Revolu-tion coalition. Analyses of the 2011 Arab Barometersurveys in Tunisia and Egypt, (Beissinger, Jamal, andMazur 2012) indicate that they too could be charac-terized as negative coalitions, fueled predominantly byextreme rejection of the incumbent regime, with nodominant, overarching grievance. Symbolic issues anda sense of national pride also played important roles(Alexander 2011). As in Ukraine, in Tunisia and Egyptrevolution participants were somewhat better off thanthe rest of society, though participants in the OrangeRevolution were more diverse in terms of class andeducation (as one might expect in a revolution dom-inated by cultural cleavages). But unlike Ukraine, inTunisia and Egypt economic motivations rather thanthe element of regional and cultural division were moreprominent. Clearly, the types of issues and coalitionsthat underpin urban civic revolutions vary from case tocase depending in large part on types of cleavages anddivisions that exist within society and the ways in whichauthoritarian regimes inspire opposition to themselves.This of course makes a great deal of sense given that thestrategic goal of urban revolutions is to mobilize verylarge numbers in a highly concentrated period of time,since the types of cleavages that might be most effec-tive toward that end will vary from country to country.Nevertheless, the survey evidence also indicates that,as in Ukraine, only a minority of participants in boththe Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions prioritized civiland political freedoms as a motivation for revolution-ary participation (Beissinger, Jamal, and Mazur 2012),even though these revolts were widely framed whenthey occurred as struggles for democracy.25

In this respect, many urban civic revolutions containthe semblance but not the substance of democraticchange. Whereas elite-articulated master narrativesand mobilizing demands revolve around democratic

25 For further survey evidence indicating the diverse motivationsof participants in the failed urban uprising to remove the Nigerienautocrat Mamadou Tandja in 2009, see Mueller (2011).

ends (civil and political freedoms and free-and-fairelections), only a minority of participants are drivenby these concerns, and most participate due to othermotivations. I have argued that this disjunct is theby-product of the strategic model of mobilizing, in ahighly concentrated period of time, very large num-bers in concentrated urban spaces. This relationshipbetween revolutionary strategies and the character ofrevolutionary coalitions bears important implicationsnot only for our understanding of revolutionary pro-cesses and our interpretation of urban civic revolu-tions, but also for our understanding of postrevolution-ary governance. Whereas revolutionary organizationin peasant revolutions waged over a protracted periodof time can ensure some degree of organizational andideological cohesion among participants through selec-tive incentives, controlled recruitment, or processes ofindoctrination, the reliance of urban civic revolutionson a rapidly convened negative coalition of hundredsof thousands fosters instead fractured elites, lack ofconsensus over fundamental policy issues, and weakcommitment to democratic ends among revolutionar-ies. Indeed, in the case of the Orange Revolution thesefeatures proved to be a significant source of instabilityin the aftermath of attaining power. Despite the sharedsense of community that united Orange revolutionar-ies, once its anti-incumbency goal was achieved, the Or-ange coalition quickly unraveled at both elite and masslevels. Its leaders became engulfed in factional squab-bles; its participants demonstrated weak commitmentto the revolution’s democratic master narrative, failedto mobilize in defense of the revolution’s articulatedideals, and soon broke down into the electoral factionsout of which the revolution was originally composed.Eventually, those whom the revolution evicted frompower were able to win their way back to office throughthe ballot box. This outcome was in certain ways builtinto the very fabric of the urban civic revolutionarymodel itself. Indeed, all of the colored revolutions ofthe early to mid 2000s proved fleeting in their democ-ratizing impact, with revolutionary coalitions falteringand eventually failing to consolidate democratic gains.

Not all urban civic revolutions, of course, have ex-perienced this kind of postrevolutionary incoherenceand authoritarian backtracking. Some (such as a num-ber of the urban civic revolutions that accompaniedthe collapse of communism) have been able to buildupon the revolutionary experience and the commonsymbolic capital that underpinned them (despite thepostrevolutionary collapse of revolutionary coalitions)to forge fragile but persisting democratic cultures. Inthe case of the postcommunist states this was stronglyfacilitated by incentives within the geopolitical envi-ronment (Vachudova 2005). But whereas in protractedpeasant revolutions revolutionary movements providea propitious organizational base for postrevolutionarygovernment through their use of selective incentives,organizational filters, and indoctrination, and few suchrevolutions are even accompanied by democratic pre-tensions, successful urban civic revolutionaries face amuch more severe set of postrevolutionary organi-zational and governance tasks. They must tackle the

17

psr1300029 xxx (xxx) June 17, 2013 20:48

The Semblance of Democratic Revolution August 2013

difficult issues of reconfiguring negative revolutionarycoalitions into positive electoral ones, creating morecoherent forms of political organization, reconstitutingthe civic sphere, and fostering a culture of democraticpurpose if they are to live up to their democratic mas-ter narratives and address the diverse and far-reachingnational, civic, and material aspirations that urban civicrevolutions typically unleash.

REFERENCES

Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2011. Performative Revolution in Egypt: AnEssay in Cultural Power. London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic.

Andrews, Rick, and Imran Currim. 2003. “Retention of LatentSegments in Regression-Based Marketing Models.” InternationalJournal of Research in Marketing 20 (4): 315–21.

Arel, Dominique. 2002. “Interpreting ‘Nationality’ and ‘Language’in the 2001 Ukrainian Census.” Post-Soviet Affairs 18 (3):213–49.

Arel, Dominique. 2007. “Why and How It Happened: OrangeUkraine Chooses the West, but Without the East.” In Aspects ofthe Orange Revolution III: The Context and Dynamics of the 2004Ukrainian Presidential Election, eds. Ingmar Bredies, AndreasUmland, and Valentin Yakushik. Stuttgart, Germany: Ibidem-Verlag: 35–53.

Aslund, Anders. 2005. “The Economic Policy of Ukraine After theOrange Revolution.”Eurasian Geography and Economics 46 (5):327–53.

Beissinger, Mark R. 2002. Nationalist Mobilization and the Col-lapse of the Soviet State. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Beissinger, Mark R. 2007. “Structure and Example in Modular Polit-ical Phenomena: The Diffusion of Bulldozer/Rose/Orange/TulipRevolutions.” Perspectives on Politics (June): 259–76.

Beissinger, Mark, Amaney Jamal, and Kevin Mazur. 2012. “WhoParticipates in ‘Democratic’ Revolutions? A Comparison of theEgyptian and Tunisian Revolutions.” Paper prepared for the an-nual convention of the American Political Science Association.August 29–September 2, New Orleans, LA.

Boix, Carles. 2008. “Economic Roots of Civil Wars and Revolutionsin the Contemporary World.” World Politics 60 (April): 390–437.

Bunce, Valerie J., and Sharon L. Wolchik. 2011. Defeating Authori-tarian Leaders in Postcommunist Countries. Cambridge, UK: Cam-bridge University Press.

Dix, Robert H. 1984. “Why Revolutions Succeed and Fail.”Polity16 (3) (Spring): 423–46.

Diuk, Nadia. 2006. “The Triumph of Civil Society.” In Revolutionin Orange: The Origins of Ukraine’s Democratic Breakthrough,Anders Aslund and Michael McFaul. Washington, DC: CarnegieEndowment for International Peace, 69–84.

Downs, Anthony. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. NewYork: Harper & Row.

Fearon, James, and David Laitin. 2003. “Ethnicity, Insurgency, andCivil War.”American Political Science Review 97 (1) (February):75–90.

Fonseca, Jaime R. S. 2008. “The Application of Mixture Modelingand Information Criteria for Discovering Patterns of CoronaryHeart Disease.” Journal of Applied Quantitative Methods 3 (4):292–303.

Goldstone, Jack A. 1994. “Is Revolution Individually Rational?”Rationality and Society 6: 139–66.

Goldstone, Jack A. 2001. “Toward a Fourth Generation of Revolu-tionary Theory.”Annual Review of Political Science 4: 139–87.

Goldstone, Jack A. 2011. “Cross-class Coalitions and the Makingof the Arab Revolts of 2011.” Swiss Political Science Review 17:457–62.

Goodwin, Jeff. 2001. No Other Way Out: States and RevolutionaryMovements, 1945–1991. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Granovetter, Mark S. 1973. “The Strength of Weak Ties.” AmericanJournal of Sociology 78 (6): 1360–80.

Gurr, Ted Robert. 1970. Why Men Rebel. Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press.

Hale, Henry E. 2005. “Regime Cycles: Democracy, Autocracy, andRevolution in Post-Soviet Eurasia.” World Politics 58 (October):133–65.

Hardin, Russell. 1995. One for All: The Logic of Group Conflict.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Huntington, Samuel P. 1968. Political Order in Changing Societies.New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Inglehart, Ronald, and Christian Welzel. 2005. Moderniza-tion, Cultural Change, and Democracy: The Human De-velopment Sequence. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Johnson, Chalmers. 1982. Revolutionary Change. Stanford, CA:Stanford University Press.

Karatnycky, Adrian. 2005. “Ukraine’s Orange Revolution.” ForeignAffairs 84 (2): 35–52.

Klandermans, Bert. 2010. “Peace Demonstrations or Anti-Government Marches? The Political Attitudes of the Protesters.”In The World Says No To War: Demonstrations Against the War onIraq, eds. Stefaan Walgrave and Dieter Ruchts. Minneapolis, MN:University of Minnesota Press, 98–118.

Kuran, Timur. 1995. Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Conse-quences of Preference Falsification. Cambridge, MA: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Kuzio, Taras. 2010. “Nationalism, Identity and Civil Society inUkraine: Understanding the Orange Revolution.” Communist andPost-Communist Studies 43: 285–96.

Lane, David. 2008. “The Orange Revolution: ‘People’s Revolution’or Revolutionary Coup?” The British Journal of Politics and Inter-national Relations 10 (4): 525–49.

Lichbach, Marc I. 1995. The Rebel’s Dilemma. Ann Arbor, MI: Uni-versity of Michigan Press.

Lipset, Seymour Martin. 1959. “Some Social Requisites of Democ-racy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy.” AmericanPolitical Science Review 53 (1): 69–105.

Marwell, Gerald, and Pamela Oliver. 1993. The Critical Mass inCollective Action: A Micro-Social Theory. Cambridge, UK: Cam-bridge University Press.

McAdam, Doug, and Ronelle Paulsen. 1993. “Specifying the Re-lationship between Social Ties and Social Activism.” AmericanJournal of Sociology 99 (November): 640–67.

McFaul, Michael. 2010. “Importing Revolution: Internal and Exter-nal Factors in Ukraine’s Democratic Breakthrough.” In Democ-racy and Authoritarianism in the Postcommunist World, eds.Valerie Bunce, Michael McFaul, and Kathryn Stoner-Weiss. Cam-bridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 3–29.

Mueller, Lisa. 2011. “Democratic Revolutionaries or PocketbookProtestors? The Comparative Salience of Personal Rule andFamine in the Nigerien Uprisings of 2009.” Paper presented at theWorking Group in African Political Economy, Stanford University.http://cega.berkeley.edu/assets/miscellaneous_files/wgape/21_Mueller.pdf (Accessed March 1, 2013).

Myagkov, Mikhail, Peter C. Ordeshook, and Dmitry Shakin. 2005.“Fraud or Fairytales: Russia and Ukraine’s Electoral Experience.”Post-Soviet Affairs 21 (2): 91–131.

Olsson-Yaouzis, Nicolas. 2010. “Revolutionaries, Despots, and Ra-tionality.” Rationality and Society 22 (3): 283–99.

OSCE Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.2005. “Ukraine Presidential Election 31 October, 21 Novem-ber and 26 December 2004.” http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/ukraine/14674.

Panina, Natalya. 2005. Ukrainian Society 1994–2005: SociologicalMonitoring. Kyiv: International Center for Policy Studies.

Petersen, Roger D. 2001. Resistance and Rebellion: Lessonsfrom Eastern Europe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Popkin, Samuel L. 1979. The Rational Peasant: The Political Econ-omy of Rural Society in Vietnam. Berkeley, CA: University ofCalifornia Press.

Putnam, Robert D. 1993. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditionsin Modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Rustow, Dankwart A. 1970. “Transitions to Democracy: Toward aDynamic Model.” Comparative Politics 2 (3): 337–63.

Scott, James C. 1976. The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellionand Subsistence in Southeast Asia. New Haven, CT: Yale Univer-sity Press.

18

psr1300029 xxx (xxx) June 17, 2013 20:48

American Political Science Review Vol. 107, No. 3

Skocpol, Theda. 1979. States and Social Revolutions: A ComparativeAnalysis of France, Russia, and China. Cambridge, UK: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Slater, Dan. 2009. “Revolutions, Crackdowns, and Quiescence:Communal Elites and Democratic Mobilization in South-east Asia.” American Journal of Sociology 115 (1): 203–54.

Stepanenko, Viktor. 2005. “How Ukrainians View Their OrangeRevolution: Public Opinion and the National Peculiarities of Cit-izenry Political Activities,” Demokratizatsiya 13 (4) (Fall): 595–616.

Stepanenko, Victor. 2006. “Civil Society in Post-Soviet Ukraine:Civic Ethos in the Framework of Corrupted Sociality?” East Eu-ropean Politics and Societies 20 (4): 571–97.

Thompson, Mark R. 2004. Democratic Revolutions: Asia and EasternEurope. New York: Routledge.

Thompson, Mark R., and Philipp Kuntz. 2004. “Stolen Elections:The Case of the Serbian October.” Journal of Democracy 15 (4):159–72.

Tilly, Charles. 1993. European Revolutions, 1492–1992. Oxford, UK:Oxford University Press.

Trotsky, Leon. 1932. The History of the Russian Revolution, Vol. 1.New York: Simon and Schuster.

Tucker, Joshua A. 2007. “Enough! Electoral Fraud, Collective ActionProblems, and Post-Communist Colored Revolutions.” Perspec-tives on Politics 5 (3): 535–51.

Tullock, Gordon. 1971. “The Paradox of Revolution.” Public Choice11: 89–99.

Vachudova, Milada Anna. 2005. Europe Undivided: Democracy,Leverage, and Integration After Communism. Oxford, UK: OxfordUniversity Press.

Vermunt, Jeroen K., and Jay Magidson. 2002. “Latent Class ClusterAnalysis.” In Applied Latent Class Analysis, eds. J. A. Hagenaarsand A. L. McCutcheon. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UniversityPress, 88–106.

Way, Lucan. 2008. “The Real Causes of the Color Revolutions.”Journal of Democracy 19 (July): 55–69.

Way, Lucan. 2010. “National Identity and Authoritarianism: Belarusand Ukraine Compared.” In Orange Revolution and Aftermath:Mobilization, Apathy, and the State in Ukraine, ed. Paul D’Anieri.Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 129–59.

Weinstein, Jeremy M. 2007. Inside Rebellion: The Politics of InsurgentViolence. New York: Cambridge University Press.

White, Stephen, and Ian McAllister. 2009. “Rethinking the ‘OrangeRevolution,’” Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics25 (2): 227–54.

19