Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Regime change

Journalists (and others) toss out the phrase "regime change" and expect that everyone knows what it means. Judging from the multiple ways it's used, obviously not all journalists know what it means. You know that it doesn't mean a change in government, but it's not clear how many people understand the difference. Here's a comparison that helps explain the difference (even if the phrase in question doesn't appear). BTW, I'm not sure the headline writer knows what a "country" is in this example.

How to Lose a Country Gracefully

As a reporter, I covered two of the greatest losers of the last century. The superlative “greatest” applies both to the scale of the loss — Mikhail Gorbachev lost Russia and all of its colonies, F. W. de Klerk [right] lost the richest country in Africa — and to the manner in which they lost it.
Our hearts understandably thrill to the courage of those who stand up to power — from Tiananmen Square to Tahrir Square and all the streets that now teem with the young and freedom-hungry. But there is another heroism, scarce and undervalued, that accrues to those who know how to stand down.

Gorbachev [below, right] and de Klerk… each relinquished the power of an abusive elite without subjecting his country to a civil bloodbath. Afterward, they did not flee to the comfort of Swiss bank accounts. On the contrary, they managed a feat that is almost unthinkable in most of today’s erupting autocracies: after succumbing to democracy, they contributed to its legitimacy by becoming candidates for high office — and losing, fair and square…
Both Gorbachev and de Klerk began as reformers…

Those regimes along the Mediterranean rim that are trying to hold back an angry tide by shuffling the cabinet or promising so-called reforms — Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia — may buy themselves some time, but revolutions have a way of overrunning reformers…

Watching how the seep of information stirred ordinary Russians from a paralyzing fear was one of the true joys of covering Moscow’s spring. The Cold War voice of Radio Liberty, the underground copies of Solzhenitsyn and especially Gorbachev’s own attempts to deputize the Russian press by letting it expose corruption and incompetence — they all chipped away at the invincibility of the Soviet Union. Today it is Al Jazeera; WikiLeaked cables about the extravagant lifestyles of the ruling elites; and social media that are the fuel of popular insurgency. This is how the unhappy learn that their complaints are justified and that they have company. And with their vast reach and immediacy, Facebook and Twitter are not only sources of information but also organizing tools — samizdat on steroids.

Gorbachev freed Andrei Sakharov from exile; de Klerk released Nelson Mandela. Both leaders then enlisted their liberated adversaries as negotiating partners, buying some credibility at home and abroad. These partnerships inevitably fell victim to mistrust, but they helped assure that the end of the old order was managed rather than catastrophic…

It is not a coincidence that the surge points of the current political unrest tend to be funerals, as they were in South Africa and several restive Soviet republics. From the massacre in Sharpeville to the protesters crushed under the tank treads of a rogue army unit in Soviet Lithuania, from the persecuted fruit vendor who immolated himself in Tunisia to the crowds strafed in Libya, the dead live on as evidence of a regime’s cruelty…

Today, Russia and South Africa are disillusioned democracies. Wretched poverty, crime and bad governance bedevil South Africa. Russia is corrupt and intolerant of political dissent, sometimes brutally so. Yet each country has grown bigger middle classes, expanded individual liberties and mostly kept its armies at peace. And if the Russians or South Africans run out of patience with their imperfect leaders, they have some hope of remedies other than the streets.

Gorbachev turned 80 earlier this month, and de Klerk will be 75 soon. Happy birthday to both, and here’s to those who make history by gracefully getting out of its way.