Tag Archives: Hong Kong

Social distance and social movements, COVID-19, #1/x

How does good medical advice affect meaningful collective action? Before the recognition of the highly contagious novel coronavirus, we were living in a time of intense political mobilization–all over the world. But now, advisories to maintain social distance undermine 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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The moment…globally. Contagion is a demonstration effect.

Citizens are taking to the streets around the world, animated by many different grievances, but mostly concerned with some vision of democracy. More that one million people have turned out to protest corruption in Beirut, with allied protests across Lebanon. … Continue reading

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The mask

Tens of thousands of masked demonstrators turned up in Hong Kong in response to a new ban on wearing a mask in a protest. The show of masked solidarity was completely predictable. Outlawing the mask was all about intimidation, and … Continue reading

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Repression/Concession Digression and Hong Kong

Social protest movements are messy collections of people and groups with different ideas about what they want and how to get it. They tend to do best when they can maintain some kind of unified presence in relation to authorities … Continue reading

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When People Power works

The extraordinary impact of massive and sustained peaceful assemblies in Puerto Rico stirs the heart and the imagination. It also forced Governor Ricardo Rosselló to resign. If it continues–because most grievances remain–it may do much more. When nearly 900 pages … Continue reading

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