Nuclear War: the perspective of a planetary astronomer

In: Waging Peace Series - Booklet 36

Author(s): Carl Sagan

1994, pp. 12

Professor of Astronomy, Carl Sagan discusses the roots of the nuclear arms race in the context of receiving the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 1993 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award. His passionate speech was given at a time when the US and the Soviet Union possessed over 60,000 warheads all together, and calls for a shift from a mentality relying on mutual deterrence and ethnic hatred to one on mutual dependence, which are still very relevant in 2019.

Danilo Dolci E La Via Della Nonviolenza

Editor(s): Lucio C. Giummo, and Carlo Marchese

Piero Lacaita Editore, Manduria, Bari and Roma, 2005, pp. 292

Giummo and Marchese collect the major inspiring ideas that Danilo Dolci used to project a model for development based on nonviolence, which has at its core the imperative of including all the population involved.

La insumisión encarcelada

Author(s): Carlos M. Beristain

Virus, Barcelona, 1992, pp. 158

A compilation of the voices and experiences of seven objectors in prison, as well as of their relatives and supporting groups, in the context of the first years of the campaign of disobedience to military service in Spain. This book arose out of the need to train activists to face jail.

Politics of a Garbage Crisis: Social Networks, Narratives, and Frames of Lebanon's 2015 Protests and their Aftermath

Author(s): Carmen Geha

In: Social Movement Studies, Vol 18, No 1, 2019, pp. 78-92

Geha notes that the 'century-old sectarian framework' of  governing through clientelist networks and individual patronage, together with socio-economic crisis and political deadlock, make official opposition very difficult. But social networks can mobilize protests, and after these have died down sustain 'a loosely organized informal political opposition both on the streets and in the ballot box'. This thesis is illustrated by a study of the 2015 movement responding to an escalating garbage crisis in the summer of 2015, the cessation of activism after the crisis was resolved in September 2015 and  the resurgence of opposition during the 2016 municipal elections.    

Spanish #MeToo movement demands justice for victims of sexual abuse

Author(s): Carmen Morán-Breña

In: El Pais, 2018

The anti-sexual harassment group Pandora's Box, composed of 3,000 women  involved in the arts, called for institutional protection against harassment and demanded allegations should not be ignored. The appeal was part of a campaign to support the dancer Carmen Tome, who had accused a curator at a cultural centre in Alicante of groping her. The group was still organising itself and considering both educational and legal means of preventing gender violence.

Available online at:

https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/01/30/inenglish/1517315992_964577.html

White Rage: The Unspoken Truth Of Our Racial Divide

Author(s): Carol Anderson

Bllomsbury, New York, 2016, pp. 256

White Rage, by Professor of African American Studies Carol Anderson, centres on a discussion on race, more specifically on the foregrounding of whiteness and the continuing threat that structural racism poses to US democratic aspirations. She provides an historical account of landmark moments in US history, namely the end of the Civil War and the Reconstruction; the reaction to the Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education in 1954; the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965; the disenfranchisement of Black communities in the aftermath of Reagan’s War on Drugs; and the mass protests in Ferguson, Missouri, triggered by the shooting of Mike Brown in 2014. Through her analysis, Anderson argues that white rage erupts as a backlash at a moment of Black progress and therefore needs to be placed at the centre of US’s national history. In this light, White Rage is an attempt to illustrate how whiteness is positioned at the core of state power, and how it permits the reinforcement of a system that systematically disadvantages African Americans.

Unobtrusive Practices of Contention in Leninist Regimes

Author(s): Hank Johnston, and Carol Mueller

In: Sociological Perspectives, Vol 44, No 3 (Fall), 2002, pp. 351-375

Examines three different forms of resistance: oblique spoken criticism; using officially approved organisations to promote muted collective opposition; and more open ‘dissidence’ – petitions, open letters, samizdat and contacting foreign press. (See also Hank Johnston, States & Social Movements (A. 6. Nonviolent Action and Social Movements) , ch. 4.)

Repression and Mobilization

Editor(s): Christian Davenport, Hank Johnston, and Carol Mueller

University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2005, pp. 258

Explores varied forms of repression and means of response drawing on a wide sociological literature. Particularly relevant is Hank Johnston, ‘Talking the Walk: Speech Acts and Resistance in Authoritarian Regimes’ (pp. 108-37), exploring underground humour, graffiti, hit and run tactics, informal opposition networks, ‘duplicitous organisation’ – using official status for opposition, and role of recreational, cultural and religious groups. Johnston also notes how official political and cultural events can be subverted. (Strong overlap with ch. 4 in Hank Johnston, States & Social Movements (A. 6. Nonviolent Action and Social Movements) .)

The Problem of Political Obligation: A Critique of Liberal Theory

2nd edition

Author(s): Carole Pateman

University of California Press, Berkeley CA, 1985, pp. 222

Originally published: 1979

Critiques individualist liberal theories of civil disobedience, including the notion that civil disobedients should willingly accept punishment (pp. 57-60 and 161-2). Rather ‘political disobedience ... may be the only way in which freedom and equality can be preserved’, and minorities have the right to refuse or withdraw consent.

Codifying #MeToo into International Law

Author(s): Caroline Bettinger-Lopez

In: Council on Foreign Relations, 2019

A report on the initiative by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to create the first legally binding international treaty on violence and harassment in the field of work. The Convention – whose proposed title is ‘Convention and Recommendations Concerning the Elimination of Violence and Harassment in the World of Work’ – has so far received support from ILO member governments, various NGOs and employers and it was scheduled to be discussed in the Summer 2019. It will aim at addressing normative gaps in law and policy in countries or situations where there is no legal provision on sexual harassment in employment. The aim is that ratifying countries will prevent and address harassment through strengthening enforcing mechanisms and ensuring remedies for victims, and by acknowledging the costs of violence and harassment in the workplace. An important step is that the Convention focuses on addressing the needs of all women, including average-wage and low-wage workers.

Available online at:

https://www.cfr.org/blog/codifying-metoo-international-law

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