Search

This paper analyzes the mechanisms of creating a symbolic connection between several generations of protesters in the late USSR and in Putin's Russia. Based on an analysis of the periodical press, data on human-rights violations during public protests, and published sources on the history of Soviet dissidents, the article traces how and for what purposes protesters in the 2000s and 2010s used the symbolic and practical legacy of Soviet dissidents, what additional meanings of protest were actualized with these linkages, and how references to specific spaces of protest actions transformed the content and form of public protests. Using Charles Tilly's concept of "repertoires of contention," I argue that references to the dissidents' legacy were not limited to the discursive level of repeating slogans but included various public actions that memorialized and/or reconsidered the Soviet dissidents' tradition of contesting the state monopoly over public space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first wave of the (recent) public protests broke out on October 1, 2019, stopped on the 9th and resumed on 25th of the same month. They have continued until completing the present study, which discusses the realities, features, participants, causes, demands and objectives of the protests. It also explores the government‟s responses as well as national and international reactions. It is argued that Iraq is witnessing a fierce battle in several aspects. Due to the politicians‟ failure to run the country‟s different affairs, solve crises and set public policies to place it within successful states, the country is loaded with issues. Therefore, the demonstrations are huge. The solutions are believed to basically lie in the state institutions, but not in the framework of the parties allied to share the benefits of the authority, by restoring the lost dignity of the civil, political and military establishments. As a first step, a temporary agreement needs to be made between the authorities and the protesters to hand power to a transitional cabinet to prepare for early elections under tough international monitoring. In parallel, the action of the authorities shall be rationalized, by means of enhancing the controlling administrative systems which guarantee integrity and prevent corruption and waste, always setting innovative and vibrant plans to secure permanent public participation and creating partnerships with specialized bodies to decide on different public affairs. Partnership is about decision making and setting public policies, while an authority which is isolated from people would soon perish. It is concluded that the action of the authorities can be rationalized and advanced only through developing the public sphere among relevant segments, in a way that enhances interactive democracy which adopts constructive dialogue for general interests. It is dialogue, through public forums, associations and unions, which would lead to cross-national consensus on true priorities for the public path of the state and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public protests have become armed events, with protesters and counter-protesters openly carrying firearms--generally pursuant to state law. Many view the presence of firearms at protest events as wholly incompatible with the exercise of First Amendment free speech and assembly rights. Although the Supreme Court has yet to decide whether there is a Second Amendment right to openly carry firearms in public, all but a small handful of states in the United States provide some legal protection for open carry. Taking the law as it currently stands, this Article provides a comprehensive assessment of the options available to officials who seek to regulate open carry at public protests. It considers a number of measures, from bans on open carry during protest events, to measures aimed at armed private militias, to more limited restrictions on the place or manner of open carry. The Article assesses these and other regulatory alternatives from the perspective of both the First Amendment and the Second Amendment. It generally rejects First Amendment arguments for protecting, or limiting, open carry at public protests. The Article also concludes that some measures restricting open carry at protest events would likely satisfy current interpretations of the Second Amendment. Finally, using longstanding experience with public First Amendment rights as a rough guide, the Article considers the primary factors that will likely influence the nature and scope of the public Second Amendment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The publication of sources focuses on the public protests of Justas Paleckis, a prominent Lithuanian journalist, Peasant Populist, young-generation leader and the head of future pro-Soviet People’s Government, in March 1938 after Poland delivered its ultimatum to Lithuania. The first part of the publication presents a short review of Lithuanian-Polish relations in the context of the loss of Vilnius Region in the period 1920-1938; the second part provides a more in-depth discussion on the type of Justas Paleckis' public protests, their relevance and the specificity of the documents published for the first time. The published documents enable a more complete image of activities of Justas Paleckis as a personality of controversial evaluations in the period before the occupation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the political aspect of public protests against the issue of extractivism in Turkey amidst the Green Road Project at the Black Sea coast. Topics discussed include an overview of the Green Road Project, the domestic and foreign private investment of the country, environmentalism's transformative potential, and the establishment of companies by foreign companies and persons.

With the rapid expansion of the high-speed railway infrastructure in China, conflicts arise between the interests of local citizens living along the planned tracks and the national interests of governmental authorities and project developers. This paper addresses questions of why and how Chinese citizens mobilize for and participate in protests against high-speed railway projects and to what effect. To this end, a comprehensive study was conducted on the decision-making process, public opinions, and protest actions regarding the plans and site choices for the Beijing–Shenyang high-speed railway from 2008 to 2013, combining quantitative and qualitative methods. In general, local residents are supportive of high-speed railway project construction, but they contest the closed decision-making process and the poor design and siting choices for the track by governmental authorities and companies. After four years of resident protests through formal complaints, lobbying, protest demonstrations, organizing alternative opinion polls, and discussions with authorities, citizens were partially successful in changing the siting of the track, adding protective measures (e.g., tunnels and sound screens), and saving green belts. Two conclusions can be drawn from this case study. First, regardless of the growing legal requirements, public participation in major projects in China is far from a standard practice. Final citizen participation is often preceded by serious conflict. Second, with defined good governance boundaries, there is increasing room for public participation in environmental movements, which does influence final decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The confidentiality of international commercial arbitration can be particularly controversial when one party is a government, as is the case in all arbitrations before the World Bank-associated International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes ("ICSID"). This article examines such issues of confidentiality within the purview of one case before ICSID involving multinational conglomerate Bechtel and the government of Bolivia. The case arose from events labeled by the media as the "Cochabamba Water War." The contract at issue provided for Bechtel to increase water supply to the city of Cochabamba, the third largest in South America's poorest country. Ultimately, public protests by the Bolivian people led to the contract's rescission by the government, and Bechtel responded by going before ICSID, seeking damages of more than US$25 million. This, in turn, sparked worldwide protests over the secrecy of the arbitration. This article analyzes views on both sides of the confidentiality debate against the background of ICSID's unique role in foreign investor protection through bilateral investment treaties and private arbitration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The United States has pioneered the use of nuclear power systems for outer planetary space probes since the 1970s. These systems have enabled the Viking landings to reach the surface of Mars and both Pioneers 10 and 11 and Voyagers 1 and 2 to travel to the limits of the solar system. Although the American public has long been concerned about safety of these systems, in the 1980s a reaction to nuclear accidents – especially the Soviet Cosmos 954 spacecraft destruction and the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accidents – heightened awareness about the hazards of nuclear power and every spacecraft launch since that time has been contested by opponents of nuclear energy. This has led to a debate over the appropriateness of the use of nuclear power systems for spacecraft. It has also refocused attention on the need for strict systems of control and rigorous checks and balances to assure safety. This essay describes the history of space radioisotope power systems, the struggles to ensure safe operations, and the political confrontation over whether or not to allow the launch the Galileo and Cassini space probes to the outer planets. Effectively, these efforts have led to the successful flights of 12 deep space planetary probes, two-thirds of them operated since the accidents of Cosmos 954, Three Mile Island, and Chernobyl. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Since 2005, the Government of India has initiated several interventions to address the issue of maternal mortality, including efforts to improve maternity services and train community health workers, and to give cash incentives to poor women if they deliver in a health facility. Following local protests against a high number of maternal deaths in 2010 in Barwani district in Madhya Pradesh, central India, we undertook a fact-finding visit in January 2011 to investigate the 27 maternal deaths reported in the district from April to November 2010. We found an absence of antenatal care despite high levels of anaemia, absence of skilled birth attendants, failure to carry out emergency obstetric care in obvious cases of need, and referrals that never resulted in treatment. We present two case histories as examples. We took our findings to district and state health officials and called for proven means of preventing maternal deaths to be implemented. We question the policy of giving cash to pregnant women to deliver in poor quality facilities without first ensuring quality of care and strengthening the facilities to cope with the increased patient loads. We documented lack of accountability, discrimination against and negligence of poor women, particularly tribal women, and a close link between poverty and maternal death. Depuis 2005, le Gouvernement indien applique plusieurs interventions en matière de mortalité maternelle, notamment pour améliorer les services de maternité, former les agents de santé communautaires et verser une allocation aux femmes pauvres si elles accouchent dans un centre de santé. Après des manifestations locales contre le nombre élevé de décès maternels en 2010 dans le district Barwani au Madhya Pradesh, en Inde centrale, nous avons mené une mission d'enquête en janvier 2011 sur les 27 décès maternels signalés dans le district d'avril à novembre 2010. Nous avons constaté une absence de soins prénatals, en dépit de niveaux élevés d'anémie, un manque d'accoucheurs qualifiés, l'incapacité à dispenser des soins obstétricaux d'urgence dans des cas évidents de besoin et des aiguillages de patientes n'ayant jamais abouti à un traitement. Nous présentons deux cas à titre d'exemple. Nous avons transmis nos conclusions aux autorités de santé du district et de l'État, et demandé l'application de mesures éprouvées de prévention des décès maternels. Nous remettons en question la politique d'encouragement financier pour inciter les femmes à accoucher dans des centres de mauvaise qualité sans d'abord garantir la qualité des soins et renforcer les installations pour leur donner les moyens de traiter le nombre accru de patientes. Nous avons mis en évidence le manque de responsabilisation, la discrimination et l'indifférence à l'égard des femmes pauvres, en particulier des femmes tribales, et un lien étroit entre pauvreté et mortalité maternelle. Desde el año 2005, el Gobierno de India ha iniciado varias intervenciones para tratar el problema de mortalidad materna,incluso esfuerzos para mejorar los servicios de maternidad y capacitar a trabajadores comunitarios de la salud, y dar incentivos de dinero en efectivo a las mujeres pobres que dan a luz en una unidad de salud. En el año 2010, tras protestas contra el alto índice de muertes maternas en el distrito de Barwani en Madhya Pradesh, en India central, realizamos una visita en enero de 2011 para investigar las 27 muertes maternas reportadas en el distrito desde abril hasta noviembre de 2010. Encontramos una ausencia de servicios de atención antenatal a pesar de los altos niveles de anemia, ausencia de asistentes de parto calificadas, incumplimiento de los cuidados obstétricos de emergencia en casos obvios de necesidad, y referencias que nunca produjeron tratamiento. Presentamos dos historias de casos como ejemplos. Llevamos nuestros hallazgos a funcionarios de salud distritales y estatales e instamos a que se implementen medios comprobados para la prevención de muertes maternas. Cuestionamos la política de dar dinero en efectivo a mujeres embarazadas para que den a luz en unidades de calidad deficiente sin antes garantizar la calidad de la atención y fortalecer las unidades para que puedan manejar el número cada vez mayor de pacientes. Documentamos la falta de responsabilidad, discriminación y descuido de las mujeres pobres, en particular las mujeres tribales, y una estrecha asociación entre la pobreza y la muerte materna. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores processes of articulation in the controversies over third-generation mobile phone transmitters and the interrelated phenomenon of "electrosensitivity." The argument is that the search to fix public image and public concerns tends to alienate the public from technology discussions. An alternative political epistemology of articulations is suggested to explore the dynamics among prereflexive motives, public engagement, and institutional requirements for public deliberations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation: A decade has passed since the outbreak of the so‐called Arab Spring, which led to regime changes in several Arab countries. However, these public protests demonstrated their ineffectiveness in bringing about political and economic improvements, nor did they facilitate a peaceful transition to democracy in Arab countries. Purpose: This article attempts to discuss the obstacles to democratic transformation in Arab countries and the methods that should be followed to achieve democratic transformation, along with showing the international community's response to the Arab Spring. Approach and methods: This article relies on a descriptive, methodological, and analytical approach to the obstacles to democratic transformation in Arab countries by analysing the events and results of the Arab Spring. Findings: The democratic transformation in Arab countries does not require as much concerted effort to protect the right to peaceful assembly as it does to safeguard other rights from violations resulting from certain practices. This is primarily due to significant differences between ideological, intellectual, and political groups within society. Furthermore, democratic transformation in Arab countries necessitates the collective efforts of the international community, particularly Western nations such as the United States, employing a credible and transparent approach free from political or economic interests. These external factors are crucial when it comes to either facilitating or hindering the democratic transition and the implementation of democratic reforms. Policy implications: The Arab Spring showed that peaceful democratic transitions and the conditions for the continuation or replacement of authoritarian regimes require the approval and support of some countries that are devoid of political or economic interests, as they are external factors that can influence and hinder the democratic transition or ensure democratic reforms. This is especially true because public protests are no longer simply a sign of resistance to the regime but rather are rather a potential advance warning of rebellion and the overthrow of said regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports that the National Congress Party (NCP) continues to face public protests in Sudan. More than a thousand people have been arrested, many to vanish into the revived ghost houses, while a number were injured by rubber bullets, tear gas, truncheons and iron bars. Protestors allegedly employ guerilla strategies, emerging over the capital in small groups and across the country. The goal reportedly is to confuse and loosen security while spreading the word.

The tendency of English libel law to protect reputation at the expense of freedom of expression makes the United Kingdom a potentially attractive forum for retaliatory lawsuits against individuals and organizations who lobby or campaign against the interests of large companies. The most prominent recent example of such a lawsuit was the so-called 'McLibel' case, in which McDonald's Corporation sued protesters who had distributed anti-McDonald's leaflets outside some of the company's restaurants. The case is often cited as evidence that the risk of unfavourable publicity generated by retaliatory libel actions is a strong deterrent to using the libel laws to silence public opposition to corporate activities. This article uses a technique widely employed in financial economics research, the 'event study' method, to investigate whether the unanticipated bad publicity attracted by the McLibel case had a negative financial impact on McDonald's, such that future retaliatory lawsuits might be deterred. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the public protest in Nigeria over the government's ban on the use of untested HIV vaccines. Controversy over the vaccine developed by Jeremiah Abalaka; How the government has suspended the use of all locally developed HIV/AIDS therapies; Lawsuit filed by Abalaka against the Nigerian Health Minister, Tim Menakaya, the Medical and Dental Council, and others.

While invalid voting is often treated as protest behavior in an electoral context, its association with actual political protests has not yet been empirically demonstrated. The relative scarcity of research on the topic is likely due to the hybrid nature of invalid voting as a both formal and informal political gesture. The novel availability of event-based data for public protests in Latin America allows for testing whether their occurrence is connected with changes in spoiled and blank ballots. Using an appropriate dynamic regression model covering variations in the 148 intervals between Latin American legislative elections in the 1979–2021 period, this study finds a strong connection between the emergence of antigovernment protests and surges in invalid voting (and vice versa). This relationship still holds at parity of economic conditions and it is reinforced by a lack of alternation in the party of power. Conversely, the appearance of workers' strikes appears to work as a substitute for this behavior, which is also chosen by voters when democracy deteriorates, while corruption has no independent impact on invalid voting. Overall this work's findings promise to send the research agenda on invalid voting in a new direction, previously unexplored because of an absence of fitting data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how modern anti‐natalist movements have emerged in Japan, India, China and the United States. Drawing on interviews, online discussions and public protests, it explores these movements' distinctive secular understanding of human procreation. While traditional societies interpreted birth using religious or spiritual frameworks, anti‐natalists consider procreation an ethical decision shaped by legal reasoning, scientific knowledge and existential philosophy. They portray birth as a random event subject to calculation, raise questions about consent to life and position parents as ethically responsible 'small gods'. These movements, which have found resonance among urban youth, point to deep changes in how people think about family ties and social obligations. Questions about having children have become more complex as reproductive technologies multiply and environmental pressures mount. What was once taken for granted now prompts serious ethical reflection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy learning is a common driver of reform in public organisations and relies in part on institutional legitimacy. For law enforcement, institutional legitimacy is particularly salient given the police’s monopoly on the legal use of force. This study uses the concept of policy learning to analyse power and reform in policing amidst civil unrest. Examining public protests in Iran, the study finds that flaws in management structures and protocols compromise the legitimacy of the police and weaken its organisational learning capacity. The analytical lens – learning loops – illustrates how and why organisational learning processes are disrupted. Findings show that first-loop or superficial learning dominates reform processes within the Iranian police, weakening understandings of societal context and compromising organisational effectiveness. The study contributes an empirical case of an understudied country context to literature about policy learning, institutional legitimacy, and public organisational reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on public reaction to the revelation of radiation experiments on humans in the 1960s. Government reaction; Call for criminal investigation of scientists involved; Involvement of government agencies; Public apology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) president Charles Vest; Concern regarding undermining of public trust in science.

Recent studies show that, when salience is high, 'heterogeneous lobbying coalitions' uniting business and civil society groups are more successful in achieving their lobbying objectives than homogeneous coalitions. It is therefore surprising that a coalition of tech firms and civil society activists failed to prevent the adoption of the EU's contested 2019 Copyright Directive, which constitutes a significant shift in the Union's approach to online content regulation. This article argues that proponents of the policy change successfully undermined the lobbying coalition by invoking notions of 'digital sovereignty' and by delegitimizing activists as Silicon Valley's 'useful idiots'. Combining process-tracing of the lobbying processes and content analysis of European Parliament debates, the article shows how legislators employed delegitimation and sovereignty claims to justify their non-responsiveness to public protests. The article contributes to the interest group literature and debates on 'digital sovereignty' by demonstrating its strategic use in the policy-making process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education consists of a wide array of education programs, some of which closely involve both domestic politics and issues that transcend national boundaries. This paper explores a controversial and highly contested higher education program that is shaped by a post-conflict affected context and transnational politics. Based on the case study of a new Vietnamese language studies program in Cambodia, the paper demonstrates that when post-conflict education and transnational politics intersect with one another in many ways, post-war higher education reconstruction becomes a platform where stakeholders such as youths and national and international governments contest and negotiate influence and change. By critically examining the relations between educational phenomena and historical, national, and geopolitical dynamics in a post-conflict environment, the paper discusses key factors of higher education reconstruction in the aftermath of social upheavals and mass atrocities. It also offers a fresh perspective on the multifaceted dynamics of a higher education program which involves public protests, state intervention, transnational disputes, and inter-state relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In decades since 11 September 2001 (9/11), surveillance and policing within the United States have increased manifold and, with them, protests against the systemic racism and classism embedded in these practices. These practices go back beyond the 21st century—these modes of policing, power, and protests against them are not new. Due to urban spaces' concentration of political, economic, and social power and the sheer density of people, they can quickly take on material and symbolic importance that can last for centuries. As public protests increase, so do countermeasures from those wielding power in the forms of both formal and informal policing and surveillance. These policing measures also leave material traces in the landscape, working to create a palimpsest of trauma across urban terrains. The lineage of a surveillance landscape as seen in policing, power, and protest in Lower Manhattan, will be explored through a documentary archaeological approach to examine the residual trauma left in public spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This text explores artistic practices in Mexico that aim to bring attention to the issue of forced disappearance and challenge official narratives. One project, Monumento a los desaparecidos, creates an online platform where visitors can share the names of missing people, giving them a voice and creating a repository of voices for public protests. Other artistic projects and forms of solidarity support the search work of family groups and use digital technologies to facilitate these efforts. The article also discusses the challenges of constructing a counter-narrative to the state's representation of the crisis and emphasizes the importance of memory and resistance. It concludes by examining the impact of the "war on drugs" in Mexico and the role of organized civil society in responding to forced disappearance. [Extracted from the article]

The article contemplates a new alliance between whistleblowing and protesting. This is done in the context of seeking more powerful interventions in the fight against corruption in business and government. The prevailing view that whistleblowing and protesting are unconnectable forms of ethical resistance is challenged. The article argues that whistleblowing and protesting may have enormous untapped synergistic potential. This position is considered within a two-level analysis that recognizes the twin intersecting realities of people and structures in the fight against corruption. On the first level, the article elucidates how men and women of conscience use individual and/or collective strategies to expose and correct wrongdoing across two landscapes: the organization and the 'street' (public protests). On the second level, the focus goes beyond engaged individuals and collectivities using different landscapes for moral purposes, to a position that treats these landscapes as more than passive backdrops. They are seen as highly interactive action zones that variously promote or obstruct anti-corruption measures despite individual and collective action to the contrary. The article concludes with pointers for future research in this largely unexplored area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Senate Bill 98 (S.B. 98), signed into law on October 9, 2021, aims to safeguard the right of journalists in California to cover public protests without police interference. However, the bill is silent as to who qualifies as a journalist and thus falls under its protections. This Note analyzes different approaches to defining the press in the legal, academic, and journalistic fields. In the context of S.B. 98, it advocates for a broad, process-based definition that encompasses a wide range of newsgatherers, from established professionals writing for major publications, to individuals documenting the events unfolding in their communities with nothing more than a phone and a social media platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2019, a noise complaint from a new, white resident of Shaw, a historically Black neighborhood of Washington, DC, led a local MetroPCS store to mute the go-go music that the storefront had played on its outdoor speakers for decades. The cultural and social implications of muting go-go music, a DC-originated genre of music that has played a central role in DC Black culture, inspired a viral hashtag, #dontmutedc, on social media, as well as a series of high-profile public protests against the muting. The #dontmutedc protests highlighted the increasing impact of gentrification on DC's Black communities, and connected gentrification to several other important social issues affecting Black DC residents. In the wake of the #dontmutedc incident, several DC-area activist organizations have integrated go-go music into major, public-facing racial justice projects. The first part of this article presents a brief history of go-go music and race in DC community life, mainstream media, and law enforcement in order to contextualize the work of go-go-centered activist work in the aftermath of the #dontmutedc protests. The second part of this article highlights the go-go-centered activist work of three organizations: the Don't Mute DC movement, Long Live Go-Go, and the Go-Go Museum and Café. These movements' projects will be used to categorize three distinct approaches to go-go-centered racial justice activism in the Washington, DC, area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study considers the relationship between dreaming and race in light of the public protests following the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020. Findings are presented from an online survey about dreams and the Black Lives Movement (BLM) gathered from 4,947 demographically diverse American adults sampled between June 15 and June 19, 2020. The results show that the people most likely to have dreams about the public protests were those who support BLM, who are highly educated, and/or who have high dream recall. The dreams themselves tended to be anxious, fearful, and nightmarish, with several recurrent themes: references to George Floyd, participating in protests, threats to one's home, concerns about the pandemic, and conversations about BLM. The findings of this study contribute to a growing research literature showing that dreams, dream recall, and dream sharing can vary significantly depending on people's racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds. This study also provides new evidence that dreams have meaningful content relating directly to current events and public affairs. Practical implications for therapists and pastoral counselors are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anti-China protests have posed challenges to China's ambition to further expand its political and economic influence globally. How does Beijing respond to anti-China protests? And how do anti-China protests affect Beijing's use of public diplomatic resources? We address these questions by examining the effect of anti-China protests on China's public diplomatic engagement across low- and middle-income countries in Asia. We argue that anti-China protests lead to an increased level of non-financial public diplomatic engagement (e.g. elite visits) as well as financial engagement through foreign aid. We further argue that the effect of anti-China protests on increasing public diplomatic engagement is contingent on regime type. This is because China takes the anti-China message from autocracies more seriously given the higher political costs of participating in public protests in autocracies. Compared to democracies, autocracies are also in a better position to use anti-China protests as a means to signal their political constraints, compelling China to invest more public diplomatic resources for the countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main questions that has resurfaced in the post-2011 Arab Uprisings era has been to what extent these public protests and the popular calls for political opening would result in democratization in the MENA region. Despite the conventional arguments that explain the persistence of authoritarian regimes as a derivate of cultural authenticity and patriarchy, the Arab Uprisings have unlocked the threshold of fear, and given rise to a new moment of political activism in the region. In light of this, one of the arguments of this paper is centred on the idea that during and after the 2011 Arab Uprisings, regimes did not travel similar trajectories in this region; as a result, it is not possible to talk about an 'Arab path' and/or an 'Arab regime typology'. This work draws its data from the opinion surveys conducted between 2017 and 2020 by the World Values Survey Wave 7, and aims to shed light on the current demands for and perceptions of democracy and elections in the MENA region. To that end, this paper will scrutinize the various trajectories in the post-Arab Spring era through the lenses of three selected countries. These countries are Tunisia, Jordan and Lebanon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water quality/quantity crises may make water a hazard source. This study investigates the coded meaning that water crisis causes, how water insecurity impacts mental and physical health, and ways of dealing with water scarcity. However, this cultural meaning contradicts community-level governmental decisions and the unequal water distribution of Iran's Zayanderud River. Consequently, there is a water crisis in the small city of Varzaneh, and it induces undesired individual-level feelings, such as local concerns that cancer is associated with the deterioration of the Gavkhouni Wetland into which the Zayanderud drains. At the household level, water shortage problems are causing population emigration and/or adoption of different jobs and cropping styles. On a larger scale, public protests are responses to the deteriorating natural environment. Generally, the region's hierarchical and sectarian social organizing forms contradict. In Varzaneh, the sectarian form views environmental hazards as a higher priority. As a hierarchical form, the government emphasizes foreign enemies and defines the water problems in Varzaneh as not being a top priority. The outcome is social tension over water supply at both small and large scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the years, the uncontrolled interaction of human and high-speed vehicular activities at settlement areas along highways in Ghana has resulted in many pedestrian fatalities and injuries. This phenomenon has been attributed to the land-use and right-of-way planning and lack of pedestrian crossing facilities for safe crossing of highways. The slow response to developing strategies to reduce pedestrian fatalities along the nation's highways has led to many public protests. To advance a data-driven and evidence-based approach to finding appropriate countermeasures, this study investigated the factors associated with pedestrian injury outcomes of inter-urban highway crashes in Ghana. Latent class multinomial logit modeling method was employed to account for unobserved heterogeneity in a five-year pedestrian-vehicle crash data recorded on highways in Ghana. The model estimation results show that speeding, hit and run and crashes that involve buses were more likely to result in fatal injury while crashes that occurred at highway sections with no shoulder were more likely to result in hospitalized injury. The findings of the study provide basis for the development of appropriate countermeasures to reduce the number of pedestrian deaths and injuries on high-speed inter-urban highways in Ghana and other countries with similar characteristics in the sub-region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Violent protests and ethno-communal violence in Ethiopia have been on the rise since 2015. Whilst the country's capital has mostly been spared, protests have occurred in areas surrounding the capital, its suburbs and, to a lesser extent, even in its city centre. This article aims to answer how Addis Ababa residents make sense of and (dis)engage from/in violent protests and ethno-communal violence where they occur. The article explores the perceptions and experiences of established middle-class residents in the capital, drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between June 2020 and May 2021. The article finds that, due to the city's multi-ethnic character and the residents' strong metropolitan identity, ethnic identity has not constituted a powerful tool for political mobilisation of residents within the capital. Claims based on ethnicity made by non-residents towards the capital's resources have largely been rejected by Addis Ababans. Instead, residents have collectively defended their right to the city. The federal state's readiness to intervene in protests in the capital has further discouraged and countered public protests and communal conflicts. The article reveals that, whilst 'exceptional' at the first glance, the peaceful normality of Addis Ababa has relied on ignoring conflicts within Ethiopia's ethnic-based political settlement and has hidden ordinary, everyday forms of structural violence and conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1869 and 1923, the government of Indiana sponsored the draining of the Great Kankakee Marsh and the straightening of the Kankakee River in northern Indiana. Reclaiming the vast marsh posed significant problems and required special legislation. In 1869, the legislature granted sweeping powers to a private corporation to drain the marsh. The company formed under this law, and the law itself, encountered bitter opposition from landowners, and created a storm of protest in the press, which attacked the company as a "gigantic swindle." Public protests and attacks in the press forced the company to dissolve, and the legislature repealed the law. This article explores the brief unhappy life of the Kankakee Valley Draining Company; the reasons for the uprising against it; and the ways in which the General Assembly devised new legislation, and a more inclusive consensus, which would allow it eventually to accomplish its goal of replacing the Great Marsh with new farmland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public protests, including women-led struggles, are increasingly gaining a foothold in many parts of the world in response to multiple crises and growing exclusion, in a context of fragility. In the global South, most public protests involve temporary, informal coalitions where people come together and participate in a one-off event. The fluid nature of political space makes sustaining protests elusive because of protest fatigue. Yet, the #BringBackOurGirls (#BBOG), a women-led movement, headed a long-term protest that focused on the rights of the girl child to education – a direct response to Boko Haram's gendered terror tactics, in which girls were abducted, forced to abandon school, and get married. This article examines when and how movements crystallise into long-term programmes of action in fragile and conflict-affected societies where state–society relations are weak and government is considered to be unresponsive. We use the case of the #BBOG movement, one of Nigeria's intense social media-driven and women-led action, to examine the mix of pressures it faced, its characteristics, and strategies in situations of fragility, conflict, and closed political spaces. We identify four key strategies that the #BBOG has deployed to keep members coming, garner international support and sympathy, keep pressure on the elite in a safe manner for the movement members, and ensure an independent funding regime for durability and impact. This article finds that #BBOG was able to navigate fragility and the closing civic space in Nigeria by challenging the failure of government to address insecurity in the country, transcending societal barriers including gender, religion, and political class, transnationalising their movement, self-funding, and using social media strategically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to demonstrate how the various declinations of public and private dissent represented in a contemporary work of African literature, The Death of Vivek Oji (2020) by Akwaeke Emezi, can be read as an instance of literature's world-making capacity. As the novel's title anticipates, The Death of Vivek Oji reconstructs the life of its eponymous protagonist and the events that led to their death (Vivek is a non-binary, transgender person and both male and female pronouns are used to refer to them). Emezi's novel is set in Nigeria during the late 1990s and the narrative actively engages in a representation of the socio-political situation of the country back then, covering the impact that the sudden death of the head of state, Sani Abacha, had on the population. Throughout the novel, dissent is depicted on two levels: on the one hand, it appears as an expression of democratic desire through the public protests against the country's politics, as well as acts of violence against and among ethno-religious groups; on the other hand, there is also a parallel representation of private dissent in terms of the affirmation of one's own identity. Vivek's decision to not cut their long hair becomes, therefore, a form of personal opposition against society's pre-imposed gendered constructs. In this sense, if the social stigma attached to members of the LGBT community is personified by the incapacity of Vivek's parents to accept and understand their non-binary child, Vivek's friends represent a communal act of resistance against such an oppressive social system. Ultimately, the opposition between public and private dissent finds its climax in Vivek's death, in its causes and consequences. Building the critical analysis of the novel upon recent conceptualisations of literature as an active force that provokes dissent (Cheah 2016, Burns 2019), this paper demonstrates how Emezi's narrative uses representations of public and private dissent to contest the current world in order to engage in the construction of a more equal one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the spring and summer of 2020, police in the United States killed Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and other unarmed people of color. In one of the largest social movements in the nation's history, thousands engaged in public protests and called to defund or abolish the police. Debate about police racism and the need for reform intensified, with public opinion polls showing how polarized public attitudes were along traditional political lines. Analyzing data from a cross-sectional quota sample survey of 1,500 U.S. residents conducted in summer 2020, our findings confirmed the proposition that opposition and support for defunding the police was related to not only political views and superordinate identification with the group that the police prototypically represent, but also polarized intergroup identification with the police and the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as people's perceptions of police procedural justice and systemic racism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our technology-based society, individuals have more tools that they can use to manage and 'show' themselves in public space. In public space, they are monitored by agencies using surveillance practices but they also share information through location-aware technologies. This profound condition alters social norms and, with that, not only change self-rituals practiced in public but also group gatherings in public spaces. With an emphasis on political protests, this commentary focuses on a set of related questions: what characterises contemporary self-rituals in public space? How are these rituals being altered by digitisation processes? How are these changes manifested in the performance of the self during protests? This commentary suggests that public protests in the digital age are 'moments of togetherness', accelerated by social media, which dramatically enhance personalisation processes in collective actions. Reflecting on the contemporary alteration of group rituals and protests as extensions of the self, the commentary ends with a discussion about the opportunities and challenges this might bring for future collective actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this case study, we examine a UK-based anti-halal consumer activist campaign called the Boycott Halal Campaign (BHC). Using critical discourse analysis applied to online data, we show how, by framing halal-certified products as an existential threat to the UK, BHC drew from and contributed to the institutionalized ideology of Islamophobia. Given the potential of markets and consumptionscapes in increasing the visibility of ethnoreligious markers, we show how the far right has used these mundane arenas as fertile grounds on which to reproduce its discourse through banal nationalism and exclusionary civilizationism. We argue that beyond public protests, the far right has used consumer activism as a powerful tool for recruiting members and mobilizing different groups against Islam and Muslims. We contribute to the sociological accounts of inter-group identity dynamics by showing how activists can leverage the securitization discourse to mobilize different groups for their political ends. We argue that such mobilization (aimed at reproducing a collective identity) becomes possible when a social group perceives its collective identity to be under threat by another social group. The study calls for more research on how and why different forms of exclusionary ideologies can arise and evolve over time and what tools and mechanisms they can use to transmit their agendas and recruit members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on the gang-rape of a 16-year-old female patient at a hospital in the Swabi district of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, by staff members and their friends. Public demonstrations taking place, as of August 21, 1999; Suspension of the accused men, the hospital's medical superintendent, and the member of staff in charge of the ward where the patient was initially admitted; Arrest of six of the seven accused; Growing abuse in the country's hospitals.

Since 2018, school students around the world have gone on strike from school to call on leaders to take decisive action on climate change. Prominent in the resultant rallies are placards created by participants – from small children to their adult allies. This paper explores how students in the movement enact and activate visual approaches to communicating their concerns regarding climate change. By analysing the signage created by protestors at the largest yet rally held in Sydney, in September 2019, we situate the protests as a unique space for students' political voice. Our analysis of the signs and placards held by children finds that students use creative, mixed-media construction methods and draw on culturally significant objects and images to produce and visually communicate perspectives on climate change. This study shows how placards leverage emotional responses of anger, amusement and empathy to reflect the political, social and environmental dimensions of climate change, and collective demands for urgent policy action. In doing this, we highlight the role of visual communication in public protests and civic discourse, and the potential benefits to education on climate change. The visual language of the protest reinforces the critical or immediate nature of climate change to students as they draw on temporal symbols to communicate how they relate to climate change. We argue that these findings highlight the importance of creative, participatory and visual methods for student learning – and co-creating climate change education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes how a formerly mocked policy idea became a widespread solution. Through content analysis of newspaper articles and legal documents, I develop a framework that extends timelines of social movement influence, expands the range of actors and locations of mobilization, and traces how activists frame policy ideas over time: the policy relay. This framework allows for an analysis of how opponents unintentionally advanced the reform process in 1993 by turning its originators into laughingstocks. Anti-rape advocates eventually reformulated the policy in 2014. This time, the origin was removed from the story, presenting a concise narrative that credited politicians and college administrators, rather than activists, for the reform. By tracing the ideas of a movement, rather than focusing on organizations or public protests, I uncover a complicated process of social change, where consequential actors work across different settings to ignite reforms and strategically remove controversial aspects from narratives of social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how different forms of media use predict attitudes toward the development of facial recognition technology (FRT) and applications of it by law enforcement to identify criminal suspects, identify potential terrorists, and monitor public protests. The theoretical framework builds on theories of cultivation and genre-specific viewing to develop hypotheses and research questions. The analyses draw on original data from two nationally representative surveys of the U.S. public conducted in 2020, amid a series of controversies and protests about policing and racial justice. The results demonstrate that overall television viewing and crime media viewing predicted support for multiple uses of FRT, while Fox News viewing predicted support for using FRT to monitor protests. The findings advance our understanding of public opinion toward the technology and its implications for policing, protests, and social justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the participation of Christians in the public protests against the Cuban government which started on July 11, 2021. Topics explored include the arrest and imprisonment of sisters María Cristina Garrido and Angélica Garrido for their activism, the use of social media platforms by Cuban believers to speak against police violence, and the humanitarian assistance extended by several Christian organizations for the benefit of affected Cubans.

In 1993, a glimpse into Newark’s history of enslavement was accidentally resurrected when New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) construction workers uncovered a nineteenth-century interracial burial ground. Despite public protests to halt construction and conduct an in-depth archaeological study, NJPAC officials continued construction, arguing that the site was not a “real” African burial ground. Highlighting the relationship between urban renewal, historic preservation, and Black land dispossession, this paper argues that Black Newarkers’ activism to define the Trinity Church Cemetery as an African burial ground served as a radical political act in legitimizing their place within an evolving Newark. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spite of the eruption of numerous public protests in contestation of the Hosni Mubarak regime since 2004, it was only with Khalid Said's death that public protests gained momentum. The torture to death of the young Alexandrian man by police officers incited rage among youth on social media where pictures of his disfigured face went viral. Although it was not an unprecedented case of violation, this study argues that Khalid Said's death was a transformative event that enabled Mohamed ElBaradei's National Association for Change to provide the necessary mobilisation structures for youth protests. The NAC mobilised opposition groups and movements, fuelled by a shared grievance over the death of Said, into protests calling for Mubarak's ouster. While the literature has mainly focused on how mobilisation structures would develop into a successful collective action in democratic regimes, this study introduces transformative events as the reason behind the success of mobilisation structures in an authoritarian environment. By perceiving a shared grievance among youth, who were highly identified politically with Mubarak's opponents, and capitalising on a political opportunity to call for the fall of authoritarianism, transformative events led to collective action. This study relies on a qualitative research methodology based on exhaustive semi-structured interviews conducted by the author with 25 NAC members from December 2011 until August 2012 in Cairo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]