Podcast Summary

Podcast: New Books Network
Episode: Killian Clarke, "Return of Tyranny: Why Counterrevolutions Emerge and Succeed" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
Host: Dr. Miranda Melcher
Guest: Dr. Killian Clarke
Release Date: November 21, 2025

Overview: Main Theme & Purpose

This episode discusses Dr. Killian Clarke's new book, Return of Tyranny: Why Counterrevolutions Emerge and Succeed. The conversation explores why counterrevolutions—attempts by old regimes to regain power after a revolution—happen, the conditions enabling their success, and how different types of revolutionary movements affect these outcomes. Using Egypt's 2011–2013 revolution and counterrevolution as a core case study, Dr. Clarke draws on both comparative data and in-depth fieldwork, offering theoretical and practical insights for understanding democratic transitions, revolutionary fragility, and autocratic resilience.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Introduction and Motivation

• Dr. Clarke's interest emerged after witnessing the 2013 Egyptian counterrevolution, which ended a hopeful democratic transition.
• Lacked comparative data on counterrevolutions — "We didn't even have basic, you know, sort of comparative statistics..." (03:46).
• The goal: Develop theory and data to explain when, why, and how counterrevolutions happen and succeed, using both global data and the Egyptian case.

Definitions, Frequency, and Scope

What are Counterrevolutions?

• Clarke’s definition: "Restoration of the political regime that has just been ousted by a revolution." (07:03)
  • Not simply resistance to revolutionary movements, but explicit efforts to reestablish the ousted regime.

How Common Are They?

• Out of 123 successful revolutions in the 20th–21st centuries:
  • ~50% face an attempted counterrevolution.
  • Only ~20% succeed in overturning the revolution. (08:46)
  • "Those are lower statistics than I think a lot of people imagine about counter revolution." (09:45)

Methodology & Data Collection

Three Empirical Components: (11:03)

1. Global Dataset: Cataloged every successful revolution and counterrevolution attempt (1900–2014).
2. Field Interviews: ~100 interviews with Egyptian political elites from various sides of the post-revolutionary transition.
   • Access often difficult, especially with those persecuted or in exile.
   • Lower-level aides often more candid than senior officials.
3. Protest Dataset: Coded every protest reported in the Egyptian press from Jan 2012–July 2013.
   • Captures mass political dynamics preceding the 2013 coup.

"By the time I was doing this research, the accounts of what had happened were in some ways quite formalized... I had to figure out how to cut through those narratives to get to more concrete information." — Killian Clarke (16:44)

Theoretical Insights: Why and When Do Counterrevolutions Emerge?

• Key Argument: Type of revolutionary movement—particularly its level of violence and coalition structure—primarily shapes counterrevolutionary risk. (19:37)
  • Counterrevolutions need two ingredients:
    1. Capacity: Some remaining coercive force (military, security services).
    2. Interest: Motivation due to felt threat by the new regime.

Extremes vs. Moderation:

• Highly violent, radical revolutions: Old regime too weakened to relaunch.
• Very moderate, inclusive revolutions: Old elites may feel less threatened, opt for legal-political competition.
• Most likely: "Middle" cases—some violence and threat, but old regime not fully destroyed—fertile ground for counterrevolution.

"Counter revolutions are most likely in what I kind of call this middle space of revolutions that take more hybrid forms..." (24:00)

What Makes Counterrevolutions Succeed?

• Success hinges largely on whether the revolutionary new regime retains coercive leverage.
  • Regimes born of armed struggle (with their own security forces) are much harder to reverse.
  • Those born from unarmed, broad-coalition protest movements are highly vulnerable, lacking coercive apparatus and at risk of internal fragmentation. (25:41)

"...if revolutionaries come to power without use of arms...these regimes are much more susceptible to counter revolution because they lose their leverage more quickly..." (27:21)

Egypt Case Study

• Egypt’s 2011 Revolution:
  • An unarmed, mass-mobilization, broad coalition ousts Mubarak in 18 days.
  • Coalition includes diverse ideological groups (Islamist, secular, leftist, liberal).
  • Challenges: Fragile coalition, inability to deliver post-revolutionary gains, rising social unrest.
• 2013 Counterrevolution:
  • Government loses both elite support (coalition fractures) and public backing (mass protests against Morsi).
  • Military leverages mass opposition to gain legitimacy for intervention.
  • "Society turned on them... and these various forces... ultimately sided with the counter revolution." (32:45)

Comparative & Shadow Cases

• Egypt typifies the most common successful counterrevolution dynamic:
  • "Democratic revolutions... with negative coalitions... prioritize appeasement of the old regime over managing its own revolutionary coalition..." (40:17)
• Rare exceptions: Cases where only foreign intervention rescued the former regime (e.g., US ouster of Taliban in Afghanistan, 2001).

Policy and Scholarly Implications

• Violence and Nonviolence Debate:
  • Nonviolent revolutions are more effective at toppling autocrats but yield more fragile new regimes.
  • Violent revolutions produce more durable (albeit often more repressive) regimes. (46:00)

"...if we're focused on the ability to withstand counter revolution, violent revolutions have an advantage..." (46:40)

• Strategies for New Democratic Regimes:

  • Must sustain both elite and popular coalition after revolution.
  • Caution against prioritizing compromise with the old regime at the expense of revolutionary base.

• Foreign Policy Lessons (esp. for the US):

  • Ambivalent stances undermine democratic transitions.
  • Egypt: Morsi misread US support; ambiguous messaging facilitated military coup.
  • "Ambivalent sort of attitudes or foreign policy positions towards these new governments is, is really not helpful..." (53:33)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "I define it as essentially the restoration of the political regime that has just been ousted by a revolution." — Killian Clarke (07:03)
• "Only about half of them see a counter revolution emerge. And then the rate of success is also relatively low..." — KC (09:45)
• "The main thing that matters is the type of movement, the type of revolutionary movement that seizes power..." — KC (19:44)
• "Counter revolutions are most likely in what I kind of call this middle space of revolutions..." — KC (24:00)
• "If revolutionaries come to power without use of arms...these regimes are much more susceptible to counter revolution..." — KC (27:21)
• "Ambivalent sort of attitudes or foreign policy positions towards these new governments is, is really not helpful..." — KC (53:33)

Important Timestamps

• 00:00–01:31 — Advertisements and podcast intro (skip)
• 01:35 — Episode proper begins; overview by Dr. Melcher
• 02:53–06:21 — Clarke introduces himself, motivation and context for research
• 06:56–10:46 — Definitions: counterrevolution and basic comparative statistics
• 11:03–14:41 — Data sources, methods, and fieldwork challenges
• 19:13–24:15 — Factors making counterrevolutions more/less likely: theory explained
• 25:41–28:28 — What makes counterrevolutions succeed? Armed vs. unarmed revolutions
• 28:44–38:17 — Detailed application to Egypt; coalition challenges; mass and elite dynamics
• 38:36–42:42 — Comparative cases; typical patterns and rare outliers
• 43:12–45:46 — Policy and academic implications, nonviolence debate, foreign support
• 55:07–63:43 — Current and future research projects

Closing & Looking Forward

• Clarke is shifting research toward analyzing the 2019 wave of uprisings in the Middle East and building new frameworks for categorizing autocracies based on their origins.
• He hopes these future works will inform both scholars and practitioners trying to understand and promote more robust democratic transitions.

For listeners seeking deeper understanding of how revolutions can backslide and how fragile democratic gains can be, especially where broad coalitions confront entrenched institutions, this episode offers empirical, theoretical, and policy-rich insight.