The theoretical point of departure for this Research Topic is the popular uprising itself and its processual, relational, and interactionist fluidity and ambiguity. We draw on the conceptual framework of Dobry (1983, 1986) and his theorizing of political crises as processes of multisectoral mobilization, or the simultaneous deployment of collective action by different sectors of the polity. For Dobry, multisectoral mobilization is characterized by fluidity in social relations along three dimensions: the unification of social space, the enlarged tactical interdependence of sectors (understood as sociopolitical networks and social groups), and structural uncertainty (Dobry, 1983, p. 409). New resources and political opportunities become available, and strategic interactions become unpredictable and highly contingent. This creates a complex chain of moves/counter-moves that are unbounded by normal structuring logics of action, alliance, and political possibility.

In conceiving popular uprisings and their aftermath, before the political order fully settles, as processes of multisectoral mobilization, our theoretical argument puts forth a concept of reconfigurations in institutional, relational, and discursive-symbolic terms. This concept draws from Ouaissa et al. (2021), in which reconfigurations are understood as dynamic change processes in political, economic, social, and cultural relations during and in the aftermath of uprisings. We argue that reconfigurations create possibilities for action/interaction that can be conflictual and/or cooperative, acting thus as the conditions that lead to either political openings or blockages. The reconfigurations, hence, act as both structures but are also shaped/re-shaped by interactions, implying a relational ontology. In this way, reconfigurations can both enable and block political change, acting as conditions underlying episodes of contentious politics that are not static but rather shaped and reshaped by strategic interactions. In this way, our approach (Figure 1) posits that the institutional, relational, and discursive fluidity of popular uprisings produce conditions for small-scale democratic advancement and set-back that must be placed in a longer-term and wider perspective in the evaluation of political outcomes.

Building on ongoing discussions in this journal (Grimm et al., 2023), each article gathered here explores the mobilization efforts of social forces or bottom-up actors vying for changes or reforms that, contextually, can be characterized as democratic in nature. In his article on bottom-up anti-corruption reform efforts in the aftermath of the Georgian Rose Revolution, Aprasidze reveals how civil society actors were able to leverage institutional flux, positioning themselves within the new administration to push their reform agendas forward. Similarly, in their study comparing anti-corruption and judicial reform efforts on the part of bottom-up actors in Armenia following the Velvet Revolution, Paturyan et al. demonstrate how civil society actors with well-established expertise were able to influence reforms and contribute to democratic institution-building when they could be directly inserted in policy-making process, assuming a role of policy entrepreneurship. What these articles show is how political fluidity and reconfigured relations between authorities and bottom-up actors can allow well-trained, structured, and experienced civil society to lock in small-scale democratic gains by acting as both intermediaries and key policy advocates within post-revolutionary administrations.

However, in her study of broad mobilization advocating for transitional justice mechanisms in the aftermath of the 2011 Tunisia Revolution, Jmal finds that the need for “technical expertise” can also create exclusionary mechanisms. As she finds, while bottom-up actors, organized in a coordinated vertical coalition able to deploy pressure and resources at different levels, were quite successful in shaping the transitional justice approach initially, they ultimately found themselves sidelined and their vision replaced by politically expedient solutions. This finds echo in the case North Macedonia's 2015 mass mobilization, as investigated by Armakolas and Krstanovska. As they relate, while grassroots student movements and CSOs, organized in a broad horizontal coalition, were able to successfully mobilize to instigate democratic openings, the absence of defined organizational structures and the influence of European Union mediation of the transition—which prioritized quick agreements among political elites—ultimately reversed initial efforts at direct democratic inclusiveness.

This dynamic of fragmentation and its negative effect on securing democratic gains among mobilized bottom-up actors is also clearly visible in the contribution by Rennick and Žilović, which compares labor market contestation in Tunisia and Serbia. As they find, mobilization for market inclusion was able to be assuaged through piecemeal gestures; while such limited concessions effectively managed contestation—helping to stabilize the democratic transitions—they also contributed to organizational break-down and the inability to advance broader reform efforts. Likewise, in their article on violent repression of LGBTQI+ mobilization for equal rights during the Belgrade 2001 Pride parade, Vranić and Ilić find that fragmentation and internal struggles within the community, as well as the anti-nationalist and pro-democracy framing of their claims, both undermined the solidity of the coalition and limited the potential for collaboration with authorities. This resulted in significant setbacks to the advancement of identity rights in Serbia in the subsequent two decades. The final article of the Research Topic considers a more recent episode of social mobilization and its link to democratic gains. In her article on the mass protests calling for political resignations following tragic school shootings in Belgrade in May 2024, Jevtić observes the role of a polarized media landscape in the cadence and impact of the movement, but also, more broadly, instrumentalized political mobilization. She finds that the effectiveness of protestors depended more on the polarized media narratives than on the sheer size of demonstrations.

Taken together, the empirical studies here present compelling evidence of the continuous contests led by bottom-up actors over the direction and nature of political transition, even after mass mobilization recedes into the background. Collectively, the articles contribute to the literature linking popular uprising and democratic transition in two ways. First, we proffer an analytical framework that moves away from the transition process itself and path-dependent macro-structural features and offer new insights on the relational and interactionist dynamics underpinning the link between mass popular uprising and transitional outcomes. Second, in gathering empirical studies across different regime types and socio-cultural contexts, and notably the comparison between different European neighborhood democratization trajectories, we argue for a move away from typologies of popular uprising and demonstrate instead that contextual features of post-uprising transitional periods have explanatory power.