The iron cage of liberalism: international politics and unarmed revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa

Over the last forty years the world has witnessed the emergence and proliferation of a new political phenomenon - unarmed revolution. This book explores why some nonviolent revolutionary movements lead to unarmed revolution, and others result in devastating failure

Over the last forty years the world has witnessed the emergence and proliferation of a new political phenomenon - unarmed revolution. This book explores why some nonviolent revolutionary movements lead to unarmed revolution, and others result in devastating failure.

Over the last forty years the world has witnessed the emergence and proliferation of a new political phenomenon - unarmed revolution. This book explores why some nonviolent revolutionary movements lead to unarmed revolution, and others result in devastating failure

Over the last forty years the world has witnessed the emergence and proliferation of a new political phenomenon - unarmed revolution. On virtually every continent, citizens have ousted their authoritarian leaders by employing nonviolent tactics such as strikes, demonstrations, boycotts, and civil disobedience against them. At the same time however, similar movements elsewhere have been brutally crushed by autocrats determined to cling to power. In this book, Daniel Ritter seeks to understand unarmed revolutions by posing two interrelated questions: Why do nonviolent revolutionary movements in

Part I: Introduction. - 1: Toward a Theory of Unarmed Revolution 3. - Part II: International Relations. - 2: Friendly International Relations: Benefit or Burden? 31. - 3: Façade Democracy: Managing Authoritarianism 62. - Part III: Domestic Politics. - 4: Survival of the Fittest: Challenging Façade Democracies 99. - 5: Ousting the Dictator: Unarmed Revolutions and Disarmed Regimes 135. - Part IV: Further Comparisons and Conclusions. - 6: Confrontational States: Outside of the Iron Cage of Liberalism 175. - 7: Rights, Rhetoric, and Revolutions 211