Democracy and Society » protest

Protests are supposed to be disruptive

Barak — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 02:00:31 +0000

Chanting protestors woke me early this morning (well, perhaps not that early). As I was planning to sleep in, my first thought was “go away – I am trying to sleep.” After a moment’s reflection, I laughed at myself. After all, democratic constitutions view protest as a legitimate form of political speech because they are meant to disrupt. Objecting to protests because they impose difficulties on non-protestors is inherently undemocratic.

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Fascists also care a lot about health and safety

Barak — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 03:28:07 +0000

Watching the police break up protests throughout the US due to concerns about health and safety is making my blood boil. The First Amendment doesn’t contain provisions that limit freedom of speech on the basis these concerns (except when people use freedom of speech to deliberately call for harming others or to put others in harm’s way). It reminds me of the South African Government under Apartheid. They often cited concerns for health and safety when they wanted to bulldoze the neighborhoods of Africans who didn’t sufficiently appreciate the benefits of the Apartheid system.

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Thoughts on the Occupation

Barak — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 23:52:17 +0000

I like to think of myself as a social democrat and capitalist. In practical terms, this means that while I like to watch CNBC and read the Wall Street Journal, I also recognize that people power needs to balance the influence of corporate interests for social democracy and capitalism to coexist. Thus, I am all in favor of the Occupy Wall Street movement. While I suspect that Goldman Sachs is far from surrendering, it’s a good thing for the captains of finance who brought us the financial crisis of 2008-? to see some menacing looking folks who look like they wouldn’t mind hanging the Lords of Finance from their ties off the Brooklyn Bridge.

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You and Me, Let’s Start a Revolution

Mariel — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 03:49:28 +0000

In a bit of solidarity with the Egyptians, but mostly because this so cool, check out ‘historyteachers’ YouTube videos, including ‘The French Revolution‘ to Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’. If ever there was an appropriate choice of songs for that subject, I would say this is it.

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On Recent Protests

Imara — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 02:53:54 +0000

So now and again in my Eeyore-like philosophy of always expecting the worst, I find myself truly and pleasantly surprised. From the start, the recent protests, uprisings and overthrow of the Tunisian government struck me as a powerful moment in history and a reminder of a more aggressive approach to government accountability. Yet as exciting as they were, the activities in Tunisia certainly didn’t strike me as any sort of catalyst for change in the region. The developments this week in Egypt and most recently Yemen thus left me rather speechless.

Unlike some, I certainly am not expecting a sudden surge of representative governance or for democratic rule to spring forth in the wake of these uprisings, particularly in Egypt or Yemen. On the other hand, pessimist or not, it’s hard not to be inspired by the recent activities. Like many interested in international relations, I found myself wondering just what this means for the United States and other Western democracy building interests. Unlike many, the best thing I can think to hope for is that Western policy-makers will take care with the situation and if possible stay out of it.

A popular rising of displeasure with authoritarian government certainly doesn’t equate a sudden desire for Western intervention. If anything we might hope for the recent uprisings to provide a model of understanding future change in the region.

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D&S is right on time!

Barak — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 00:58:11 +0000

We like to be timely here at D&S, but we’re not usually this timely. Our most recent issue of Democracy and Society (which just came out this week!), as it turns out, focuses on US foreign policy in the Middle East and has lots of good articles addressing the crises unfolding in the region:

Dina Guirguis provides some good analysis about what’s unfolding in Egypt at the moment…and predicted the explosive protests we’re seeing there right now (I’m not certain if she was predicting them so soon…).
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf (of the Park 51 Mosque controversy) and Eric Patterson provide some good advice for how the Obama administration can engage in the region in a constructive way.
Nicholas Noe discusses (predicted?) the crisis in Lebanon.
Uriel Abulof and David Kenner talk about the challenges of democratic reform in the region.
István Balogh weighs in on the shifting balance of external power in the region.

As they say, RTWT (read the whole thing).

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What Makes a Protest Legitimate?

Mariel — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 02:09:40 +0000

The Christian Science Monitor calls out Biden for his recent remarks about Mubarak and the protests in Egypt. In addition to saying that Mubarak is not a dictator and shouldn’t have to step down from his “29 year reign” [emphasis added], Biden advises both Mubarak and protestors to come together to discuss the legitimacy of the protests. The CSM article ends with this choice dig:

Egypt’s protesters, if they’re paying attention to Biden at all, will certainly be wondering which of their demands thus far have been illegitimate [emphasis theirs].

Here at D&S, Barak writes a lot about protest, but to my knowledge, hasn’t yet discussed what makes a protest legitimate. Perhaps it’s my unrelenting American identity, but I’ve always assumed that the will of the people automatically made a protest legit. Having just written that, and thinking critically about it, perhaps not: I don’t know that I could go so far as to call the Tea Partiers a legitimate protest (although perhaps that’s really because I think they lack credibility, not legitimacy). I understand that even in ‘popular’ protests, the majority of the country is not involved – activities are focused among the elites and city-dwellers. Is international support the necessary ingredient? In either case, so much for the will of the people.

So, my fellow D&Sers and DGers? What makes a protest legitimate? And while we’re at it, who wins this round? Biden or the CSM?

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After the revolt

Barak — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 03:09:33 +0000

MA in Democracy and Governance Co-Director Dan Brumberg argues that while the revolt in Tunisia is an historic event in the Arab world, it’s far too early to see any signs of a more democratic region emerging from it:

To appreciate what has happened in Tunisia, consider one elemental fact: in 60 years, there has never been one case of a successful, popular revolt toppling an Arab regime. On the contrary, despite periodic legitimacy crises, Arab autocracies have demonstrated a remarkable capacity for self-preservation…

Yet if events in Tunisia give advocates of democracy cause for celebration, we must keep two basic points in mind. First, the road ahead will be fraught with uncertainty and even danger. The capacity of Tunisia’s fractious opposition to unite and mobilize popular support for a common agenda is unknown…

The second point is the uniqueness of the Tunisian case. Most US-backed Arab regimes have not replicated the far-reaching autocracy typical of Ben Ali’s Tunisia. Instead, the leaders of Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Yemen and Kuwait have long tolerated a measure of state-controlled political competition in a bid to secure some popular acceptance at home and international support abroad. Even if this semi-authoritarian arrangement no longer works very well, it will probably continue to provide the institutional basis for heading off popular rebellions similar to the one that toppled Ben Ali.

Sounds like a solid argument to me.

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Tunisia

Barak — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 00:37:39 +0000

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Cairo 2005:

For 60 years, the United States pursued stability at the expense of democracy in the Middle East – and we achieved neither.

Tunisia, 2011:

Unprecedented protests in Tunisia have deeply shaken one of the Middle East’s most repressive regimes, forcing the president that ruled Tunisia for 23 years to step down…the Tunisian protests serve as a startling red flag for other autocracies across the region, which have long dismissed warnings that maintaining stability through suppression may backfire.

Diagnosing the problem was the easy part. The hard part is what to do next.

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2010 in Review

admin — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 23:50:15 +0000

Once again, we’ve spent the year expanding D&S. We have new contributors, including David, Elizabeth and Imara, D&S is now on Facebook, we published the Spring 2010 issue, with the Fall issue on the way, the complete archives are now available, we added a page of special reports from the CDACS and DG staff and students and we continued to provide quality snark and commentary on foreign affairs and international development.

Here’s a brief review to ring out the old year.

Top Posts

On Facebook

On the Blog

Returning from last year, Why Do People Protest still lands in the Top 5 posts on the blog. The other Top 5 posts are:

Most Commented

Another of last year’s posts (Obama Needs a Vision Check) continues to be one of the most commented posts. The others include:

Thank You

We’d like to say thank you to all of our Fans, Friends and followers, and in particular, to the following for ReTweeting, linking, and generally loving our stuff!

Gregg Wilhauck at the CIPE Development Blog
John Brown’s Public Diplomacy Press and Blog Review
Everyone over at The Democratic Piece
@SMSLegal @pcdnetwork @mmckone @NDItech @penelopeinparis @auerswald @viewfromthecave @USIP @elizabethcutler @demdigest @vargheseanand @amellionaire @Adamdougl @odonnellm @DavidJandura @SwahiliStreet @xrauscher_ @intljurist @Tobias_B @gerardtmccarthy @CIPEGlobal @iapss @msfsinfo @Grieboski @LisaofArabia @Snov @GUInstituteLSGS @electionguide @woodenbeirut @arenda @Tosk59 @GUConflictRes

Happy New Year from all of us at D&S and Georgetown CDACS!

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