Tag Archives: Arab Spring

Dilemmas and Dynamics of Escalation (2)

Wynn Bruce set himself on fire in front of the Supreme Court toward the end of Earth Day. He was evacuated by helicopter and died in a hospital the next day. Concerned with government inaction on climate change, and deeply … Continue reading

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Occupy at 10 (1/x)

It’s 10 years ago September 17 that Occupy Wall Street commenced, and the decennial is a good time to see how (or whether) it mattered. Kai Ryssdal interviewed me at Marketplace about just this issue, and politely asked me the … Continue reading

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A global explosion of people power?

Last year, 2019, the editors of The Big Q, a very cool blog sponsored by the University of Auckland, asked me to write about the seeming explosion of protest movements globally. This is what I thought, reposted below (non-American spelling … Continue reading

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Social movements, governance, democracy, and Egypt

What are we to make of the military coup that the military refuses to call a coup in Egypt?  I’m generally ready to cheer the departure of an unpopular putative theocrat, but quite suspicious of the military deposing elected officials … Continue reading

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Inspiration across borders: Brazil and Turkey

Will a clever name, like Arab Spring or Occupy, link the protests erupting in disparate parts of the globe?  Will 2013 become a sign uniting all of them in memory, just like 1848, 1968, and 1989? The spread of wildly … Continue reading

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Arab Fall

To paraphrase the old Boston politician, revolution ain’t beanbag.  The wave of revolutionary action across the Middle East and North Africa about a year and a half ago captured the imagination of democratic reformers around the world.  But it wasn’t … Continue reading

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Is protest contagious?

As the year comes to an end, unexpected and potentially powerful protest movements are appearing in unexpected places, including China, Russia, and Syria, threatening to topple regimes and change the world. Protest movements seem to appear in a spate.  Arab … Continue reading

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