With their homelands at war, can Diasporas lead the way to peace, or do they present an obstacle to conflict resolution, nurturing hate far away from those who actually fall victim to violence? And which of these roles do the Jewish and Palestinian diaspora communities play in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Particularly since the Oslo peace process, the search for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been strongly contested among Jewish and Arab/Palestinian Organizations in the United States. Through an analysis of the activities of Arab-Palestinian and Jewish organizations on behalf of and towards their conflict-ridden homelands, Diasporic Activism in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict provides both a detailed picture of diasporic activism in the Middle East as well as advancing theory-building on the roles of diasporas in helping or hindering peace. Drawing on research into (transnational) social movements, diaspora studies and constructivist International Relations theory, this book retraces how this process of diversification occurred, and explains why neither the Jewish nor the Arab Diaspora community hold a unified position in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but are each comprised of both hawks and doves. Combining theoretical depth and practical orientation, this book is a key resource for those working in the fields of Middle Eastern studies, Peace and Conflict Studies and Diapora Studies, as well as specialists on the ground in Israel/Palestine and other conflict settings in which Diaspora communities play a prominent role.

This book traces the entire trajectory of the farmers' movement in Western India, especially Maharashtra, from the 1980s to the present day. It reveals the fundamental contradictions between populism as an ideology and as political power within the democratic state structure. The volume highlights the ideologies of the movement; its emergence in the wake of a perceived agrarian crisis; how it conflates economics and populism; the role of leadership; stages of development from grassroots agitations rooted in civil society to the attempts to create space within structures of democratic politics; the eventual formation of a separate political party and consequent implications. It maps the linkages between populist ideology and mass participation, and their contested successes and failures in the domain of electoral politics. Further, the author underlines the effectiveness of the movement in addressing class and gender equations in the region. Rich in primary archival sources and informed field studies, this book will interest scholars and researchers of agrarian economy, rural sociology, and politics, particularly those concerned with social movements in India.

Going beyond electoral politics and government, this volume broadens the scope of the functioning of democracy in India, and explores citizens' role in the implementation of public policy. It looks at the ways in which extra-parliamentary power monitoring devices such as public institutions, citizens' associations or assemblies, and the mainstream and emerging forms of the media, permeate through the political order. The volume: * brings participation and communication in governance and policy making to the centrestage; * examines case studies of state and citizen engagement from across India; and * presents perspectives of practitioners, activists and scholars to provide a comprehensive view of the debates surrounding the idea of Indian democracy. This book will be useful to scholars and researchers in politics, political science, media studies, public administration, sociology and social anthropology, as well as the interested general reader.

Religious nationalists and women's activists have transformed India over the past century. They debated the idea of India under colonial rule, shaped the constitutional structure of Indian democracy, and questioned the legitimacy of the postcolonial consensus, as they politicized one dimension of identity. Using a historical comparative approach, the book argues that external events, activist agency in strategizing, and the political economy of transnational networks explain the relative success and failure of Hindu nationalism and the Indian women's movement rather than the ideological claims each movement makes. By focusing on how particular activist strategies lead to increased levels of public support, it shows how it is these strategies rather than the ideologies of Hindutva and feminism that mobilize people. Both of these social movements have had decades of great power and influence, and decades of relative irrelevance, and both challenge postcolonial India's secular settlement - its division of public and private. The book goes on to highlight new insights into the inner dynamics of each movement by showing how the same strategies - grassroots education, electoral mobilization, media management, donor cultivation - lead to similarly positive results. Bringing together the study of Hindu nationalism and the Indian women's movement, the book will be of interest to students and scholars of South Asian Religion, Gender Studies, and South Asian Politics.

While people used to conceal the fact that they were gay or lesbian to protect themselves from stigma and discrimination, it is now commonplace for people to "come out" and encourage others to do so as well. Come Out, Come Out, Whoever You Are systematically examines how coming out has moved beyond gay and lesbian rights groups and how different groups wrestle with the politics of coming out in their efforts to resist stigma and enact social change. It shows how different experiences and disparate risks of disclosure shape these groups' collective strategies. Through scores of interviews with LGBTQ+ people, undocumented immigrant youth, fat acceptance activists, Mormon fundamentalist polygamists, and sexual harassment lawyers and activists in the era of the #MeToo movement, Come Out, Come Out, Whoever You Are explains why so many different groups gravitate toward the term coming out. By focusing on the personal and political resonance of coming out, it provides a novel way to understand how identity politics work in America today.

What can we learn about collective action across Central and Eastern Europe by focusing on activism within urban spaces? This volume argues that the recent resurgence of urban grassroots mobilisation represents a new phase in the development of post-socialist civil societies and that these civil societies have significantly more vitality than is commonly perceived. The case studies here reflect the diversity and complexity of post-socialist urban movements, capturing also the extent to which the laboratory of urban politics is richly illustrative of the complex nexus of state-society-market relations within post-socialism. The grassroots campaigns and actions reflect the new social cleavages and increased polarisation as a consequence of neoliberal urbanisation and global integration, as well as the transformation of state power and authority in the region. Studying urban activism in Central and Eastern Europe is instructive for urban movements scholars generally, as it forces us to acknowledge the variety of forms that contention can take and the usefulness of embedding the study of urban movements within a larger understanding of civil society.

Changing relations between science and democracy - and controversies over issues such as climate change, energy transitions, genetically modified organisms and smart technologies - have led to a rapid rise in new forms of public participation and citizen engagement. While most existing approaches adopt fixed meanings of 'participation' and are consumed by questions of method or critiquing the possible limits of democratic engagement, this book offers new insights that rethink public engagements with science, innovation and environmental issues as diverse, emergent and in the making. Bringing together leading scholars on science and democracy, working between science and technology studies, political theory, geography, sociology and anthropology, the volume develops relational and co-productionist approaches to studying and intervening in spaces of participation. New empirical insights into the making, construction, circulation and effects of participation across cultures are illustrated through examples ranging from climate change and energy to nanotechnology and mundane technologies, from institutionalised deliberative processes to citizen-led innovation and activism, and from the global north to global south. This new way of seeing participation in science and democracy opens up alternative paths for reconfiguring and remaking participation in more experimental, reflexive, anticipatory and responsible ways. This ground-breaking book is essential reading for scholars and students of participation across the critical social sciences and beyond, as well as those seeking to build more transformative participatory practices.

An extraordinarily brave and moving memoir from one of the world's most famous transparency activists and trans women. In 2010, Chelsea Manning was working as an intelligence analyst for the US Army in Iraq. She disclosed 720,000 classified military documents that she had smuggled out via the memory card of her digital camera. By far the largest leak in history, these documents revealed a huge number of diplomatic cables and footage of atrocities. She was sentenced to 35 years in military prison. The day after her conviction, Chelsea declared her gender identity as a woman and began to transition. She was sent to a male prison, spent much of that time in appalling conditions in solitary confinement and attempted suicide multiple times. In 2017, after a lengthy legal challenge and an outpouring of support, President Obama commuted her sentence. README.txt is a story of personal revolt, resilience and survival. Chelsea details the challenges of her childhood and adolescence in Oklahoma and in her mother's native Wales. She writes revealingly and movingly about a period of homelessness in Chicago, living under 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' in the US Army, and the experience of coming to terms with her gender identity and undergoing hormone therapy in prison. We witness her Kafkaesque trial and heroic quest for release. This powerful, courageous and observant memoir sheds light on the big themes of today - identity, authenticity, technology, the authoritarian state - and will stand as one of the definitive testaments of our digital, information-driven age. 'Chelsea Manning is the biggest hero that ever lived' Vivienne Westwood 'Searing ... uplifting ... redemptive' The New York Times 'Electrifying ... an insider confessional turned inside out for the 21st century' Washington Post

Paris, along with New York, was one of the main centres of the fashion industry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But although New York based garment workers were mobilized early in the twentieth century, Paris was the stage of vibrant revolutions and uprisings throughout the nineteenth century. As a consequence, French women workers were radicalized much earlier, creating a unique and unprecedented moment in both labour and feminist history. Seamstresses were central figures in the socio-political and cultural events of nineteenth and early twentieth century France but their stories and political writings have remained marginalized and obscured. Drawing on a wide range of published and unpublished documents from the industrial revolution, 'Sewing, Fighting and Writing' is a foucauldian genealogy of the Parisian seamstress. Looking at the assemblage of radical practices in work, politics and culture, it explores the constitution of the self of the seamstress in the era of early industrialization and revolutionary events and considers her contribution to the socio-political and cultural formations in modernity.

The National Front was one of the most controversial political parties in Britain. This exploration, first published in 1981, of the NF ideology and its meaning for members is based on a participation observation study which involved the development of relations with its headquarters, and with branch staff and members in several English cities. The fieldwork was carried out at marches, branch meetings and rallies, and candidates, activists, ordinary members and opponents of the NF were interviewed. Nigel Fielding examines in detail the ethnography of the National Front, describing its history, electoral performance and some demographic characteristics of its membership. He investigates the party ideology, concentrating on the key aspects of race, nationalism and conspiracy theory. The party's involvement in overt and covert political action is discussed, and tolerance of ambiguity in adherence to ideology, are explored. In a final chapter the author discusses the case for regarding active NF membership as evidence of a commitment to an alternative conception of social reality founded on fundamental disagreement with the political and social order of the status quo. This book examines the problem of the relationship between the beliefs and actions of the political deviant in the context of a group which is involved in political activism.

This book offers a pioneering window into the elusive workings of state-corporate crime within the mining industry. It follows a campaign of resistance organised by indigenous activists on the island of Bougainville, who struggled to close a Rio Tinto owned copper mine, and investigates the subsequent state-corporate response, which led to the shocking loss of some 10,000 lives. Drawing on internal records and interviews with senior officials, Kristian Lasslett examines how an articulation of capitalist growth mediated through patrimonial politics, imperial state-power, large-scale mining, and clan-based, rural society, prompted an ostensibly 'responsible' corporate citizen, and liberal state actors, to organise a counterinsurgency campaign punctuated with gross human rights abuses. State Crime on the Margins of Empire represents a unique intervention rooted in a classical Marxist tradition that challenges positivist streams of criminological scholarship, in order to illuminate with greater detail the historical forces faced by communities in the global south caught in the increasingly violent dynamics of the extractive industries.

Bastards of Utopia, the companion to a feature documentary film of the same name, explores the experiences and political imagination of young radical activists in the former Yugoslavia, participants in what they call alterglobalization or "globalization from below." Ethnographer Maple Razsa follows individual activists from the transnational protests against globalization of the early 2000s through the Occupy encampments. His portrayal of activism is both empathetic and unflinching—an engaged, elegant meditation on the struggle to re-imagine leftist politics and the power of a country's youth. More information on the film can be found at www.der.org/films/bastards-of-utopia.html.

In the late 2000s climate action became a defining feature of the international political agenda. Evidence of global warming and accelerating greenhouse gas emissions created a new sense of urgency and, despite consensus on the need for action, the growing failure of international climate policy engendered new political space for social movements. By 2007 a 'climate justice' movement was surfacing and developing a strong critique of existing official climate policies and engaging in new forms of direct action to assert the need for reduced extraction and burning of fossil fuels. Climate Action Upsurge offers an insight into this important period in climate movement politics, drawing on the perspectives of activists who were directly engaged in the mobilisation process. Through the interpretation of these perspectives the book illustrates important lessons for the climate movement today. In developing its examination of the climate action upsurge, the book focuses on individual activists involved in direct action 'Climate Camps' in Australia, while drawing comparisons and highlighting links with climate campaigns in other locales. The book should be of interest to scholars and researchers in climate change, environmental sociology, politics, policy and activism.

This collection of literary/historical essays, written 1970-2010, covers political subjects as diverse as 17th Century Quaker persecution history, the social impact of Malthus, the self-emancipation of English women, Eleanor Rathbone on the human rights of girls and German women's resistance to Hitler. The more literary subjects include the social thinking of the English Romantics, Dickens' Great Expectations, Simone Weil's great essays attacking militarism and Virginia Woolf's opposition to the State -- as well as contemporary American women poets on the problem of war. But despite all its diversity, this collection has one unifying theme -- the necessity for resistance, for 'thinking against the current', as Virginia Woolf wrote in "Thoughts on Peace in an Air-raid". The torch of resistance to oppression and militarism is shown to have been continuously handed on through the generations from the seventeenth century to our own day by men and women who had the courage, at whatever personal cost, to 'fight with the mind'. This book of passionate, lively essays is not merely a treasure trove for biographical researchers; it is also strengthening medicine, introducing us to unfamiliar forebears who can help us in our current struggle for a better world. As Simone Weil said: "We can find something better than ourselves in the past".

As in Europe, secular nation building in Latin America challenged the traditional authority of the Roman Catholic Church in the early twentieth century. In response, Catholic social and political movements sought to contest state-led secularisation and provide an answer to the 'social question', the complex set of problems associated with urbanisation, industrialisation, and poverty. As Catholics mobilised against the secular threat, they also struggled with each other to define the proper role of the Church in the public sphere. This study utilizes recently opened files at the Vatican pertaining to Mexico's post-revolutionary Church-state conflict known as the Cristero Rebellion (1926-1929). However, looking beyond Mexico's exceptional case, the work employs a transnational framework, enabling a better understanding of the supranational relationship between Latin American Catholic activists and the Vatican. To capture this world historical context, Andes compares Mexico to Chile's own experience of religious conflict. Unlike past scholarship, which has focused almost exclusively on local conditions, Andes seeks to answer how diverse national visions of Catholicism responded to papal attempts to centralize its authority and universalize Church practices worldwide. The Politics of Transnational Catholicism applies research on the interwar papacy, which is almost exclusively European in outlook, to a Latin American context. The national cases presented illuminate how Catholicism shaped public life in Latin America as the Vatican sought to define Catholic participation in Mexican and Chilean national politics. It reveals that Catholic activism directly influenced the development of new political movements such as Christian Democracy, which remained central to political life in the region for the remainder of the twentieth century.

A growing body of evidence demonstrates that improvements in the status of women and girls - however worthy and important in their own right - also drive the prosperity, stability, and security of families, communities, and nations. Yet despite many indicators of progress, women and girls everywhere - including countries of the developed world - continue to confront barriers to their full and equal participation in social, economic, and political life. Capturing voices and experiences from around the world, this work documents the modern history of the global women's movement - its many accomplishments and setbacks. Drawing together prominent pioneers and contemporary policymakers, activists, and scholars, the volume interrogates where and why progress has met resistance and been slowed, and examine the still unfinished agenda for change in national and international policy arenas. This history and roadmap are especially critical for younger generations who need a better understanding of this rich feminist legacy and the intense opposition that women's movements have generated. This book creates a clear and forceful narrative about women's agency and the central relevance of women's rights movements to global and national policy-making.. It is essential reading for activists and policymakers, students and scholars alike.

A growing body of evidence demonstrates that improvements in the status of women and girls - however worthy and important in their own right - also drive the prosperity, stability, and security of families, communities, and nations. Yet despite many indicators of progress, women and girls everywhere - including countries of the developed world - continue to confront barriers to their full and equal participation in social, economic, and political life. Capturing voices and experiences from around the world, this work documents the modern history of the global women's movement - its many accomplishments and setbacks. Drawing together prominent pioneers and contemporary policymakers, activists, and scholars, the volume interrogates where and why progress has met resistance and been slowed, and examine the still unfinished agenda for change in national and international policy arenas. This history and roadmap are especially critical for younger generations who need a better understanding of this rich feminist legacy and the intense opposition that women's movements have generated. This book creates a clear and forceful narrative about women's agency and the central relevance of women's rights movements to global and national policy-making.. It is essential reading for activists and policymakers, students and scholars alike.

During the 1990s, as widespread perception spread of declining state sovereignty, activists and social movement organizations began to form transnational networks and coalitions to pressure both intergovernmental organizations and national governments on a variety of issues. Research has focused on the formation of these transnational networks, campaigns, and coalitions; their objectives, strategies and tactics; and their impact. Yet the issue of how participation in transnational networks influences national level mobilization has been little analyzed. What effects has the experience of social movement organizations at the transnational scale had for the development at the national scale? This volume addresses this significant gap in the literature on transnational collective action by building on approaches that stress the multi-level characteristics of transnational relations. Edited by noted Latin American politics scholar Eduardo Silva, the contributions focus on four distinct themes to which the empirical chapters contribute: Building a Transnational Relations Approach to Multi-Level Interaction; Transnational Relations and Left Governments; North-South and South-South Linkages; and The "Normalization" of Labor. Bridging the Divide will add considerably to empirical knowledge of the ways in which transnational and national factors dynamically interact in Latin America. Additionally, the mid-range theorizing of the empirical chapters, along with the mix of positive and negative cases, raises new hypotheses and questions for further study.

Social movements in the United States are important political actors because of their scale and duration, their generation of new ideas and understandings of existing problems, their ability to mobilize those who were previously passive citizens, and the impetus they provide for restructuring and broadening the agenda of American politics. This volume combines chapters by a distinguished group of social movement scholars, from both sociology and political science, who use perspectives ranging from political process theory to rational choice and collective action approaches to evaluate the functioning of institutions of American government and the public policies that they produce. A diverse group of movements and interests are featured: women, public interest, native America, the environment, the Christian Right, abortion, gay rights, and homelessness among them.

Tibet has been occupied for over fifty years, yet no progress has been made in solving the Tibetan problem. The first serious analysis of the Tibetan independence movement, this book is also the first to view the struggle from a comparative perspective, making an overt comparison with the Indian independence movement. It rectifies the problem that the Tibetan independence movement is not taken seriously from a political perspective. The book is particularly concerned with the relationship between Buddhism and Tibetan politics and resistance, comparing this with the relationship between Hinduism and Gandhian political thought. It also expands on the limited literature concerning violent resistance in Tibet, examining guerilla warfare and the hunger strike undertaken by the Tibetan Youth Congress in 1998, rejecting the 'Shangri-la-ist' approach to Tibetan resistance.

The 40th anniversary edition of the "shocking" #1 New York Times bestseller with an exclusive new introduction by the author (Los Angeles Times). When Christina Crawford's harrowing chronicle of child abuse was first published in 1978, it brought global attention to the previously closeted subject. It also shed light on the guarded world of Hollywood and stripped away the facade of Christina's relentless, alcoholic abuser: her adoptive mother, movie star Joan Crawford. Christina was a young girl shown off to the world as a fortunate little princess. But at home, her lonely, controlling, even ruthless mother made her life a nightmare. A fierce battle of wills, their relationship could be characterized as an ultimately successful, for Christina, struggle for independence. She endured and survived, becoming the voice of so many other victims who suffered in silence, and giving them the courage to forge a productive life out of chaos. This book features an exclusive new introduction by the author, plus rare photographs from her personal collection and one hundred pages of revealing material not found in the original manuscript.

In this book, a collection of experts investigate the varied forces - from global systems to local beliefs - that lead to civil violence, chaos and, perhaps, a new political order. The State, Identity and Violence explores acts of mass violence occurring within national borders and examines the links such acts have to personal identities and how they challenge the character or very existence of the state. Building upon the anthropological premises of holism and cross-cultural comparison, this volume shows how violent challenges to existing states should be conceptualized as layered problems, with multiple kinds of causes. It not only goes beyond the "ancient hatreds" explanation, but shows the inadequacy of the concept of "ethnic violence" and of theories which treat interests and identities as separate, sometimes opposed variables

16 to 20 December 2017 saw most South Africans and political pundits closely observing the African National Congress’s 54th National Elective Conference at Nasrec. There were plenty of international observers and local and foreign press who were closely tracking the ANC top brass and branch delegates as they jostled for political power and position. The air was thick with anticipation and high with suspicion.

Former student activist, member of the then Mitchells Plain Student Congress (Mipsco), COSAS national leader and now ANC member in good standing, Oscar van Heerden once again found himself doing duty in the resolutions drafting team at the ANC’s National Conference. What he witnessed in the period leading up to the conference and then the five days of high drama at Nasrec make for an enthralling and insightful insider’s view. Van Heerden’s observations lay bare a governing party that is at war with itself. At the heart of this struggle is deception, corruption and power-hungry politicians flexing their muscles. Factional infighting, money in bags exchanging hands in the dead of night, spies on duty and a political party in the clutches of state capture are some of the political moves that Van Heerden witnesses and now shares in his book. Van Heerden’s assertion after the first two days of the conference is that the Cyril Ramaphosa camp, also known as CR17, did not stand a chance of winning. To him they seemed disorganised, at times not understanding the modalities of election politics at the conference, and had arrived at the gun fight with a knife.

How then did the tide turn against the obvious pro-Jacob Zuma camp to favour CR17? What really happened behind closed doors to secure the narrow margin of victory?

Walk this journey with Van Heerden and see why, with the upcoming ANC National General Council in June 2020, the fight for our country’s leadership is far from over, begging the question: Will Ramaphosa’s ANC survive?

In the wake of the global financial crisis, new forms of social organization are beginning to take shape. Disparate groups of people are coming together in order to resist corporate globalization and seek a more positive way forward. These movements are not based on hierarchy; rather than looking to those in power to solve their problems, participants are looking to one another. In certain countries in the West, this has been demonstrated by the recent and remarkable rise of the Occupy movement. But in Argentina, such radical transformations have been taking place for years. Everyday Revolutions tells the story of how regular people changed their country and inspired others across the world. Reflecting on new forms of social organization, such as horizontalism and autogestion, as well as alternative conceptions of value and power, Marina Sitrin shows how an economic crisis spurred a people's rebellion; how factory workers and medical clinic technicians are running their workplaces themselves, without bosses; how people have taken over land to build homes, raise livestock, grow crops, and build schools, creating their own art and media in the process. Daring and groundbreaking, Everyday Revolutions serves as an instructive example for activists the world over. It shows how the experiences of the autonomous movements in Argentina can help answer the question of how to turn a rupture into a revolution.