Erica Chenoweth

That's just something that has been an adaptation on the side of pretty persistent authoritarian regimes at this point and kind of taking the wind out of the sails of these movements, even when they get very large.

And it's something that we should know.

It's just that there have been adaptations on the government side and that movements...

shouldn't take for granted that if they hit a historical threshold that the same effects will naturally obtain without other types of strategy and organization building and leadership.

I guess I have two observations about it.

I mean, first of all, the repression that took place against the civilian population there, massacres that took place are some of the worst we've seen since, for sure, the Syrian revolution in 2011 and 2012.

You know, one of the things that I remember happening at that point is that after the U.S.,

extracted Maduro and brought him to the United States, there was strong and powerful signaling by the United States that Iran would be next.

And that coincided with a period of

improvised protests in response to basically economic concerns, like, you know, a currency crisis and other things that people were reacting to on the ground.

And then when it sounded like there was going to be some kind of external intervention, from what I understand, there was a sense of now or never among many of the protesters who were aware of that.

And it

allowed for or even enabled more risky action than they otherwise would have taken.

And then the fact that the US didn't actually intervene at that time or do a similar operation, as it were, you know, just kind of speaks to the very tricky global dynamics of these things and the, as they say, moral hazard problem of signaling different types of international support when none is necessarily forthcoming.

And that the people on the ground pay the price, I think.

And there are some similar dynamics with that and the Syrian revolution, in fact.

I remember in those days there were people who were exiles from Syria or had recently departed from there trying to lobby foreign governments to intervene the way that they had intervened in Libya.

And there was a sense that was almost inevitable that it was going to happen in Syria.

And more risky action was taken as a result of that, in a way.

So I think that's really very tricky.