“How can it be that 70,000 protesters in Leipzig in 1989 tore down the Berlin Wall, while up to a million protesters in Tehran in 2009 managed only — so far — to trigger repression? Or, to phrase it differently, what’s the tipping point for revolution? Just when does civil society trump entrenched political power? Different observers would, of course, give different answers along the spectrum, running from a historian’s retrospective determinism to a journalist’s fixation on daily blips. But whatever the viewpoint, the similarities and the differences between Leipzig and Tehran are striking.” (07/01/09)