Donatella della Porta

Daniel P. Ritter

Teije Hidde Donker

Bogumila Hall

Emin Poljarevic

This book investigates the origins of civil wars which emerge from failed attempts at democratization. The main aim of this volume is to develop a theoretical explanation of the conditions under which and the mechanisms through which social movements’ struggles for democracy end up in civil war. While the empirical evidence suggests that this is not a rare phenomenon, the literatures on social movements, democratization and civil wars have grown apart from each other. At the theoretical level, Social Movements and Civil War bridges insights in the three fields, looking in particular at explanations of the radicalization of social movements, the failure of democratization processes and the onset of civil war. In doing this, it builds upon the relational approach developed in contentious politics with the aim of singling out robust causal mechanisms. At the empirical level, the research provides in-depth descriptions of four cases of trajectory from social movements for democratization into civil wars: in Syria, Libya, Yemen and the former Yugoslavia. Conditions such as the double weakness of civil society and the state, the presence of entrepreneurs of violence as well as normative and material resources for violence, ethnic and tribal divisions, domestic and international military interventions are considered as influencing the chains of actors’ choices rather than as structural determinants. This book will be of great interest to students of civil wars, political violence, social movements, democratization, and IR in general.

When Protests for Democratization Fail

Social Movements and Civil War

Sharon Erickson Nepstad

Mlada Bukovansky

A cutting-edge appraisal of revolution and its future. On Revolutions, co-authored by six prominent scholars of revolutions, reinvigorates revolutionary studies for the twenty-first century. Integrating insights from diverse fields--including civil resistance studies, international relations, social movements, and terrorism--they offer new ways of thinking about persistent problems in the study of revolution. This book outlines an approach that reaches beyond the common categorical distinctions. As the authors argue, revolutions are not just political or social, but they feature many types of change. Structure and agency are not mutually distinct; they are mutually reinforcing processes. Contention is not just violent or nonviolent, but it is usually a mix of both. Revolutions do not just succeed or fail, but they achieve and simultaneously fall short. And causal conditions are not just domestic or international, but instead, they are dependent on the interplay of each. Demonstrating the merits of this approach through a wide range of cases, the authors explore new opportunities for conceptual thinking about revolution, provide methodological advice, and engage with the ethical issues that exist at the nexus of scholarship and activism.

Unruly Politics in the Contemporary World

On Revolutions

Erica Chenoweth

George Lawson

Colin J. Beck

Over the last forty years the world has witnessed the emergence and proliferation of a new political phenomenon - unarmed revolution. On virtually every continent, citizens have ousted their authoritarian leaders by employing nonviolent tactics such as strikes, demonstrations, boycotts, and civil disobedience against them. At the same time however, similar movements elsewhere have been brutally crushed by autocrats determined to cling to power.In this book, Daniel Ritter seeks to understand unarmed revolutions by posing two interrelated questions: Why do nonviolent revolutionary movements in some countries topples their autocraticleaderships while similar movements elsewhere are brutally crushed, and why has the world witnessed a proliferation of unarmed revolution in the last forty years? Through a comparative historical analysis of the Iranian, Tunisian, and Egyptian revolution, he shows that close and friendly international relations between democratic states in the West and authoritarian regimes elsewhere constitute a parsimonious and plausible explanation for nonviolent revolutionary success. Looking beyond theimmediate causes of revolutionary outbreaks, Ritter instead focuses on the contexts that explain successful civil resistance against repressive states.In an originalconceptualization of revolutionary dynamics, he argues that Western-aligned autocrats eventually find themselves restrained by their strong links to the democratic world through a mechanism he refers to as'the iron cage of liberalism'. Having committed rhetorically to the West's fundamental political discourse of democracy and human rights, the dictators in Tehran, Tunis, and Cairo found themselves paralyzed when nonviolent crowds challenged them with tactics and demands fully compatible withthe political ideals the regimes claimed as their own.

International Politics and Unarmed Revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa

The Iron Cage of Liberalism

Daniel P. Ritter

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