Russia, the US, “the Others” and the “101 Things to Do to Win a (Colour) Revolution”: Reflections on Georgia and Ukraine

In the past decade, we have witnessed an increasing capacity of political oppositions in post-socialist spaces to get people mobilised, interact with civil society movements and challenge a regime. Those events, labelled “colour revolutions” have affected the geopolitical order of the world by destabilising regimes in un-free countries of Eastern Europe, the former USSR and beyond. Starting from a framework elaborated in past years, according to which the output of a social and political movement in the former USSR depends on the combination of five factors (elites, opposition, external forces, civil society and people) this article analyses the importance of external influences to the success of what has been called a “colour revolution.” Drawing from the Rose Revolution in Georgia and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, it discusses the appropriateness of the term “colour revolution,” its social and political significance and spells out the possible ways external influences can impact on socio-political events in a country where a colour revolution is attempted.