The 1989 prodemocracy movement in the People's Republic of China and the subsequent crackdown were marked by many dramatic reversals. Supported at first by several thousand Beijing University students, the movement quickly attracted millions of followers and developed into a nationwide mass movement. The jubilant mood during the short-lived freedom in Tiananmen Square turned into despair over the unnecessary bloodshed. The event raised many deeply disturbing questions: Was the massacre necessary and justified? What is the historical significance of this movement? Which path will the PRC follow in the decade ahead? Although no one had anticipated the tragic outcome, the popular unrest was not totally unexpected. When I read the news of 200,000 Beijing students and residents, in open defiance of the government's order, staging a largescale demonstration on Apri120, I knew a confrontation between the people and the government was inevitable.

This book examines the causes of a growing wave of digital activism across developing countries, arguing that it is driven by social change, rather than technological advancement alone Beginning with an investigation into the modernisation of 'middle-income countries' and its ramifications for political culture, the book examines large-scale social media protest during political controversies in Indonesia It departs from a narrow 'digital divide' framing whereby Internet access produces Internet activism and introduces the concepts of 'digital self-expression' and of 'middle-class struggles' to capture the value-stratified nature of political engagement in the online sphere Drawing on a blend of 'big-data' text analyses, representative opinion research and socioeconomic household analyses, a rich picture of the determinants of digital activism emerges This truly cross-disciplinary book will appeal particularly to students and scholars in Political Science, Sociology, International Development, and Communication, but also to anyone eager to learn about political activism, social transformation, and new media from a global perspective

This book provides an anatomy of Hong Kong's 2019-2020 social unrest, which has significantly damaged its economy and image. A coalition of Opposition to the Communist Party of China (CPC) emerged in Hong Kong after the 1989 Tiananmen Square Incident. Hong Kong's mini-constitution, the Basic Law, which became effective in 1997, defines 'one country, two systems' in Hong Kong but inadvertently installed an 'opposition politics' system that the city was unfamiliar with. Freshly out of a colonial system, Hong Kong did not have the socio-ecological system to hold politicians accountable for their policies. For decades, the tug of war between the Opposition and all other politicians delivered incoherent public policies that raised the costs of living and income disparity, while hollowing out economic opportunities in the middle that particularly hurt the younger generations. Meanwhile, the Opposition camp promotes the blame narrative that the CPC is chipping away at Hong Kong's democracy and freedom. While the narrative's empirical evidence is weak and its linkage to Hong Kong's economic grievances is absent, the Opposition camp propagates the narrative relentlessly. Ironically, the Opposition Camp has fallen captive to the narrative in the sense that its legitimacy is now tied with the narrative. Two decades of rallies grounded on the blame narrative have profoundly influenced the development of people who grew up after 1997. Furthermore, the year-long unrest has socialized many more to adopt the narrative. The younger generations are hurt first by inconsistent public policies, and on top of that, the blame narrative that robs them of any coherent social identity; and finally, the unrest further dims their future. Hong Kong now faces the problem of how to re-incorporate a significant portion among its younger generations into mainstream society. This book offers in-depth analyses of the journey, identifies government and societal failures, and suggests long- and short-term policy directions.

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.

In recent years critics of Romantic poetry have divided into two groups that have little to say to one another. One group, as yet the most numerous, insists that to study a poem is to investigate the historical circumstances out of which it was produced; the other retorts that poetry offers pleasures fully available only to readers whose attention is focused on their language. This book attempts to reconcile the two groups by arguing that a poet's most effective political action is the forging of a new language, and that the political import of a poem is a function of its style.

Climate Change and Youth is a pioneering book that opens the door to understanding the profound impact climate change has on the mental health of today's young people. Chapters provide age-appropriate language for a meaningful dialogue and resources for acknowledging children's voices, separating fact from fiction about environmental issues, encouraging participation in activism, creating tools to reduce stress, and highlighting inspirational role models and organizations for action. The book includes firsthand examples, research, children's work, interviews, and terminology. It also shares age-appropriate resources and websites relating to climate change and challenges. Filling a large void in the literature on this topic, this essential resource offers techniques and tools that professionals and caring adults can use to address the stresses associated with climate change and offer strategies for hope, resilience, and action.

'A fascinating portal into arguments about why we need to get beyond money' - Harry Cleaver What would a world without money look like? This book is a lively thought experiment that deepens our understanding of how money is the driver of political power, environmental destruction and social inequality today, arguing that it has to be abolished rather than repurposed to achieve a postcapitalist future. Grounded in historical debates about money, Anitra Nelson draws on a spectrum of political and economic thought and activism, including feminism, ecoanarchism, degrowth, permaculture, autonomism, Marxism and ecosocialism. Looking to Indigenous rights activism and the defence of commons, an international network of activists engaged in a fight for a money-free society emerges. Beyond Money shows that, by organising around post-money versions of the future, activists have a hope of creating a world that embodies their radical values and visions.

The Middle East is undergoing a period of profound change, partly brought about by the United States' interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also by the Arab Spring. This is affecting regional relations between states and between the region and the US. For example, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have supported rebel groups in Syria against the government, which was supported by Iran. Political Islam is a threat to both monarchies in the Gulf and secular states. Non-state actors, such as Islamic State (IS) and the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) are assuming an increasingly important role in shaping the region. Further, states such as Qatar and Turkey have undertaken their own quests to shift the existing regional balance of power in their favor through soft power deployment or new or broader international alliances. Lastly, the close strategic US-Saudi relationship, primarily based on oil and arms, is being eroded by a new economic reality and divergent foreign policy interests. This shifting alliances and new regional order is the focus of the book, which examines the factors that significantly impact the foreign relations between the countries of the Middle East. Through multiple case studies, the essays identify the emerging trends and influences that are now dominating the political decision making and policy behavior of many key states. The contributors, both scholars and practitioners, investigate the main foreign policy challenges and debates in the various states, the changing relations and balance of power between them, and the continuing role of the United States in the Middle East. Each chapter provides an overview of the last decade or so, before delving into the current challenges and opportunities (often in light of the US as a power with the ability to significantly impinge on state policies, and what these issues mean for the regional order. This primer on state politics and the transformative capacity of the Middle East will appeal to anyone studying the region. Contributions by: Gawdat Bahgat, Martin Beck, Kamran Bokhari, Morgane Colleau, Bryan Gibson, Christian Henderson, Rene Rieger, Farid Senzai, and Sebastian Sons

This book is a critical reflection on the life and career of the late legendary Zimbabwean music icon, Oliver "Tuku" Mtukudzi, and his contribution towards the reconstruction of Zimbabwe, Africa and the globe at large. Mtukudzi was a musician, philosopher, and human rights activist who espoused the agenda of reconstruction in order to bring about a better world, proposing personal, cultural, political, religious and global reconstruction. With twenty original chapters, this vibrant volume examines various themes and dimensions of Mtukudzi's distinguished life and career, notably, how his music has been a powerful vehicle for societal reconstruction and cultural rejuvenation, specifically speaking to issues of culture, human rights, governance, peacebuilding, religion and identity, humanism, gender and politics, among others. The contributors explore the art of performance in Mtukudzi's music and acting career, and how this facilitated his reconstruction agenda, offering fresh and compelling perspectives into the role of performing artists and cultural workers such as Mtukudzi in presenting models for reconstructing the world.

Authored by an individual with 30 years of experience studying terrorism as well as access to the most senior counter-terrorist army and police officers combating the IRA, this book provides the first complete analysis of the world's premier terrorist group to explain them in ideological as well as operational terms. The IRA: The Irish Republican Army begins by examining the historical background to the development of the IRA, the group's basic ideology, and its aims and objectives. The second part of the book concentrates on the IRA-specifically the Provisional IRA-as a contemporary phenomenon, explaining its organization, how it operates, who joins the IRA, and why. The book explores how the IRA was formed from a Romantic reaction against modernity, and is an expression of a vehement rejection of the liberal, individualist, and scientific values of the Enlightenment. The IRA's attachment to violence almost as an end in itself, its conflation of Catholicism with Irish-ness, its rejection of big-business for peasant-proprietor economics, and its disregard for individual rights in pursuit of group rights is explained in terms of the groups' scholastic Catholicism foundation. For academic audiences in Irish studies, politics, sociology, history, and security and defense studies, as well as professional security forces and interested general readers with an interest in current affairs, this book supplies a wholly new perspective on both the IRA and terrorism in general.

This book analyses the various ways and the extent to which young people participate in politics, focusing primarily on the UK and including cross-national comparisons where relevant. It covers topics including: what is meant by political participation; youth political participation on a pan-European basis; new social media and youth political participation; whether the voting age should be lowered to 16; youth participation at the local level; and young women and political participation. Written in a lively and engaging style, the book provides a detailed investigation into the extent to which young people in the twenty-first century are interested and participate in politics. The author has included interviews with many young people, as well as with academics and specialists in the field. The book's greatest contribution is to the debate surrounding whether or not the voting age should be lowered to 16 - a timely and thought-provoking analysis.

Oliver Tambo Remembered is a salute to one of South Africa's most remarkable individuals. Originally published in 2007, this compilation of memories is a celebration of what would have been Oliver Reginald Tambo's 90th birthday.

It sees friends and associates remembering OR the leader, the comrade and the man. The contributions are written by people who encountered OR during his travels in Europe and the US, and who knew him whilst he was living in South Africa and in exile in Africa and the UK.

This edition of Oliver Tambo Remembered is published in commemoration of his centenary on 27 October 2017. The pieces in this book celebrate not only the impact that OR had on South Africa's future, but also the character of a selfless, compassionate leader, who raised the international profile of the ANC through his wise and intelligent guidance, his humility and integrity, and his unyielding commitment to the struggle.

This book traces American writers' contributions and responses to the War on Poverty. Its title comes from the 1964 Opportunity Act, which established a network of federally funded Community Action Agencies that encouraged "maximum feasible participation" by the poor. With this phrase, the Johnson administration provided its imprimatur for an emerging model of professionalism that sought to eradicate boundaries between professionals and their clients-a model that appealed to writers, especially African Americans and Chicanos/as associated with the cultural nationalisms gaining traction in the inner cities. These writers privileged artistic process over product, rejecting conventions that separated writers from their audiences. "Participatory professionalism," however, drew on a social scientific conception of poverty that proved to be the paradigm's undoing: the culture of poverty thesis popularized by Oscar Lewis, Michael Harrington, and Daniel Moynihan. For writers and policy experts associated with the War on Poverty, this thesis described the cultural gap that they hoped to close. Instead, it eventually led to the dismantling of the welfare state. Ranging from the 1950s to the present, the book explores how writers like Jack Kerouac, Amiri Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks, Oscar Zeta Acosta, Alice Walker, Philip Roth, and others exposed the War on Poverty's contradictions during its heyday and kept its legacy alive in the decades that followed.

Combining political theory with attention to political practice, this book explores the development of localism as a new mode of statecraft and its implications for the practice of citizenship. It looks at the development of community organising, neighbourhood planning and community councils that identify and nurture the energies, talents and creativity of the population to solve their own problems and improve our world.

Exploring Indigenous activism through the lens of media practices, this book examines the Indigenous media that has emerged in Argentina since the introduction of legislation in 2009 intended to promote diversity and access in radio and television media production. Francesca Belotti provides insights into the political and cultural matrix, attitudes of resistance and empowerment, and the outward and inward direction of Indigenous activism by unpacking the media practices that unfold in Indigenous radio and television stations in Argentina. The theoretical framework combines studies on indigeneity, social/decolonial movements and media practices, and draws on interviews conducted with Indigenous media practitioners from different Indigenous populations around Argentina. The book examines how media practices can help support and sustain Indigenous political and cultural activism and the process of identity self-ascription. It also addresses the complex negotiation between indigenizing media and assimilating the mainstream, as well as coping with other practical constraints. This book will be of interest both to students and scholars of Indigenous Studies, Decolonial and Postcolonial Studies, Cultural Studies, Latin American Studies, Media Studies, and Social Movements, as well as media activists and practitioners globally.

As the lobbying arm of the civil rights movement, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR)-which has operated since the early 1950s-was instrumental in the historic legislative breakthroughs of the Second Reconstruction. The Civil Rights Lobby skillfully recounts the LCCR's professional and grassroots lobbying that contributed to these signature civil rights policy achievements in the 1950s and '60s. Shamira Gelbman explains how the diversity of this interest group coalition both hindered and enabled lobbyists to generate broad-based support for reforms that often seemed risky to legislators. They coordinated their efforts by identifying common ground among member organizations, developing coalitional positions on substantive and strategic questions, and exhorting organizations to mobilize professional and grassroots lobbying resources accordingly. The result was to "speak with one booming voice" to ultimately help secure the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Civil Rights Lobby concludes by reprising key lessons from the LCCR's organizational development and participation in civil rights policymaking. Gelbman suggests new directions for research on interest group coalitions and explores how the Leadership Conference's experience sheds light on the politics of the Second Reconstruction.

This book considers the radical effects the emergence of social media and digital politics have had on the way that advocacy organisations mobilise and organise citizens into political participation. It argues that these changes are due not only to technological advancement but are also underpinned by hybrid media systems, new political narratives, and a new networked generation of political actors. The author empirically analyses the emergence and consolidation within advanced democracies of online campaigning organisations, such as MoveOn, 38 Degrees, Getup and AVAAZ. Vromen shows that they have become leading political advocates, and influential on both national and international level governance. The book critically engages with this digital disruption of traditional patterns of political mobilisation and organisation, and highlights the challenges in embracing new ideas such as entrepreneurialism and issue-driven politics. It will be of interest to advanced students and scholars in political participation and citizen politics, interest groups, civil society organisations, e-government and politics and social media.

This book intertwines academic and activist voices to engage with more than three decades of lesbian activism in the Yugoslav space. The empirically rich contributions uncover a range of lesbian initiatives and the fundamental, but rarely acknowledged, role that lesbian alliances have played in articulating a feminist response to the upsurge of nationalism, widespread violence against women, and high levels of lesbophobia and homophobia in all of the post-Yugoslav states. By offering a distinctly intergenerational and transnational perspective, this collection does not only shed new light on a severely marginalised group of people, but constitutes a pioneering effort in accounting for the intricacies - solidarities, joys, and tensions - of lesbian activist organising in a post-conflict and post-socialist environment. With a plethora of authorial standpoints and innovative methodological approaches, the volume challenges the systematic absence of (post-)Yugoslav lesbian activist enterprises from recent social science scholarship. Lesbian Activism in the (Post-)Yugoslav Space will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including gender studies, history, politics, anthropology, and sociology.

International author gives an original perspective on the events of the twentieth century. Since she's finishing her own research, she's up to date on the most important arguments in the field, both of which give users an original look at the material. Goes beyond just reciting the events to talk about the deeper issue of human-animal relations, which is very big right now, and informs all of the animal rights courses out there. Points students in the direction of work they should read and people they should know, so is a good starting place for further research. Situates the Animal Rights Movement, which can seem like a fringe movement, within the broader sweep of American social movements in the twentieth century.

International author gives an original perspective on the events of the twentieth century. Since she's finishing her own research, she's up to date on the most important arguments in the field, both of which give users an original look at the material. Goes beyond just reciting the events to talk about the deeper issue of human-animal relations, which is very big right now, and informs all of the animal rights courses out there. Points students in the direction of work they should read and people they should know, so is a good starting place for further research. Situates the Animal Rights Movement, which can seem like a fringe movement, within the broader sweep of American social movements in the twentieth century.

Pollsters called it a foregone conclusion. Columnists said Theresa May's snap general election wouldn't just return her a thumping majority in the House of Commons - it would plunge the opposition into existential crisis. For Labour MPs, concerns about "job security" in an age of zero-hours contracts suddenly felt uncomfortably close to home. And then something happened. Momentum got to work. Grime4Corbyn gathered steam. Clicktivists were transformed into door-knocking, flag-waving activists. Soon, a familiar chant - "Oh, Jeremy Corbyn" - was reverberating around football stadiums and venues across the country. All this while Theresa turned Maybot and the Conservatives released a manifesto that looked bad for people and even worse for animals. Featuring work by many of the UK's best-known cartoonists, including Martin Rowson, Steve Bell and Stephen Collins, The Corbyn Comic Book captures the qualities, quirks and flaws of a man whose startling rise to prominence has been the defining story of 2017. He didn't win, but he did cause a political earthquake. Corbynmania is a thing now - and so is Comix4Corbyn.

In her much anticipated memoir, Sisonke Msimang writes about her exile childhood in Zambia and Kenya, young adulthood and college years in North America, and returning to South Africa in the euphoric 1990s. She reflects candidly on her discontent and disappointment with present-day South Africa but also on her experiences of family, romance, and motherhood, with the novelist’s talent for character and pathos.

Militant young comrades dance off the pages of the 1970s Lusaka she invokes, and the heady and naive days of just-democratic South Africa in the 1990s are as vividly painted. Her memoir is at heart a chronicle of a coming-of-age, and while well-known South African political figures appear in these pages, it is an intimate story, a testament to family bonds and sisterhood.

Sisonke Msimang is one of the most assured and celebrated voices commenting on the South African present – often humorously; sometimes deeply movingly – and this book launches her to an even broader audience.