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The article argues that the Hirak is a revolutionary movement that connects with the 1954-62 independence struggle, uniting diverse social groups in a movement seen as 'the People' versus 'the System'. It also combines nationalist themes with the strategy of nonviolent resistance. The analysis draws parallels with 2011 in Tunisia, and notes the attempts to launch a similar nonviolent resistance movement in Algeria in January 2011 were successfully deflected by the regime. It then examines the record of the Boutifleka government over 20 years, which led to the Hirak.

The emphasis is on Bhutto’s political role and leadership and there is only very brief mention of popular agitation in chapter 7 ‘Winters of his discontent’ (1965-69), pp. 100-34.

McKeown was one of the group of student activists campaigning on civil rights issues at Queens University Belfast in the mid-1960s from which People’s Democracy emerged in 1968. However, he opposed the Belfast to Derry march in January 1969 as likely to inflame sectarian divisions, and the Marxist direction to which the organization turned. Best known for his leading role in the Peace People whose origins and development he recounts in detail. Sets out his idea for a parliamentary system based not on political parties but on autonomous community groups.

Ms Saffaa is a Saudi artist who paints murals to support feminists in Saudi Arabia and transmits her art and political messages through the Internet. She is in exile in Australia (where she had a scholarship to study), having refused to return to Saudi Arabia to renew her passport, and campaigns against the 'guardianship laws', declaring 'I am my own guardian'. The article reproduces one of her murals.

Future Forward was founded as a political party before the 2019 election and managed to come third in the polls, after the junta-controlled coalition and the pro-Thaksin party. It was led by former student radicals who had become successful (key leaders were an industrialist, law professor and TV journalist) and aimed to change the nature of  Thai politics. A year later the government banned it.  Swamy provides a useful summary of the book and its aims, and his own critique - he argues the authors do not explain the continuing strength of the Thaksin party.

See also: McCargo, Duncan and Chattharakul Anyarat, Future Forward: The Rise and Fall of a Thai Political Party, Copenhagen. Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, 2020, pp. 240 (pb).

Flam draws on newly available archives and over 100 interviews with Communist officials, dissidents and ‘bystanders’. (See also Helena Flam, Anger in Repressive Regimes: A Footnote to Domination and the Arts of Resistance by James Scott (A. 1.c. Small Scale, Hidden, Indirect and 'Everyday' Resistance) ).

This account of the 19 months Revolution of the Carnations, which arose out of the  military coup that overthrew the Portuguese dictatorship in April 1974, stresses that it was a mass popular revolution, not just a change of regime, that involved workers' strikes and widespread  debate and communal organizing. It was also a socialist revolution, which was replaced by liberal democracy. The author is a professor at the new University of Lisbon.

Examines feminism, pacifism and nonviolence and anti-nuclear protests in the USA.

Wide-ranging collection of comparative essays on democratic transitions, the state and economic and social factors. Considers developments since the early 1990s and degrees of democracy achieved (in Benin and Zambia), continuing obstacles to democracy and ‘second elections’.