The Impact of Mass Mobilization on Elite Changes. Comparing Color Revolutions and Arab Spring Transitions

      Аннотация: Despite the overwhelming attention given to movement theories, we find that there are still some debates in the scholarly work regarding the main factors that led to elite changes after long periods of struggling against authoritarian regimes. Certainly, elite changes are not created by a single variable, but rather by a set of variables that create an interaction effect, so, being able to articulate one of these factors –mass mobilization- should suggest a more evidence-based and different approach of analysis to understand what caused the people to take to the streets for resistance An effective way to assess research outcomes is to broaden the field of comparison across different countries in the two regions. Accordingly, this research provides a cross-country comparative study to identify the correlation between massive popular protests that have been taking place around the Arab world since 2010 and elite changes compared to Eurasian post socialist countries in transitions since 2000. The publication is mostly useful for who are researching in comparative politics issues.

Ключевые слова: Arab spring, Color Revolutions, Democratic transitions, Elite Changes, Mass power, Mobilization, regime change, social movements, Youth Activism