As the Arab Spring took hold in 2011, no dictator looked safe. Decades of authoritarian rule created the appearance that regimes in the Middle East and North Africa were impregnable, invincible. The power of popular protest soon exposed their brittle foundations.

In 2016 it has been the turn of leaders in representative democracies to face popular revolts in their own states, albeit in very different fashion. The power of the ballot box exposed the fragility of ‘the establishment’. Politics-as-usual has been displaced by the politics of unpredictability.

The inability to convincingly predict where exactly politics is headed seems like an appropriate characterization of the present juncture, given that the year’s notable victims resolutely failed to foresee their own downfalls. David Cameron called a referendum on Britain’s EU membership because he was convinced that he would win. Hillary Clinton’s campaign was consistently confident that if there was one Republican nominee she could beat, it was Donald Trump. Matteo Renzi has become the latest casualty.

In a Cameron-esque demise, Renzi was similarly guilty of badly misreading the mood of his country’s electorate. With a record of reform-mindedness and delivering relative stability, Italy’s former prime minister thought that Italy would give his reform proposals a chance. The trouble is, many voters in 2016 decided to throw out the old script and write a new one.

Renzi sought to make the referendum about making Italy’s government work more efficiently. More than a few voters, however, wanted to use their vote for another purpose: protesting against the state of the Italian economy and, indeed, Italian democracy. With youth unemployment at 37% and a sense that Eurozone constraints are making things worse, it would be tough to convince many Italians that their economy is performing well. With three ‘unelected’ prime ministers in five years, it would be even tougher to convince them that Italian democracy is in healthy shape.

This brings us to a huge irony. The very reform package that Renzi brought before the Italian electorate was precisely designed to deal with its sluggish, under-responsive, overly-expensive political system. In turn, if Italy could be governed more efficiently and effectively, its economy would almost certainly stand a better chance of success.

However, 2016 has simply not been the year of nuanced arguments. It has been the year of loud messages. Reflecting on yesterday’s result – and the end of his premiership – Renzi conceded defeat, but he didn’t concede the argument. “Conducting politics in favour of something rather than against something is more difficult, but much more beautiful.”

With Brexit, the Trump presidency, and the effects of Italy’s vote on broader European politics, all we can do now is wait to find out what comes next. But if these events all came into being by a wave of protest votes, translating such protest into a viable plan for action is likely to prove intensely difficult. The 2011 Arab Spring and the ballot box revolts of 2016 were, and are, vastly different phenomena. But the former may offer at least one lesson for the latter: there is almost certainly no quick fix to deep-rooted problems. Cameron, Clinton and Renzi might be glad of at least one thing. They don’t have to worry about what comes next.