Democratic awakenings are fugitive but can permanently shift political direction

Evidence

Many of the activists are now on the lecture circuit. Others have joined task forces or committees organized by government officials. Organizations have collapsed. Personal conflicts have emerged. Market forces are also doing their work. Some people have monetized their participation in the struggle. I guess it is in the nature of things. Moments of democratic awakening are fugitive. They happen in fits and starts, and rarely are sustained for extended periods of time. Democratic awakenings can, however, switch the tracks. We can find ourselves traveling down a different path because of them. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 604

Categorization

• DEFINE: States what a ‘democratic awakening’ is: brief, un-sustainable, yet capable of switching tracks — a definitional anchor for the book’s reform argument.
• XREF: connects to: Democratic regimes are rare, contingent, recent historical creations. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 180