More than Just the Final Straw : Stolen Elections as Revolutionary Triggers Author(s): Philipp Kuntz and Mark R. Thompson Source: Comparative Politics, Vol. 41, No. 3 (April 2009), pp. 253-272 Published by: Ph.D. Program in Political Science of the City University of New York Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40599224 . Accessed: 03/09/2013 14:52 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Ph.D. Program in Political Science of the City University of New York is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Comparative Politics. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 141.213.236.110 on Tue, 3 Sep 2013 14:52:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions More thanJust the Final Straw StolenElections as RevolutionaryTriggers PhilippKuntz and MarkR. Thompson Disillusionmentwith the failings of post-coldwar democratizationhas grownsteadily over the last decade. Many countriesare no longergoing through a rockyphase of democraticconsolidation but have insteadbecome "electoral authoritarian."1 While the reasonsfor such democratic decay are manifold,one aspectis noteworthyfrom a cross- nationalperspective: widespread political apathy in theface of a drifttowards electoral authoritarianism.This is allthe more remarkable given that recent waves of democratization in easternEurope, Asia, andAfrica have been characterized by transitions "from below," withpopular protest movements playing a decisiverole.2 Many examples - amongthem Milosevic'sSerbia, Shevardnadze's Georgia, and Ukraineunder Kuchma - revealthat people can remainpassive even in the face of grosshuman rights violations and/or a thoroughcorruption of government. Yet onlya shorttime after such pessimisticdiagnoses, tens or even hundredsof thousandsof citizens poured onto the streets of Belgrade (2000), Tbilisi(2003), andKiev (2004), fullof determination to get rid of their electoral authoritarian rulers. Vitali Silitski has nicelysummarized why so manypeople were astonishedby theserevolutionary "eruptions"in Serbia,Georgia, and Ukraine:"The greateststory in all threerevolutions is theemergence of a truedemocratic spirit in societieswritten off by manyobservers (oftenincluding insiders) as passive,indifferent, submissive, and inherentlyunfit for democracy."3Not only oppositionactivists, but also powerholderswere caughtby surprise.It was onlya matterof weeksor even daysbefore these regimes surrendered power.How can sucha suddenand powerful mass mobilization be explained? The crucial turningpoint occurredonly a shorttime beforepeople started demonstrating.Massive antiregimeprotests broke out after"soft" authoritarian rulers engagedin blatantelectoral fraud. More precisely,interference in theelectoral process occurredat the last moment: conventional, that is, more subtle means of keeping elections undercontrol in advancehad failed.It becamea commonperception that the opposition had actuallydefeated the regime. The last resortfor cornered autocrats was to falsify crudelythe final results or to annulthe electoral contest altogether. Stolenelections can be definedas electionsin whichthe regime hinders an actualor perceivedopposition victory at theballot box throughblatant manipulation of thevote countor by annullingthe electoral result itself. While in a normativesense everyact 253 This content downloaded from 141.213.236.110 on Tue, 3 Sep 2013 14:52:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ComparitivePolitics April 2009 of manipulationamounts to an act of stealing,it is usefulto reservethe word "stolen" forelections in whichthe regime is believedto have lost thevoting despite attempts at manipulation.Ordinary people can reachthis conclusion in severaldifferent ways. Sometimesrulers are so surprisedby electoral defeat that voting officials start publishing actualresults before they receive orders to stop counting (or they go throughwith the count, onlyto havethe election annulled altogether). In othercases, exit polls andparallel vote countsprovide solid evidencefor the actual outcome. International and pro-opposition mediaas well as movementactivists can easilyspread such information in a heightened postelectoralatmosphere. There is thepossibility of hype in this process (what ultimately mattersis theperception of an election'sbeing stolen), but usually the opposition's claims arebased on somekind of credible evidence.4 Understoodthis way, a stolenelection is not just the final straw that breaks the autocrat's back.Rather, it constitutes a powerful transformatory event which fundamentally reshapes politicalcontestation and thus deserves to be distinguishedfrom other forms of electoral fraud.This findingis notonly of interestto studentsof contemporarydemocratization. Throughan analysisof stolenelections as triggeringevents, a usefulcontribution can also be made to the studyof revolutions.As the nextsection will show,attempts to emphasizerevolutionary précipitants have encounteredpersistent academic resistance. By systematicallydemonstrating the impact of a short-termevent like stolenelections, thismainstream view can be challenged. The significanceof stolenelections will be shownin threeways. First, a modelwill be introducedthat reveals the potential for theorizing this triggering event among different groupsof actors:citizens, activists, and regimemembers. Second, stolen elections will be situatedin thestructural context of electoralauthoritarianism. Blatant cheating on the scale ofannulling an oppositionvictory is crucialin overcomingstrong collective action barriersthat are peculiarto thistype of regime.Third, stolen elections were more than justthe final straw in thedemocratic uprisings that swept away the autocratic regimes of SlobodanMilosevic, Eduard Shevardnadze, and Leonid Kuchma.Had stolenelections been merelythe spark ignitingan alreadyexplosive situation, then other,equally reprehensiblepolitical acts shouldhave yielded a similareffect. Finally, examination of othercases beyondSerbia, Georgia, and Ukrainecan determinehow farthe argument aboutstolen elections can be carried. TriggeringEvents and Theoriesof Revolution Disagreementover long-termversus short-term causes has plaguedthe sociologyof revolutionssince it beginnings,but differences of opinionbecame more pronounced in thetwentieth century. Scholars in thenatural history of revolutiontradition reserved a place fortriggering events, as did latertheories or syntheseswritten in less metaphorical language.While the linkbetween triggers and revolutionaryconsequences remained 254 This content downloaded from 141.213.236.110 on Tue, 3 Sep 2013 14:52:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PhilippKuntz and MarkR. Thompson undertheorized,at least précipitants were recognized as beingof potentialimportance.5 Not surprisingly,proponents of the structuralistschool, who assumedthe impactof long-termdevelopments to be overriding,by and largeignored the events immediately precedinga revolution. Well-known works by Barrington Moore, Jeffery Paige, and Theda Skocpolare tellingin thisrespect.6 Skocpol, the mostinfluential structuralist theorist of revolutions,is bestknown for her resolute rejection of voluntarism,but her account leavesequally little room for the impact of short-termevents. Althoughpurely structuralist accounts no longerdominate the study of revolutions - Charles Kurzman speaks of a poststructuralistconsensus - skepticismabout the importanceof short-termevents persists.7 Only recently have some scholarsidentified short-termtemporality as a neglectedtopic and startedto builda new researchagenda aroundit.8 But so farexisting studies are dominatedby approachesstressing general "eventfulness."Sometimes this involves a culturalistemphasis, in whichthe cultural transformationbrought about by keyevents is stressedover resource distributional and politicalconsequences.9 In othercases wheresuch factorsare emphasized,a seriesof crucialevents ("accelerators") are consideredas steppingstones to revolution.10But this viewneglects singular events that lead to rapidpolitical change (metaphorically forging a riverdirectly to revolution). As nosystematic attempt has yet been undertaken todemonstrate the key role played by a trigger,strong objections persist against conceding such events much causal importance. Michael Kimmel,for example, in his standardaccount of revolutions,acknowledges triggersas an indispensableprerequisite but stresses the need to searchfor the "structural roots"of revolutions. He likensprerevolutionary situations to a housethat is "vulnerable toa strayspark from a match"because it consists of highly flammable materials. Once the househas burnt down there is a dangerof mistaking the immediate reason for the long-run causes."A straymatch does notcause a fire;it createsthe missing - oftenaccidental - ingredientin the fire-prone situation."11 Precipitating events in this picture are replaceable becauseit does not really matter what exactly starts the fire. Edgar Kiser and Margart Levi offera morescathing critique. They applaud the structuralist perspective for being aware "thatthe events most immediately