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Original French version. Examines activist lesbian and gay organizations in relation to post-1968 feminism, gay ‘ghettoes’ and the gay press, and explores the impact of AIDS and revival of militancy in the 1990s. Notes influence of American movement, but also stresses differences.
After a general overviews of politics and resistance in the region, experts on individual countries explore the immediate impact of the Arab Spring in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Yemen and Syria, and the subsequent developments, discussing the reasons for reassertion of repression on Bahrain and later Egypt; political breakdown in Libya and civil war intensified by external interference in Yemen and Syria. There are also chapters on the monarchical response to pressure for reform in Jordan and Morocco, and why the Arab Spring did not ignite massive resistance in Palestine. Adam Roberts provides a concluding assessment of the problems of using civil resistance in the Arab Spring, the difficulties of democratization, and the lessons to be learned.
The authors provide a ‘discursive psychological examination’ of how ‘choice’ was interpreted in online debates during the movement for abortion rights. The interpretation of ‘choice’ was linked to alternative views of women, either as independent agents or as child-bearing mothers, which affected the legitimacy of women’s rights to ‘choice’.
An exploration of the history of the women’s movement in Bangladesh, its achievements and the internal and external challenges for a sustainable movement it faces. The author weaves in broader historical changes and discusses the nature of the current political context and its impact on the feminist movement in Bangladesh.
The authors, from the Department of Sociology at the University of Hong Kong, note the unprecedented 'scale, scope and time span' of these grassroots 'leaderless' protests. They also comment on the dramatic scenes of violent confrontation between police and protesters. They argue that this confrontation obscures 'an emerging economic resistance movement' trying to develop alternative political resources to redress the imbalance in power between them and the government.
Combs, a US researcher, travelled throughout Myanmar after 2011 when people were becoming more willing to talk, and interviewed a wide range of people from a punk rocker to a monk. He also observed the role of Buddhism in society and politics, including the fear and hostility towards Muslim minorities.
Lewis, who was born in Alabama, played a major role in the Freedom Rides and sit-ins, in the 1963 March on Washington and in the March on Selma that led to the Voting Rights Act. He also helped to found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
Much cited conceptual analysis contrasting the movement of emigration through Hungary to the West and the internal resistance.
Primarily on nonviolent action in townships during apartheid. Combines a national strategic overview by Jeremy Seekings of how the concept of civic struggle evolved in the period 1977-90 with detailed local accounts.
Analyses the Park Chung Hee regime, looks back to the Kwangju massacre and role of the US, and comments on the student and worker demonstrations in the spring of 1986 and US/Korean government attempts to channel unrest from the streets into electoral activity. Refers to his earlier article ‘Korea: Stirrings of resistance’, The Progressive, February 1986.
Argues emergence of movement not ‘new’ and ‘spontaneous’ but product of evolution of a collective identity and culture stressing deliberative democracy since the 1980s.
See also her blog on the OpenDemocracy website: ‘Spain is Different: Podemos and 15-M’ on the rise of the leftist but non-ideological Podemos party in the European Parliamentary elections of June 2014, and influence of 15-M movement on the nature of the new party.
Compares movements of objection to the French war in Algeria, the US War in Vietnam and Israel’s invasion of Lebanon.
Chapter 7 covers the 1945 general strike.
Examines presidential election of March 2006 and argues that, although the protests against abuses apparently failed, they created a ‘network of solidarity’ and a ‘revolution of the spirit’. Two essays by Silitski focus on the effectiveness of the authoritarian regime and why it can contain protest are: Vitali Silitski, Pre-empting Democracy: The Case of Belarus, 2005 , pp. 83-97 , and Vitali Silitski, Contagion Deterred: Pre-emptive Authoritarianism in the Former Soviet Union (the Case of Belarus), In Valerie J. Bunce, Michael McFaul, Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, Democracy and Authoritarianism in the Postcommunist World (D. II.1. Comparative Assessments) New York, Cambridge University Press, 2009 , pp. 274-299 .
Analysing Palestinian print media in 1987 reveals a convergence in calls for action.
Discusses protest through letters, petitions, law suits and sometimes demonstrations and sabotage, against pollution, soil erosion, contaminated water, etc.
Deals with conscientious objection in US during the Vietnam War, 1961-1975.
Stresses challenge to Pinochet legacy and links with workers’ unions. Includes timeline of protests from May 2011 – August 2012.
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.