| Summary/Abstract |
Large-scale social and political protest has characterised political development in a number of post-communist and other transition countries over the last two decades. The colour revolutions in Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Ukraine, and Serbia, and, most recently, the 2013–2014 protests in Ukraine, have demonstrated the potency of mass action in toppling undemocratic or unpopular regimes, or else in forcing political change. Citizen uprisings in the Middle East had also shattered the dual myths of popular passivity and stability of authoritarian polities in the region. Yet, as Graeme Robertson (2007) rightly notes, according to ‘conventional wisdom’, until 2011–2013 Russia has remained puzzlingly immune to large-scale mass protests despite a growing tide of authoritarianism, rampant corruption, and socio-economic disparities—the cocktail of factors contributing to the recent wave of anti-authoritarian mobilisations in other parts of the world.
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