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This report focuses on “all forms of aggression, coercion and intimidation against women as political actors simply because they are women. These acts – whether directed at women as civic leader, voters, political party members, candidates, elected representatives or appointed officials – are designed to restrict the political participation of women as a group. This violence reinforces traditional stereotypes and roles given to women, using domination and control to exclude women from politics”, as defined by the NDI.

The mass displacement caused by the Kariba Dam was a central issue for the pro-independence movement, despite the problems of organising resistance in the affected areas. Pioneer study of what is now called ‘development-induced displacement’.

Analyses critically the roles of several national pro-democracy groups in the 1990s, and their attempts to mobilize civil society to resist. Compares their strategies and activities and their role in promoting a democratic transition.

Contends that the revolution was truly unpredictable by critiquing five sets of retrospective ‘explanations’. Includes essay on available source material.

Compares struggles over water in Andean communities of Peru, Chile, Ecuador and Bolivia and Native American communities in S .W. USA, noting the combined goals of cultural justice and socio-economic justice.

Examines how LGBT movement responded to over 200 attempts by religious right in US to promote discrimination through anti-gay referenda.

In societies with anti-abortion norms, such as Northern Ireland, little is known about how these norms may be resisted by the adult population. The authors argue that resistance to religious and patriarchal norms can be fostered through adult community abortion education. They see this resistance as multi-faceted and bolstered by reference to lived experience. It does not necessarily involve abandoning religious beliefs.

This well-received book by a Burmese historian (and grandson of UN Secretary General U Thant) explores the complexities of the ethnic and religious composition of Burma/Myanmar, which has never fully cohered as a country since it acquired independence from the British Empire after the Second World War.  The book focuses particularly on the period since the cyclone of 2008, which killed almost 400,000 people and exposed the ineffectiveness of the military regime when constructive action was needed.   

Drawing on newly released Party and Stasi archives, Maier analyses the 40 years of East German history, and charts both the growth of dissent (for example the autonomous peace campaigns and youth culture) in the 1980s, and the systemic decline of the regime due to economic crisis and corruption at the top. See also: Maier, ‘Civil Resistance and Civil Society: Lessons from the Collapse of the German Democratic Republic in 1989’, in Timothy Garton Ash, Adam Roberts, Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Non-violent Action from Gandhi to the Present (A. 1.b. Strategic Theory, Dynamics, Methods and Movements) , pp. 260-76.

Then foreign minister addresses the question ‘how did a 100% Muslim country, acting in tandem with the international community, … peacefully turn centuries of autocratic rule into something resembling a functioning liberal democracy?’

EU ‘neighbourhood plans’ agreed with neighbouring states link economic cooperation with human rights and democratization. This report includes case studies of how this has been implemented - or not - in Morocco, Jordan, Lebanon, Ukraine, Belarus and Azerbaijan. FRIDE has published a range of reports and policy briefs - all available online - with critical analyses of ‘democracy promotion’, especially by the European Union and its members, including in the context of the ‘Arab Spring’.

An informed political assessment of the problems of Chile's political system, and the social and political divisions revealed by the 2019 protests and  exacerbated by the Covid pandemic. Luna, a professor of politics, concludes with some brief suggestions on how international actors could contribute positively to the political debate by promoting moderate reforms.