When massive, destabilizing, violent protests are a good thing

On Monday, more than 200,000 angry people flooded the streets of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and Brasilia. In Istanbul, police used so much tear gas against demonstrators that hundreds of pets might have died from the exposure.

Are these the nascent signs of a coup? Should the Brazilian elite be packing their bags in anticipation of a South American Reign of Terror?

Hardly, argues Tim Padgett in TIME, comparing the recent demonstrations in Brazil to past protests in Chile:

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In other words, economic growth isn't enough. The citizens of Brazil want a government that is more transparent and less corrupt, signs of a mature civil society.

In Brazil, people started noticing that they were paying high taxes and getting less in return than they would like. Instead of health care and education, many Brazilians complain, the government has been using the money to build multi-million dollar soccer stadiums for the World Cup.

Turkey is another case study in the perils of success.

The Christian Science Monitor's Graham E. Fuller argues that Turkey's development over the last decade is exactly what makes it so vulnerable to protests now:

Autocratic states tend to transform violently, with, say, angry citizens dragging a bloodied leader to his death. In democracies, leaders are ousted at the ballot box. So far at least, the protesters in Brazil and Turkey don't appear to questioning the legitimacy of the governments themselves, but challenging their leaders to be more responsive, less heavy-handed — in a word, better.

Whether Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan adjust — or become the victims of their own achievements — remains to be seen.