This title was first published in 2000. Drawing upon fieldwork conducted with Amnesty International, the Labour Party, Tenants' Associations and the Exodus collective, this work examines the nature of political activism. The author combines Habermasian theory and empirical fieldwork to critically analyze the nature of the political public sphere. While adopting a Habermasian approach, Clark recognizes the problems and limitations associated with notions of civil society and communicative action. An empirically formed critical stance is maintained throughout the work. Three main themes are drawn from this research: an analysis of structures of political participation; presentation of a typology of political activism ; analysis of the public process of participation. Essential reading for those studying public participation and its relationship to activism, as well as for students of politics, public policy and sociology.

Early nineteenth-century Ireland witnessed widespread and prolonged rural unrest, as groups of labourers and smallholders formed secret societies demanding land reform, fair rents, the protection of wages and an end to tithes. One of the most active of these groups - the Rockites - waged a vigorous and sustained campaign of arson, intimidation and houghing (maiming of animals) across the southern half of Ireland during the 1820s, quickly attracting the attention of the authorities in both Ireland and Britain. Combining analyses of local and economic concerns with wider national political dimensions, this book offers an in-depth and alternative interpretation of the Rockites. Attaching particular importance to the political dimensions of the Rockites, Katsuta demonstrates how their political mindset was created by local circumstances. Styling themselves descendants of the United Irishmen, Rockites drew on the memories of the bitter political struggles in Cork during the 1790s, as well as current political events such as Daniel O'Connell's mass mobilisation to oppose the Catholic relief bill in 1821. As well as situating the Rockites within the Irish context, the book also offers insights into how British politicians dealt with Ireland in the early years of the Union. The Rockite disturbances prompted the Tory government to adopt a new course that proved less a remedy to problems in Ireland than as a response to events within parliament. In turn Rockites became a useful tool for Whigs and radicals in Westminster to blame the Tories for the misgovernment of Ireland, revealing how the Irish question in the early nineteenth-century UK was regarded first and foremost as a parliamentary issue.

NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) protests are often criticized as parochial and short-lived, generating no lasting influence on broader processes related to environmental politics. This volume offers a different perspective. Drawing on cases from around the globe, it demonstrates that NIMBY protests, although always arising from a local concern in a particular community, often result in broader political, social, and technological change. Chapters include cases from Europe, North America, and Asia, engaging with the full political spectrum from established democracies to non-democratic countries. Regardless of political setting, NIMBY movements can have a positive and proactive role in generating innovative solutions to local as well as transnational environmental issues. Furthermore, those solutions are now serving as models for communities and countries around the world.

'A fascinating, inspiring journey' - Meredith Tax, author of A Road Unforeseen Kurdistan has had a tumultuous history, and the women who lived there have experienced a life like no other. From Saddam Hussein's reign of terror beginning in the 1960s, to the fight against ISIS today, violence, revolution and questions around identity, agency, survival and resistance have been at the forefront of women's lives for decades. This book is a collection of these women's stories written in their own words. Each story reveals a tapestry of experiences, including political activism under Saddam and armed resistance in Rojava's PKK and YPG and Komala in Rojhalat. This is in addition to experiences of FGM and overcoming victimhood, life under extreme conservatism, as well as a look into the work of artists, poets, novelists and performers whose work represents a complicated relationship with Kurdistan. These rich and nuanced insights come from a group of women from a nation without a state, who are now scattered across the world. Collectively, they take the reader on a journey that will inspire feminist, anti-fascist and anti-racist people across the world.

New York Times Besteller Following the success of New York Times bestseller Dumpty comes Volume 2 of award-winning actor and national bestselling author John Lithgow's next book of satirical poetry chronicling the era of Trump madness. Darker, funnier, and more hard-hitting than ever, Lithgow writes with poetic fury and cutting satire, taking readers verse-by-verse through the last year of even more unthinkable and shocking real events surrounding Trump and his administration-including poems about the impeachment, Rudy Giuliani, Mick Mulvaney, Jay Sekulow, Jim Jordan, Roger Stone, and others. With completely new poems and never-before-seen line drawings, Lithgow will once again make readers laugh in frenzied times with this mix of striking and humorous prose-dismantling the reign of Dumpty one stanza at a time. Audio edition read by the author.

This collection brings together a series of essays that combine the public and private nature of dissent, stories of dissent that encapsulate the mood of an historical or cultural period, or of a society. Dissent is most memorable when it is public, explosive, dramatically enacted. Yet quiet dissent is no less effective as a methodical unstitching of social and political mores, rules and regulations. Success depends, perhaps, less on intensity than on determination, on patience as much as courage. Moreover, although many persistent dissenters often gain an iconic status, most live dissent in the fabric of their ordinary lives. Some combine both. Imprisoned at Robben Island for 27 years, his image and voice erased from the print media or airwaves, Nelson Mandela remained even in jail one of the most powerful agents of dissent in South African society until his freedom in 1990. Deep connections, deep commitment, profoundly personal convictions and courageous public dissent are some of the threads that bind together this diverse and exciting collection of essays. Alone, each essay explores dissent and consent in stimulating and distinct ways; together, they speak both of the effects of dissent and consent and of their affective energies and potential. This book was originally published as a special issue of Life Writing.

Based on empirical evidence derived from university and national archives across the country and interviews with participants, British Student Activism in the Long Sixties reconstructs the world of university students in the 1960s and 1970s. Student accounts are placed within the context of a wide variety of primary and secondary sources from across Britain and the world, making this project the first book-length history of the British student movement to employ literary and theoretical frameworks which differentiate it from most other histories of student activism to date. Globalization, especially of mass communications, made British students aware of global problems such as the threat of nuclear weapons, the Vietnam War, racism, sexism and injustice. British students applied these global ideas to their own unique circumstances, using their intellectual traditions and political theories which resulted in unique outcomes. British student activists effectively gained support from students, staff, and workers for their struggle for student's rights to unionize, freely assemble and speak, and participate in university decision-making. Their campaigns effectively raised public awareness of these issues and contributed to significant national decisions in many considerable areas.

Were the occupations of 2010-11 - from Spain to Tahrir Square to Occupy Wall Street - a success or failure? Are they the model for urban radical politics? This book challenges common understandings and underlying assumptions of what constitutes activism and resistance. It proposes a critical urban theory of politics and citizenship that is grounded in the city as it is inhabited. For those who are marginalized, the city is a double-edged sword of oppression and emancipation. This book argues for an intersectional approach that actively dismantles hierarchies and embraces a wider range of acts of resistance and creative transformation, one in which we recognize these acts of citizenship as a form of constitutionalism. Wood reframes the theorization of protest and of the city, 'post-political' literature and the history of protest, and Marxist and anarchist ideas about the time and space of politics. Through this, she adopts a unique approach to provide new theoretical insights and challenges to post-political thinking. This book will be valuable reading for those interested in political, urban and social geography, in addition to political economy and progressive politics in the urban context.

An extensive look at historical, literary, and media representations of '68 in Germany, challenging the way it has been instrumentalized. In Germany, the concept of "1968" is enduring and synonymous with the German Student Movement, and is viewed, variously, as a fundamental liberalization, a myth, a second foundation, or an irritation. The movement's aims - radicalre-imagination of the political and economic order and social hierarchy - have been understood as requiring a "long march." While the movement has been judged at best a "successful failure," cultural elites continue to engage inthe construction of 1968. Ingo Cornils's book argues that writing about 1968 in Germany is no longer about the historical events or the specific objectives of a bygone counterculture, but is instead a moral touchstone, a marker ofsocial group identity meant to keep alive (or at bay) a utopian agenda that continues to fire the imagination. The book demonstrates that the representation of 1968 as a "foundational myth" suits the needs of a number of surprisingly heterogeneous groups, and that even attempts to deconstruct the myth strengthen it. Cornils brings together for the first time the historical, literary, and media representations of the movement, showing the motivation behindand effect of almost five decades of writing about 1968. In so doing, Cornils challenges the way 1968 has been instrumentalized: as a powerful imaginary that has colonized every aspect of life in Germany, and as symbolic capitalin cultural and political debates. Ingo Cornils is Professor of German Studies at the University of Leeds.

This book explains why China has resorted to the use of large-scale military force in foreign affairs. How will China use its growing military might in coming crisis and existing conflicts? This book contributes to the current debate on the future of the Asia-Pacific region by examining why China has resorted to using military force in the past. Utilizing fresh theoretical insights on the causes of interstate war and employing a sophisticated methodological framework, the book provides detailed analyses of China's intervention in the Korean War, the Sino-Indian War, China's border clashes with the Soviet Union and the Sino-Vietnamese War. It argues that China did not employ military force in these wars for the sake of national security or because of material issues under contestation, as frequently claimed. Rather, the book's findings strongly suggest that considerations about China's international status and relative standing are the principal reasons for China's decision to engage in military force in these instances. When reflecting the study's central insight back onto China's contemporary territorial conflicts and problematic bilateral relationships, it is argued that the People's Republic is still a status-seeking and thus highly status-sensitive actor. As a result, China's status ambitions should be very carefully observed and well taken into account when interacting with the PRC. This book will be of much interest to students of Chinese foreign policy, Asian politics, military and strategic studies and IR in general.

This collection examines the role of sport in the lives of key revolutionary thinkers and leftist activists. In contrast to those who take a more romantic view of sport and believe in its apolitical nature, the chapters in this book help make clear how sport has served as a site for political activism and the revolutionary thought and practices of such individuals as Henry Mayers Hyndman, Vladimir Lenin, Fidel Castro, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, Harry Edwards, Charles Perkins, and Darius Dhlomo. Written by noted scholars, each chapter in turn provides insights into the close connection between sport, politics, and revolutionary movements in countries varying widely in their history, governmental policies, and treatment of individuals and groups. This book, which adopts a very broad definition of revolutions, is written with the hope of encouraging more serious thought regarding the transformative potential of sports, which can be individually liberating, as well as responsible for co-opting the lower classes and helping maintain power among the political and economic elite in capitalist as well as socialist societies. This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

Modelscapes are clusters of miniature architectural models that represent entire environments. They're frequently found in museums as representations of heritage, architecture, and collective identity. This book offers a critical analysis of modelscapes, using case studies from Israel, to show how miniature representations of contested physical space participate in the construction of a sense of national identity and appropriation of the land and its history. What, Yael Padan asks, is the meaning of such models, and what role do they play within the context of an ongoing violent conflict over territory and history?

Over recent years, social movements formed in response to austerity measures have played an increasingly important role in referendums. This is the first book to bridge the gap between social movement studies and research on direct democracy and draws on social movement theory to understand the nature of popular mobilization in referendums. The book uses unique case studies such as the Scottish referendum, the independence consultations in Catalonia, the Italian water referendum, the Troika proposals in Greece and the Iceland debt repayment referendum, to illustrate the ways the social movements have affected the referendums' dynamic and results. It also addresses the way in which participation from below has had a transformative impact on the organisational strategies and framing practices used in the campaigns.

This book offers the first transnational historical study of the creation, contention and consequences of the Australian animal movement. Largely inspired by Peter Singer and his 1975 book Animal Liberation, a new wave of animal activism emerged in Australia and across the world. In an effort to draw public and media attention to the plight of animals, such as the rearing of pigs and poultry in factory farms and the export of live animals to the Middle East and South East Asia, Australian activists were often innovative and provocative in how they made their claims. Through lobbying, disruptive methods, and vegan activism, the animal movement consistently contested the politics and culture of how animals were used and exploited. Australians not only observed and learnt from people and events overseas, but also played significant international roles. This book examines the complex and conflicting consequences of the animal movement for Australian politics, as well as its influence on broader social change.

Marching against Gender Practice: Political Imaginings in the Basqueland begins with the question: why is it so problematic for the majority of people in the Basque town of Hondarribia to accept the broader participation of women in their annual military march known as the Alarde? To explain this dispute, this study examines local history as well as the history of this unique parade, but most importantly considers how gender practices were and are organized. The controversy to extend female involvement in the Alarde resulted in two positions between betikoak traditionalists, (Betiko Alardearen Aldekoak, "Always the Town's Alarde"), and local "feminists" (emakumealdekoak or Emakumeak JuanaMugarrietakoa, the Women of Mugarrietakoa, WJM), the former group wishing to preserve the ritual and the latter wanting to change it. These are not simply dichotomous stances but represent multiple levels of local identity through differing concepts of gender, history, and social experience. It will be shown throughout the Alarde's long history (1639-present) that it represents several periods of militarism from the town's defense in 1638 against French forces, Napoleonic resistance (1808-1813) to the Carlist Wars (1833-1840 and 1872-1876). The Alarde began as a religious procession and gradually incorporated more and more secular elements. In essence, by the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century, the Alarde became one of many "Basque celebrations" (Euskal jaiak), tying it to Basque nationalism. Marching against Gender Practice centers on gender analyses of two opposing gender worldviews between the betikoak traditionalists and WJM feminists, but it aims at being applicable to gender theories in general, especially how gender may be cognized and what cognitive processes and cognitive systems may be included in the cognition of gender. By implication, it is asserted that collective imagination is not an immutable or static concept but may represent locality, regionalism, and nationalism as well as imbue concepts of communality, individuality, gender, harmony, historical narration, memory, social organization, and tradition. Commemorative, historical or re-enactment rituals like the Alarde of Hondarribia explain the duration of local identity, its transformation over time, and newer expressions of identity, which are continually being contested and reaffirmed through collective imagination.

The battles between Athenian anarchists and the Greek state have received a high degree of media attention recently. But away from the intensity of street protests militants implement anarchist practices whose outcomes are far less visible. They feed the hungry and poor, protect migrants from fascist beatings and try to carve out an autonomous political, social and cultural space. Activists within the movement share politics centred on hostility to the capitalist state and all forms of domination, hierarchy and discrimination. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork among Athenian anarchists and anti-authoritarians, Anarchy in Athens unravels the internal complexities within this milieu and provides a better understanding of the forces that give the space its shape. -- .

In 1975, the Nigerian authorities decided to construct a new postcolonial capital called Abuja, and together with several internationally renowned architects these military leaders collaborated to build a city for three million inhabitants. Founded five years after the Civil War with Biafra, which caused around 1.7 million deaths, the city was envisaged as a place where justice would reign and where people from different social, religious, ethnic, and political backgrounds would come together in a peaceful manner and work together to develop their country and its economy. These were all laudable goals, but they ironically mobilized certain forces from around the country in opposition against the Federal Government of Nigeria. The international and modernist style architecture and the fact that the government spent tens of billions of dollars constructing this idealized capital ended up causing more strife and conflict. For groups like Boko Haram, a Nigerian Al-Qaida affiliate organization, and other smaller ethnic groups seeking to have a say in how the country's oil wealth is spent, Abuja symbolized everything in Nigeria they sought to change. By examining the creation of the modernist national public spaces of Abuja within a broader historical and global context, this book looks at how the successes and the failures of these spaces have affected the citizens of the country and have, in fact, radicalized individuals with these spaces being scene of some of the most important political events and terrorist targets, including bombings and protest rallies. Although focusing on Nigeria's capital, the study has a wider global implication in that it draws attention to how postcolonial countries that were formed at the turn of the twentieth century are continuously fragmenting and remade by the emergence of new nation states like South Sudan.

Despite allegations of political disengagement and apathy on the part of the young, the last ten years have witnessed a considerable degree of political activity by young people - much of it led by students or directed at changes to the higher education system. Such activity has been evident across the globe. Nevertheless, to date, no book has brought together contributions from a wide variety of national contexts to explore such trends in a rigorous manner. Student Politics and Protest: International Perspectives offers a unique contribution to the disciplines of education, sociology, social policy, politics and youth studies. It provides the first book-length analysis of student politics within contemporary higher education comprising contributions from a variety of different countries and addressing questions such as: What roles do students' unions play in politics today? How successful are students in bringing about change? In what ways are students engaged in politics and protest in contemporary society? How does such engagement differ by national context? Student Politics and Protest: International Perspectives explores a number of common themes, including: the focus and nature of student politics and protest; whether students are engaging in fundamentally new forms of political activity; the characteristics of politically engaged students; the extent to which such activity can be considered to be 'globalised'; and societal responses to political activity on the part of students. Student Politics and Protest: International Perspectives does not seek to develop a coherent argument across all its chapters but, instead, illustrate the variety of empirical foci, theoretical resources and substantive arguments that are being made in relation to student politics and protest. International in scope, with all chapters dealing with recent developments concerning student politics and protest, this book will be an invaluable guide for Higher Education professionals, masters and postgraduate students in education, sociology, social policy, politics and youth studies.

The relative rise or decline of feminist movements across the globe has been debated by feminist scholars and activists for a long time. In recent years, however, these debates have gained renewed momentum. Rapid technological change and increased use of digital media have raised questions about how digital technologies change, influence, and shape feminist politics. This book interrogates the digital interface of transnational protest movements and local activism in feminist politics. Examining how global feminist politics is articulated at the nexus of the transnational/national, we take contemporary German protest culture as a case study for the manner in which transnational feminist activism intersects with the national configuration of feminist political work. The book explores how movements and actions from outside Germany's borders circulate digitally and resonate differently in new local contexts, and further, how these border-crossings transform grass-roots activism as it goes digital. This book was originally published as a special issue of Feminist Media Studies.

The global social justice movement attempts to build a more equitable, democratic, and environmentally sustainable world. However, this book argues that actors involved need to recognise knowledge - including scientific and technological systems - to a greater extent than they presently do. The rise of the Occupy movement, the Arab Spring and the Wikileaks controversy has demonstrated that the internet can play an important role in helping people to organise against unjust systems. While governments may be able to control individual activists, they can no longer control the flow of information. However, the existence of new information and communications technologies does not in itself guarantee that peoples' movements will win out against authoritarian governments or the power of economic elites. Drawing on extensive interviews and fieldwork, this book illustrates the importance of contributions from local movements around the world to the struggle for global justice. Including detailed case studies on opposition to genetically-modified crops in the south of India, and the digital liberties movement, this book is vital reading for anyone trying to understand the changing relationship between science, technology, and progressive movements around the world. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of International Politics, Social movements, Global Justice and Internet politics.

Militarism is the elephant in the room of global warming. Of all government sectors, 'Defence' has the highest carbon footprint and expenditure, yet has largely been exempt from international scrutiny and regulation. Marty Branagan uses Australian and international case studies to show that nonviolence is a viable alternative to militarism for national defence and regime change. 'Active resistance', initiated in Australian environmental blockades and now adopted globally, makes the song 'We Shall Not Be Moved' much more realistic, as activists erect tripod villages, bury, chain and cement themselves into the ground, and 'lock-on' to machinery and gates. Active resistance, 'artistic activism', and use of new information and communication technologies in movements such as the Arab Spring and 'Occupy' demonstrate that nonviolence is an effective, evolving praxis.

An unconventional biography of an unconventional woman. Eglantyne Jebb, not particularly fond of children herself, nevertheless dedicated her life to establishing Save the Children and promoting her revolutionary concept of human rights. In this award-winning book, Clare Mulley brings to life this brilliant, charismatic, and passionate woman, whose work took her between drawing rooms and war zones, defying convention and breaking the law.

Eglantyne Jebb not only helped save millions of lives, she also permanently changed the way the world treats children.

This book provides the first historical and comparative study of the 'transnational activist'. A range of important recent scholarship has considered the rise of global social movements, the presence of transnational networks, and the transfer or diffusion of political techniques. Much of this writing has registered the pivotal role of 'transnational' or 'global' activists. However, if the significance of the 'transnational activist' is now routinely acknowledged, then the history of this actor is still something of a mystery. Most commentators have associated the figure with contemporary history. Hence much of the debate around 'transnational activism' is ahistorical, and claims for novelty are not often based on developed historical comparison. As this volume argues, it is possible to identify the 'transnational activist' in earlier decades and even centuries. But when did this figure first appear? What are the historical conditions that nurtured its emergence? What are the principal moments in the development of the transnational activist? And do the transnational activists of the Internet age differ in number or nature from those of earlier years? These historical questions will be at the heart of this volume.

The Autonomous Life? is an ethnography of the squatters' movement in Amsterdam written by an anthropologist who lived and worked in a squatters' community for over three years. During that time she resided as a squatter in four different houses, worked on two successful anti-gentrification campaigns, was evicted from two houses and jailed once. With this unique perspective, Kadir systematically examines the contradiction between what people say and what they practice in a highly ideological radicalleftcommunity. The squatters' movement defines itself primarily as anti-hierarchical and anti-authoritarian, and yet is perpetually plagued by the contradiction between this public disavowal and the maintenance of hierarchy and authority within the movement. This study analyses how this contradiction is then reproduced in different micro-social interactions, examining the methods by which people negotiate minute details of their daily lives as squatter activists in the face of a fun house mirror of ideological expectations reflecting values from within the squatter community, that, in turn, often refract mainstream, middle-class norms. Using a unique critical perspective informed by gender and subaltern studies, this study contributes to social movements literature through a meticulous analysis of the production of power and hierarchy in a social movement subculture. -- .

First published in 1985, this book examines how workers theatre movements intended their performances to be activist - perceiving art as a weapon of struggle and enlightenment - and an emancipatory act. An introductory study relates left-wing theatre groupings to the cultural narratives of contemporary British socialism. The progress of the Workers' Theatre Movement (1928-1935) is traced from simple realism to the most brilliant phase of its Russian and German development alongside which the parallel movements in the United States are also examined. A number of crucial texts are reprints as well as stage notes and glimpses of the dramaturgical controversies which accompanied them.