Protesting Power

Protesting Power
Author: Francis Anthony Boyle
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2008
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9780742538924

In this indispensable book, distinguished activist lawyer Francis A. Boyle sounds an impassioned clarion call to citizen action against Bush administration policies, both domestic and international. Especially since the Reagan Administration, hundreds of thousands of Americans have used non-violent civil resistance to protest against elements of U.S. policy that violate basic principles of international law, the United States Constitution, and human rights. Such citizen protests have led to an unprecedented number of arrests and prosecutions by federal, state, and local governments around the country. Boyle, who has spent his career advising and defending civil resisters, explores how international law can be used to question the legality of specific U.S. government foreign and domestic policies. He focuses especially on the aftermath of 9/11 and the implications of the war on Afghanistan, the war on terrorism, the war on Iraq, the doctrine of preventive warfare, and the domestic abridgement of civil rights. Written for concerned citizens, activists, NGOs, civil resisters, their supporters, and their lawyers, Protesting Power provides the best legal and constitutional arguments to support and defend civil resistance activities. Including a number of compelling excerpts from his own trial appearances as an expert witness and as counsel, the author offers inspirational and practical advice for protesters who find themselves in court. This invaluable book stands alone as the only guide available on how to use international law, constitutional law, and the laws of war to defend peaceful non-violent protesters against governmental policies that are illegal and criminal.

The Loud Minority

The Loud Minority
Author: Daniel Q. Gillion
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2022-05-17
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0691234183

How political protests and activism influence voters and candidates The “silent majority”—a phrase coined by Richard Nixon in 1969 in response to Vietnam War protests and later used by Donald Trump as a campaign slogan—refers to the supposed wedge that exists between protestors in the street and the voters at home. The Loud Minority upends this view by demonstrating that voters are in fact directly informed and influenced by protest activism. Consequently, as protests grow in America, every facet of the electoral process is touched by this loud minority, benefiting the political party perceived to be the most supportive of the protestors’ messaging. Drawing on historical evidence, statistical data, and detailed interviews about protest activity since the 1960s, Daniel Gillion shows that electoral districts with protest activity are more likely to see increased voter turnout at the polls. Surprisingly, protest activities are also moneymaking endeavors for electoral politics, as voters donate more to political candidates who share the ideological leanings of activists. Finally, protests are a signal of political problems, encouraging experienced political challengers to run for office and hurting incumbents’ chances of winning reelection. The silent majority may not speak by protesting themselves, but they clearly gesture for social change with their votes. An exploration of how protests affect voter behavior and warn of future electoral changes, The Loud Minority looks at the many ways that activism can shape democracy.

The Political Power of Protest

The Political Power of Protest
Author: Daniel Q. Gillion
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2013-04-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1107031141

This book is the first to provide quantifiable evidence that protest shifts the policy positions of national political leaders for each branch of government. Drawing on daily presidential rhetoric, roll call votes of congressional leaders, and Supreme Court decisions, the book demonstrates that national politicians take cues from minority protest activity that later lead to major shifts in public policy, rivaling the influence that minorities have through elections and public opinion.

World Protests

World Protests
Author: Isabel Ortiz
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2021-11-03
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3030885135

This is an open access book. The start of the 21st century has seen the world shaken by protests, from the Arab Spring to the Yellow Vests, from the Occupy movement to the social uprisings in Latin America. There are periods in history when large numbers of people have rebelled against the way things are, demanding change, such as in 1848, 1917, and 1968. Today we are living in another time of outrage and discontent, a time that has already produced some of the largest protests in world history. This book analyzes almost three thousand protests that occurred between 2006 and 2020 in 101 countries covering over 93 per cent of the world population. The study focuses on the major demands driving world protests, such as those for real democracy, jobs, public services, social protection, civil rights, global justice, and those against austerity and corruption. It also analyzes who was demonstrating in each protest; what protest methods they used; who the protestors opposed; what was achieved; whether protests were repressed; and trends such as inequality and the rise of women’s and radical right protests. The book concludes that the demands of protestors in most of the protests surveyed are in full accordance with human rights and internationally agreed-upon UN development goals. The book calls for policy-makers to listen and act on these demands.

The Art of Protest

The Art of Protest
Author: T. V. Reed
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 578
Release: 2019-01-22
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1452958653

A second edition of the classic introduction to arts in social movements, fully updated and now including Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, and new digital and social media forms of cultural resistance The Art of Protest, first published in 2006, was hailed as an “essential” introduction to progressive social movements in the United States and praised for its “fluid writing style” and “well-informed and insightful” contribution (Choice Magazine). Now thoroughly revised and updated, this new edition of T. V. Reed’s acclaimed work offers engaging accounts of ten key progressive movements in postwar America, from the African American struggle for civil rights beginning in the 1950s to Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter in the twenty-first century. Reed focuses on the artistic activities of these movements as a lively way to frame progressive social change and its cultural legacies: civil rights freedom songs, the street drama of the Black Panthers, revolutionary murals of the Chicano movement, poetry in women’s movements, the American Indian Movement’s use of film and video, anti-apartheid rock music, ACT UP’s visual art, digital arts in #Occupy, Black Lives Matter rap videos, and more. Through the kaleidoscopic lens of artistic expression, Reed reveals how activism profoundly shapes popular cultural forms. For students and scholars of social change and those seeking to counter reactionary efforts to turn back the clock on social equality and justice, the new edition of The Art of Protest will be both informative and inspiring.

How to Read a Protest

How to Read a Protest
Author: L.A. Kauffman
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 153
Release: 2018-10-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520972201

"Explores protesting as an act of faith . . . How to Read a Protest argues that the women's marches of 2017 didn't just help shape and fuel a moment—they actually created one."—Masha Gessen, The New Yorker O, the Oprah Magazine’s “14 Best Political Books to Read Before the 2018 Midterm Election” "A fascinating and detailed history of American mass demonstrations."—Publishers Weekly When millions of people took to the streets for the 2017 Women’s Marches, there was an unmistakable air of uprising, a sense that these marches were launching a powerful new movement to resist a dangerous presidency. But the work that protests do often can’t be seen in the moment. It feels empowering to march, and record numbers of Americans have joined anti-Trump demonstrations, but when and why does marching matter? What exactly do protests do, and how do they help movements win? In this original and richly illustrated account, organizer and journalist L.A. Kauffman delves into the history of America’s major demonstrations, beginning with the legendary 1963 March on Washington, to reveal the ways protests work and how their character has shifted over time. Using the signs that demonstrators carry as clues to how protests are organized, Kauffman explores the nuanced relationship between the way movements are made and the impact they have. How to Read a Protest sheds new light on the catalytic power of collective action and the decentralized, bottom-up, women-led model for organizing that has transformed what movements look like and what they can accomplish.

Mothers and the Mexican Antinuclear Power Movement

Mothers and the Mexican Antinuclear Power Movement
Author: Velma García-Gorena
Publisher:
Total Pages: 208
Release: 1999
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

In the early 1970s construction began on a nuclear power plant at Laguna Verde in the Mexican state of Veracruz. Initially, most local citizens were largely unconcerned with the prospect of having the nuclear plant in their community. With the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, however, residents' complacency toward the power plant soon turned to opposition. Protest groups such as the Madres Veracruzanas emerged to join existing environmental groups in a fight to close down the facility. In Mothers and the Mexican Antinuclear Power Movement, Velma García-Gorena traces the protest movement against the Mexican government's Laguna Verde nuclear plant, outlining the movement's formation, development, and decline. Documenting the movement's key players and turning points in superb detail, she interweaves important historical narrative with a deft examination of the events, framing her analysis in terms of social movement literature. In a departure from the more conventional New Social Movements approach to analyzing antinuclear movements, García-Gorena demonstrates how, in many ways, movements of this kind are not so new and how a modified "political process" approach fits much better. With a sophisticated application of various social movements' paradigms, García-Gorena incorporates perspectives such as resource mobilization, political process paradigms, and feminist theory. Timely, well written, and thoroughly researched, Mothers and the Mexican Antinuclear Power Movement fills a major gap in the literature on grassroots environmental movements in Latin America. Both rich in empirical detail and convincing in its conclusions, this study provides a broader understanding of Mexican social movements and the quest for democracy in developing countries.

Protest Cultures

Protest Cultures
Author: Kathrin Fahlenbrach
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 568
Release: 2016-03-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1785331493

Protest is a ubiquitous and richly varied social phenomenon, one that finds expression not only in modern social movements and political organizations but also in grassroots initiatives, individual action, and creative works. It constitutes a distinct cultural domain, one whose symbolic content is regularly deployed by media and advertisers, among other actors. Yet within social movement scholarship, such cultural considerations have been comparatively neglected. Protest Cultures: A Companion dramatically expands the analytical perspective on protest beyond its political and sociological aspects. It combines cutting-edge synthetic essays with concise, accessible case studies on a remarkable array of protest cultures, outlining key literature and future lines of inquiry.

Emotions in Politics

Emotions in Politics
Author: N. Demertzis
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2013-10-31
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1137025662

Prompted by the 'affective turn' within the entire spectrum of the social sciences, this books brings together the twin disciplines of political psychology and the political sociology of emotions to explore the complex relationship between politics and emotion at both the mass and individual level with special focus on cases of political tension.