‍Central Asia and The Caucasus Journal

Abstract Soft overthrow is a concept that obtained an important place in international relations literature, especially in the past few years. Unrests in some Eurasian and Caucasus countries and the type and style of developments and regime changes in recent decades have shown softer forms of influence in changing the state structures in the target countries. A new theory of "soft power” was introduced in late 20^th century, to make changes in political systems nonaligned with the Western powers national interests lately known as color, velvet or flowery revolutions.             Studying different types of flowery revolutions occurred in Eurasia and Caucasia implies that these revolutions formally took place due to the increasingly public demands for political and citizenry laws, which in their turns required ethnographically considering the social phenomena. Based on historical documents and explanatory method, the article tries to study the new phenomenon of flowery revolutions and their ethnographies in model countries aligned with that of the strategic objectives of great powers.

Abstract Since its independence in 1991, Kyrgyzstan has so far faced with several political crises. Its people dissatisfaction of inappropriate performances by the political system in solving the problems of society, resulted to a wave of protests, objections and finally revolutions against the two governments of Asker Akayev toppled on 24 March 2005        (the Tulip Revolution) and of Kurmanbek Bakiyev toppled in April 2010 (the Colorless Revolution).             Analyzing the issue through theories of two main orthodox political sociologists: Max Weber and Lucien Pie, this article is trying to find from the perspective of political sociology, the main reason made Kyrgyzstan so unstable in the Central Asia and the factors affecting the formation of political crises in Kyrgyzstan since its independence to the collapse of the Tulip Revolution in April 2010. To the author's view, managing the political crisis in Kyrgyzstan is only possible through inhibition of crossover crises as well as institutionalization of nation building process and the government's ability to keep its monopoly in using force. This research is based on literature sources and descriptive-analytical methodology.

Abstract       Soft “revolution” or “revolution without violence”, in some of the newly independent countries of Central Asia and Caucasus has become one of the main subjects for scholarly debates in international politics after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Due to the direct role of the US in these nonviolent regime changes, the importance of foreign factors in explaining these events has become a focal point. Rose revolution of Georgia in 2003, causing the downfall of Eduard Shevardnadze is a clear example. In Georgia, the convergence of the domestic factors and foreign interventions has been the main question. It is however, argued in this paper that the domestic crisis has been mainly stemmed from not having an indigenous, smooth, and timely process of nation-building; crisis that has been manipulated by Washington.  Having said all these, the question would be: under which conditions are such revolutions repeatable in other cases? Addressing this question can be useful both theoretically as well as practically, especially by those independent states who are being challenged by the US.