DOCSLIB.ORG

Latin America's Authoritarian Drift

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Latin America's Authoritarian Drift July 2013, Volume 24, Number 3 $12.00 Latin America’s Authoritarian Drift Kurt Weyland Carlos de la Torre Miriam Kornblith Putin versus Civil Society Leon Aron Miriam Lanskoy & Elspeth Suthers Kenya’s 2013 Elections Joel D. Barkan James D. Long, Karuti Kanyinga, Karen E. Ferree, and Clark Gibson The Durability of Revolutionary Regimes Steven Levitsky & Lucan Way Kishore Mahbubani’s World Donald K. Emmerson The Legacy of Arab Autocracy Daniel Brumberg Frédéric Volpi Frederic Wehrey Sean L. Yom Putin versus Civil Society The Long STruggLe for freedom Leon Aron Leon Aron is resident scholar and director of Russian studies at the American Enterprise Insitute, a Washington, D.C.–based think tank. His most recent book is Roads to the Temple: Memory, Truth, Ideals and Ideas in the Making of the Russian Revolution, 1987–1991 (2012). Civil unrest, no matter where it takes place, is always difficult to as- sess. For experts and policy makers, the dilemma is depicted by meta- phors as well-worn as they are accurate: Flash in the pan or tip of the iceberg? Do demonstrations and rallies manifest intense but fleeting anger and frustration? Or do they represent enduring sentiments that eventually may force major reforms or even a change in regime? Evaluating the prospects for Russia’s “new” protesters, who began to mobilize en masse after fraudulent State Duma elections in Decem- ber 2011, and the civil society from which they sprang is no exception. Perhaps history can help us to understand contemporary developments. Of course, no historical parallel is perfect, but though history is hardly an infallible guide, it is the only one we have and may have something to teach us here. Today’s Russian protests have increasingly come to re- semble past civil-rights and civil-resistance efforts in other parts of the world, including the Indian independence movement led by Mahatma Gandhi (1917–47), the U.S. civil-rights movement (1945–70), Solidar- ity in Poland (1979–81), “People Power” in the Philippines (1983–86), the anti-Pinochet movement in Chile (1983–88), the mass demonstra- tions of the glasnost revolution in the Soviet Union (1987–91), the struggle against Slobodan Miloševiæ in Serbia (1991–2000), Georgia’s Rose Revolution in 2003, and Ukraine’s Orange Revolution a year later. Despite myriad differences, the people who participated in those movements—whether in support of racial equality, democratization, or decolonization, or in opposition to corruption, police brutality, or dis- crimination—would instantly recognize the two essential and overlap- ping demands of the Russian protesters: 1) an end to de facto disenfran- Journal of Democracy Volume 24, Number 3 July 2013 © 2013 National Endowment for Democracy and The Johns Hopkins University Press Leon Aron 63 chisement, wherein votes cast for the “wrong” party or candidate are “undercounted” or do not count at all; and 2) equality before the law, which is daily subverted and distorted by authorities at all levels—as low as the traffic police and as high as the chairman of the Central Elec- toral Commission. The movement’s first demand was the nullification of the 2011 elec- tions and the scheduling of a new fair and transparent vote. “We are not allowed to vote in our own country!” “Give me back my voice!” “Don’t kill freedom, don’t steal votes! Putin has stolen our voices!” (In Rus- sian, the word for “voice” and “vote” are the same—golos.) Demonstra- tors, some wearing tape over their mouths, carried signs bearing these and thousands of other slogans in late 2011. 1 One protester at a rally in Novosibirsk (1,750 miles from Moscow) told a reporter that the law “must be the same for all.” 2 The falsification of the election results was a “violation of our rights as citizens,” declared another demonstrator, a middle-aged woman, adding that “the right to choose must be restored!” One key similarity between the protests in Russia today and past civil-resistance movements is nonviolence. Despite constant provoca- tions, harassment, and occasional beatings, the protesters have remained peaceful. The commitment to nonviolence had been apparent even be- fore the mass demonstrations broke out. In a 2011 interview, Evgenia Chirikova, head of the Moscow environmental group EMCO and one of the most popular leaders of the movement, told me: I think we look more like the Gandhi movement in India. We lead many ordinary people who understand that, to continue the parallel, we are not worse than the British, we are not worse than our authorities, that we are not slaves and that, although the empire humiliates us we continue to resist and do not respond with violence. We consciously avoid violence, never resort [to] violent means in our struggle [because] when you don’t respond to violence with violence you avoid multiplying evil. 3 Another critical similarity between today’s Russian protesters and earlier civil-rights movements is their strong moral foundation, root- ed in the quest for dignity in democratic citizenship. Gandhi called his movement satyagraha—“truth force” or “soul force.” When I asked Lev Gudkov, president of the Levada Center and Russia’s leading indepen- dent pollster, what struck him most about the protest movement, he cited the movement’s “moral character,” which he found “starkly undeniable and remarkable” after so many years of political apathy. “I have not seen anything like it in the past twenty years,” he added. Like most other civil-rights movements, this one rejects the “system” less because of specific political or economic grievances than because its members find that system offensive and beneath them as people and as citizens. One Russian expert summarized this sensibility as the rejec- tion of “total corruption, lies, and violence” because they were “incom- 64 Journal of Democracy patible with decent life.”4 According to another Russian observer, the people were demonstrating for “human dignity, the right to choose their own fate and to live in a lawful state.” 5 The protesters constantly used words like honor, decency, dignity, and conscience. “We don’t want revolutions,” said one prodemocracy activist at a 4 February 2012 rally in the Siberian city of Omsk. “Respect us! [We] are free people in an unfree country,” read a poster in Moscow. As one demonstrator put it, “We simply want to be able to live and work honestly, but this [system] does not give us that right.” Similarly, a middle-aged female demonstrator in Novosibirsk told a reporter that she was there “because in my country, my government ignores my interests and humiliates me.”6 The protest slogans reflected this moral sensibility: “Don’t lie to us!”7 “Don’t steal from us!” 8 “Listen to us!”9 “We are not cattle!” “We are not a faceless crowd!” “We are the people!” I am here because of “self-respect,” said a participant in a protest rally after Putin’s reelection in March 2012. “Instead of ideological dogmas, follow moral norms, believe in common sense and in the individual,” said Alexei Navalny, the popular anticorruption blogger who was one of the Moscow protest leaders. The rally, he contended, was not “so much about ‘politics’” as it was about the “very simple idea of the struggle for one’s rights, for one’s voice, for one’s choice.” According to one Russian commenta- tor, the crucial part of the movement’s credo was not “economic [or] social, and even less so political,” but rather the “ethical imperative of ‘living in truth.’”10 This echoes earlier nonviolent movements in the region. Indeed, the title of Russian dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s 1974 samizdat essay “Not to Live a Lie” later served as the motto of the Polish and Czech anticommunist reform movements. Toward a Freer Tomorrow Similarly, today’s Russian protesters are seeking to effect vast po- litical and social change through a personal and deeply moral effort. Nowhere is this intense moral commitment more evident than in the quest for a better future for their children, which became a leitmotif of the movement. Worried that his baby daughter would grow up to ask what he was doing “when they decided we would live in a state like Syria instead of Europe,” a 27-year-old lawyer who joined the Decem- ber 2011 Moscow protests said, “I don’t want to tell her I was too busy to do anything about it.” 11 According to Chirikova, although people of all ages turned out for the demonstrations, “parents with small children were there in greatest numbers. That is indicative of something. We are anxious about the future, not even for ourselves, but for . our children. They deserve to live in a better Russia.” A 34-year-old advertising agent from Moscow traveled to Yaroslavl to volunteer for an independent can- Leon Aron 65 didate’s campaign so that she would be able to tell his children that he “took action” during the Putin regime and “achieved results.” 12 Given the similarities between ear- lier civil-rights movements elsewhere Again and again, after in the world and the current Russian periods of strong eco- civil-resistance movement, what does nomic growth, newly history tell us about its prospects? expanded middle classes Precedent is no guarantee, but the Kremlin should be worried. The record begin to desire more than is fairly unambiguous: When led by mere personal freedom the middle class (or its children, the and prosperity, and thus students) such movements have had a start to demand political high rate of success. liberty and a say in how It was the middle class that founded their country is governed. the Indian National Congress, the main vehicle of the independence movement led by lawyer Mahatma Gandhi.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Civil Resistance Against Coups a Comparative and Historical Perspective Dr
    ICNC MONOGRAPH SERIES Civil Resistance Against Coups A Comparative and Historical Perspective Dr. Stephen Zunes ICNC MONOGRAPH SERIES Cover Photos: (l) Flickr user Yamil Gonzales (CC BY-SA 2.0) June 2009, Tegucigalpa, Honduras. People protesting in front of the Presidential SERIES EDITOR: Maciej Bartkowski Palace during the 2009 coup. (r) Wikimedia Commons. August 1991, CONTACT: [email protected] Moscow, former Soviet Union. Demonstrators gather at White House during the 1991 coup. VOLUME EDITOR: Amber French DESIGNED BY: David Reinbold CONTACT: [email protected] Peer Review: This ICNC monograph underwent four blind peer reviews, three of which recommended it for publication. After Other volumes in this series: satisfactory revisions ICNC released it for publication. Scholarly experts in the field of civil resistance and related disciplines, as well as People Power Movements and International Human practitioners of nonviolent action, serve as independent reviewers Rights, by Elizabeth A. Wilson (2017) of ICNC monograph manuscripts. Making of Breaking Nonviolent Discipline in Civil Resistance Movements, by Jonathan Pinckney (2016) The Tibetan Nonviolent Struggle, by Tenzin Dorjee (2015) Publication Disclaimer: The designations used and material The Power of Staying Put, by Juan Masullo (2015) presentedin this publication do not indicate the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of ICNC. The author holds responsibility for the selection and presentation of facts contained in Published by ICNC Press this work, as well as for any and all opinions expressed therein, which International Center on Nonviolent Conflict are not necessarily those of ICNC and do not commit the organization 1775 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Ste.
    [Show full text]
  • YUGOSLAV REFUGEES, DISPLACED PERSONS and the CIVIL WAR Mirjana Morokvasic Freie Universitm, Berlin and Centre Nationale De La Recherche Scientifique, Paris
    YUGOSLAV REFUGEES, DISPLACED PERSONS AND THE CIVIL WAR Mirjana Morokvasic Freie UniversitM, Berlin and Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris Background case among the socialist countries. The within the boundaries of former Slovenia and Croatia declared present tragedy can only be compared Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav case may also independence on 25 June 1991. That to that of the Second World War; from help de-dramatize the East I West was the date of the "collective an international perspective, the invasion scenarios which predict thanatos"' which led to the United Nations High Commission on disruptive mass movements caused by disintegration of Yugoslavia. As a Refugees (UNHCR) compares it in political and ethnic violence or result of German pressure, the scope, scale of atrocities and ecological catastrophe in the countries European Community, followed by a consequences for the population, to the aligned with the former Soviet empire. number of other states, recognized the Cambodian civil war. The Demographic Structure In three ways, analyzing the independence of the secessionist The 600,000 to 1 million displaced refugees' situation contributes to our republics on 15 January 1992 and persons referred to above come from understanding of issues beyond the buried the second Y~goslavia.~ Croatia, whose total population is 4.7 human tragedy of the people Although the Westernmedia have million (see Figure 1).Moreover, most themselves. First, it demystifies the now shifted their attention to the of these people come from a relatively genesis of the Yugoslav conflict, which former Soviet Union, where other small area the front line, which is now is often reduced to a matter "ethnic - similar and potentially even more under the control of the Yugoslav hatred." It shows that the separation of dangerous ethnic conflicts are brewing, Army and Serbian forces.
    [Show full text]
  • Centralization in Nonviolent Civil Resistance Movements
    United We Stand, Divided We Fall: Centralization in Nonviolent Civil Resistance Movements. By Evgeniia Iakhnis Submitted to Central European University Department of International Relations and European Studies In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Supervisor: Professor Erin K. Jenne CEU eTD Collection Word Count: 14,555 Budapest, Hungary 2012 Abstract This thesis examines how the level of centralization affects the outcome of nonviolent civil resistance campaigns. The findings of the statistical analysis show that campaigns led by a coalition or an umbrella organization are more likely to succeed than movements with other organizational structures, while spontaneous movements have lower chances to achieve political transformation. A detailed analysis of two cases of nonviolent resistance, Romania from 1987-1989 and Bulgaria in 1989, explores the casual mechanisms that link different levels of centralization to the outcome of nonviolent campaigns. It reveals that the existence of a strong coalition at the head of a nonviolent campaign enables the movement to conduct effective negotiations, prevents disruption of nonviolent discipline, and presents a viable political alternative once the previous regime falls. In contrast, the spontaneous character of a movement undermines its ability to conduct effective negotiations, maintain nonviolent discipline, and create a viable alternative on the political arena. CEU eTD Collection i Acknowledgements I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor Erin Jenne for her support and invaluable advice. I also want to say a special thank you to Matthew Stenberg for his constructive criticism and patience while reading my thesis drafts. Without him, my experience at the CEU would have been different.
    [Show full text]
  • Mary Elizabeth King on Civil Action for Social Change, the Transnational Women’S Movement, and the Arab Awakening
    Theory Talks Presents THEORY TALK #55 MARY ELIZABETH KING ON CIVIL ACTION FOR SOCIAL CHANGE, THE TRANSNATIONAL WOMEN’S MOVEMENT, AND THE ARAB AWAKENING Theory Talks is an interactive forum for discussion of debates in International Relations with an emphasis of the underlying theoretical issues. By frequently inviting cutting-edge specialists in the field to elucidate their work and to explain current developments both in IR theory and real-world politics, Theory Talks aims to offer both scholars and students a comprehensive view of the field and its most important protagonists. Citation: Kovoets, N. (2013) ‘Theory Talk #55: Mary Elizabeth King on Civil Action for Social Change, the Transnational Women’s Movement, and the Arab Awakening’, Theory Talks, http://www.theory-talks.org/2013/06/theory-talk-55.html (05-06-2013) WWW.THEORY-TALKS.ORG MARY ELIZABETH KING ON CIVIL ACTION FOR SOCIAL CHANGE, THE TRANSNATIONAL WOMEN’S MOVEMENT, AND THE ARAB AWAKENING Nonviolent resistance remains by and large a marginal topic to IR. Yet it constitutes an influential idea among idealist social movements and non-Western populations alike, one that has moved to the center stage in recent events in the Middle East. In this Talk, Mary King—who has spent over 40 years promoting nonviolence—elaborates on, amongst others, the women’s movement, nonviolence, and civil action more broadly. What is, according to you, the central challenge or principal debate in International Relations? And what is your position regarding this challenge/in this debate? The field of International Relations is different from Peace and Conflict Studies; it has essentially to do with relationships between states and developed after World War I.
    [Show full text]
  • Civil Resistance in Ethiopia: an Overview of a Historical Development
    Vol. 13(1), pp. 7-18, January-June 2021 DOI: 10.5897/AJHC2020.0471 Article Number: 216870165987 ISSN 2141-6672 Copyright ©2021 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article African Journal of History and Culture http://www.academicjournals.org/AJHC Review Civil resistance in Ethiopia: An overview of a historical development Amare Kenaw Aweke Department of Peace and Security Studies, School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Dire Dawa University (DDU) Ethiopia. Received 8 May, 2020; Accepted 26 May, 2020 A history of anti-government opposition in Ethiopia is a very complex topic and a subject extremely difficult to investigate. It runs through the analysis of intractable social crisis of the entire feudal empire covering a wide range of historical processes across ages to the various people’s movements in contemporary Ethiopia. It also involved different styles and methods over the years ranging from violent to nonviolent, and from dialogues and negotiations to conventional politics. The major purpose of this article is to provide a brief historical overview of the genesis, development, nature and dynamics of civil resistance in light of experiences ranging from the second half of 20th century to the 2015 Oromo and Amhara protest. Key words: Civil resistance, Ethiopian students movement, Ethiopian May-2005 election dissent, everyday forms of resistance, rebellions. INTRODUCTION A meticulous review of a history of anti-government some public writers2. opposition in Ethiopia gives an expanded list of both The materials produced at this time are important in violent and nonviolent resistance. It is also a very providing vivid insights on the genesis, foundation, and complex topic and has to explore the very complex crises radicalization of the late 1960s and early 1970s people‟s of the feudal empire, the Military regime and the movements in Ethiopia.
    [Show full text]
  • Via Issuelab
    ROCKEFELLER ARCHIVE CENTER RESEARCH REPO RTS “Peaceful Revolutionary Heroes”: Non-Violence, Revolution, and Opposition in Cold War Peripheries by Emily R. Gioielli © 2019 by Emily R. Gioielli Abstract The ascendance of a norm of non-violent protest or “civil resistance” against a government or occupying force may, at first, seem self-evident. As modern states have come to attain overwhelming military and policing powers over their populations, the idea of using violent means to oppose a regime seems ineffective, at best, and dangerous, at worst. Yet, the near total embrace of and insistence on non-violence should not be considered a foregone conclusion. They must be examined historically so as to understand how people across time and space have supported what was fundamentally a radical ideology of resistance to inequality, colonialism, and political repression. This project centers on the question of how non-violence became a norm for resistance and struggle. It focuses on the potential entanglement of two processes of transformation: the Black American freedom struggle and the regime changes in East Central Europe in 1989, that are inexorably linked to non-violence or peaceful transition. It considers how the “other” transatlantic relationship, between Black Americans and eastern Europeans during the Cold War, shaped opposition politics in East Central Europe. This project places a special emphasis on the intellectual roots, social organization, and tactical methods of non-violent political opposition and peace movements in Hungary from approximately 1947 to 1990. It will also pay special attention to how the socialist ideal of revolutionary action changed over time, as the needs of socialists states changed.
    [Show full text]
  • Why Civil Resistance Works: the Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict
    Why Civil Resistance Works Why Civil Maria J. Stephan and Resistance Works Erica Chenoweth The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conºict Implicit in recent schol- arly debates about the efªcacy of methods of warfare is the assumption that the most effective means of waging political struggle entails violence.1 Among political scientists, the prevailing view is that opposition movements select vi- olent methods because such means are more effective than nonviolent strate- gies at achieving policy goals.2 Despite these assumptions, from 2000 to 2006 organized civilian populations successfully employed nonviolent methods in- Maria J. Stephan is Director of Educational Initiatives at the International Center on Nonviolent Conºict. Erica Chenoweth is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. The authors are listed in random order and contributed equally to this article. The authors wish to thank Peter Ackerman, Douglas Bond, Jonathan Caverley, Howard Clark, Alexander Downes, Jack DuVall, Roy Eidelson, Matthew Fuhrmann, Matthew Kroenig, Adria Lawrence, Jason Lyall, Brian Martin, Doug McAdam, Amado Mendoza, Hardy Merriman, Wendy Pearlman, Regine Spector, Monica Duffy Toft, Ned Walker, Stephen Zunes, the anonymous reviewers, and participants in the International Security Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Har- vard University for useful comments on previous drafts of this article. Elizabeth Wells contributed helpful research assistance. 1. Robert A. Pape, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terror (New York: Random House, 2005); Robert A. Pape, Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univer- sity Press, 1996); Daniel L.
    [Show full text]
  • The Stage of the Velvet Curtain and the Playwright Dissident Vaclav Havel
    The Stage of the Velvet Curtain and the Playwright Dissident Vaclav Havel Olivia Graham Table of Contents: 1. The Beginning of Communism in Czechoslovakia – 1948 2. The Prague Spring/Socialism with a Face – 1968 3. Vaclav Havel/Socialism with a Soul 4. The Velvet Revolution – 1989 5. Havel’s Legacy 6. References 7. Selected Works 1. The Beginning of Communism in Czechoslovakia – 1948 In order to grasp the significance the Velvet Revolution had in the fall of communism after 41 years there must be at least a rudimentary introspection into life as it evolved for those under communism ‐ specifically, Czechoslovakia since the communist coup d’état in 1948. As a country belonging to the Easten Bloc and member of the Warsaw Pact, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSC) oversaw the turnover of Czechoslovakia to a “people’s republic” ‐ a move toward socialism and ultimately communism under the dictatorship of the proletariat. All dissidents were purged from society, not excluding those in the Catholic Church. The pervasion of Marxist ideology affected every aspect of culture, including of course the education system. Everything was submitted to the state, leaving Czechoslovakia’s “multiparty state” intact merely as a puppet to “rubber stamp” the KSC programs. The KSC itself however was not exempt from Stalin’s purges ‐ in part instigated by the rise of Tito’s insubordinance and the insecurity it evoked. (1, 2) Czechoslovakia mirrored the Soviet example in the emphasized rapid development of industry. This led to massive drafts of people being forced to long hours of labor. The suppression of the most experienced farmers, the Kulaks (the wealthier peasants), combined with the marked labor diversion from agriculture to industry, and the peasantry’s resistance to collectivization brought about a serious agricultural deficit.
    [Show full text]
  • Map & Timeline of Selected Cases of Civil Resistance
    CENTRE FOR EUROPEAN INTERNATIONAL STUDIES STUDIES CENTRE DEPARTMENT OF ST ANTONY’S COLLEGE POLITICS AND UNIVERSITY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS OXFORD CONFERENCE ON CIVIL RESISTANCE & POWER POLITICS St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, 15-18 March 2007 MAP & TIMELINE OF SELECTED CASES OF CIVIL RESISTANCE SINCE 1945 WITH A PROPOSED DEFINITION OF CIVIL RESISTANCE Sponsors: PROPOSED DEFINITION OF CIVIL RESISTANCE Key to Map: CONFERENCE ON CIVIL CIVIL RESISTANCE is a type of non-violent action. It involves a range of widespread and sustained activities against a particular power, force, policy or regime – hence the term ‘resistance’. The adjective ‘civil’ in this Cases on the programme context denotes that which pertains to a citizen or society (often implying that a movement’s goals are ‘civil’ in the sense of being widely shared in a society), and also that which is peaceful, polite, non-military or non-violent RESISTANCE AND POWER POLITICS in character. Civil resistance is found throughout history, and can involve a wide variety of forms of action. It Some other significant cases operates through several distinct mechanisms of change, including persuasion (e.g. by demonstrations, vigils and petitions); social, economic and political non-cooperation (e.g. by strikes, go-slows and boycotts); and nonviolent intervention (e.g. sit-ins, occupations, and the creation of parallel institutions of government). Civil resistance has been used in many types of struggle: for example, against colonialism, foreign occupations, military coups d’état, Key to Timeline: dictatorial regimes, racial and gender discrimination. It has also been used against particular policies of democrati- cally elected governments, and against changes consequent on peace agreements.
    [Show full text]
  • Nonviolent Action and Transitions to Democracy the IMPACT of INCLUSIVE DIALOGUE and NEGOTIATION by Véronique Dudouet and Jonathan Pinckney
    PEACEWORKS Nonviolent Action and Transitions to Democracy THE IMPACT OF INCLUSIVE DIALOGUE AND NEGOTIATION By Véronique Dudouet and Jonathan Pinckney NO. 174 | JULY 2021 Making Peace Possible NO. 174 | JULY 2021 ABOUT THE REPORT This report examines how inclusive dialogue and negotiation processes can help facilitate peaceful democratic transitions after nonviolent action campaigns. The MEDIATION, NEGOTIATION findings are based on a statistical study of all political transitions after nonviolent & DIALOGUE action campaigns and three in-depth case studies of transitions in Egypt, Tunisia, and Ukraine. The project was funded by the Nonviolent Action and Inclusive Peace Processes programs at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). ABOUT THE AUTHORS Véronique Dudouet is a senior adviser at the Berghof Foundation, where she manages research projects on peacebuilding, third-party intervention, and civil resistance. Jonathan Pinckney is a senior researcher for USIP and the author of From Dissent to Democracy: The Promise and Peril of Civil Resistance Transitions (2020). Cover photo: A former Islamist activist tortured under Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s government listens to other victims at the Truth and Dignity Commission, in Tunis, Tunisia on December 16, 2016. (Photo by Tara Todras- Whitehill/New York Times) The views expressed in this report are those of the authors alone. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Institute of Peace. An online edition of this and related reports can be found on our website (www.usip.org), together with additional information on the subject. © 2021 by the United States Institute of Peace United States Institute of Peace 2301 Constitution Avenue NW Washington, DC 20037 (202)-457-1700 (202)-429-6063 (fax) [email protected] www.USIP.org Peaceworks No.
    [Show full text]
  • The Struggle for National Identity in Nonviolent Revolutions
    Peace and Conflict Studies Volume 25 Number 2 Article 2 11-2018 Capturing the Flag: The Struggle for National Identity in Nonviolent Revolutions Landon E. Hancock Kent State University, [email protected] Anuj Gurung Kent State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://nsuworks.nova.edu/pcs Part of the International Relations Commons, and the Peace and Conflict Studies Commons Recommended Citation Hancock, Landon E. and Gurung, Anuj (2018) "Capturing the Flag: The Struggle for National Identity in Nonviolent Revolutions," Peace and Conflict Studies: Vol. 25 : No. 2 , Article 2. DOI: 10.46743/1082-7307/2018.1477 Available at: https://nsuworks.nova.edu/pcs/vol25/iss2/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Peace & Conflict Studies at NSUWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Peace and Conflict Studies by an authorized editor of NSUWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Capturing the Flag: The Struggle for National Identity in Nonviolent Revolutions Abstract One goal of nonviolent resistance movements is to legitimize themselves in opposition to governments by undermining the latter’s leadership. We argue nonviolent groups that can ‘own’ the national identity are more likely to succeed, as they can assert the legitimacy of their vision for the state, and persuade other sectors of society to support their cause. Our argument is supported by the Arab Spring uprisings, where those resistance movements that were able to identify and claim ownership over a homogeneous national identity were more successful in pressing their claims. We view national identity as a component of symbolic power in both successful and unsuccessful nonviolent revolutions.
    [Show full text]
  • Civil Resistance in Kosovo
    Civil Resistance in Kosovo Howard Clark Pluto P Press LONDON • STERLING, VIRGINIA First published 2000 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 22883 Quicksilver Drive, Sterling, VA 20166–2012, USA www.plutobooks.com Copyright © Howard Clark 2000 The right of Howard Clark to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Clark, Howard. Civil resistance in Kosovo / Howard Clark. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–7453–1574–7 1. Kosovo (Serbia)—History—1980– 2. Albanians—Yugoslavia—Kosovo (Serbia)—History. 3. Passive resistance—Yugoslavia—Kosovo (Serbia) 4. Kosovo (Serbia)—History—Civil War, 1998– I. Title. DR2086 .C58 2000 949.71—dc21 00–008501 ISBN 0 7453 1574 7 hardback ISBN 0 7453 1569 0 paperback 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Disclaimer: Some images in the original version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Production Services Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton Printed in the European Union by TJ International, Padstow To those who work for peaceful co-existence in Kosovo ‘If I were free, I would have much work, I would help those that are suffering more now. Now it is not Albanians that are suffering the most, now it is others, and I would work with all my strength in order to help them.
    [Show full text]