Currently reading #books
Currently reading #books
jan's timeline
I host my own instance and use this identity to keep track of my reading
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Want to read #books
Want to read #books
Want to read #books
Want to read #books
Want to read #books
Want to read #books
Thinking in terms of creating dilemmas for their adversaries can be a useful way for activists to...
Thinking in terms of creating dilemmas for their adversaries can be a useful way for activists to devise more effective interventions. … More important than coming up with a single, brilliantly conceived act of nonviolent resistance is a willingness to string together multiple protests in a way that creates a sense of heightening drama. This is where escalation becomes significant. —Mark Engler…
The point of the dilemma action is that activists need to devise protests that cannot simply be i...
The point of the dilemma action is that activists need to devise protests that cannot simply be ignored, and they need to create situations in which they will gain public sympathy if they are attacked or arrested. Disruption and sacrifice can each play a role here. Disruption is a crucial means for making sure that demonstrations are not overlooked. Sacrifice, meanwhile, makes it more likely that…
Within the field of civil resistance, theorists and practitioners have emphasized the idea of the...
Within the field of civil resistance, theorists and practitioners have emphasized the idea of the “dilemma action.” The idea here is that demonstrations are especially effective when they create a dilemma for those in power, producing situations in which any response the authorities choose helps the movement. —Mark Engler and Paul Engler, This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the…
A Bull Connor with his police dogs and fire hoses down in Birmingham did more to advance civil ri...
A Bull Connor with his police dogs and fire hoses down in Birmingham did more to advance civil rights than the civil rights fighters themselves. —Saul Alinsky #civilrights #civilresistance
There are times when the civil rights movement has no greater friend than its enemy. It is the en...
There are times when the civil rights movement has no greater friend than its enemy. It is the enemy of civil rights who again and again produces the evidence . . . that we cannot afford to stand still. —Emanuel Celler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, 1966 #civilresistance #civilrights
The idea that repression can actually help a movement, rather than hurt it, is a notion that stan...
The idea that repression can actually help a movement, rather than hurt it, is a notion that stands a conventional understanding of power on its head. And yet, the ability of nonviolent demonstrators to benefit from the zealousness of authorities is a well-studied occurrence within the field of civil resistance. —Mark Engler and Paul Engler, This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping…
Want to read #books
Want to read #books
Want to read #books
Want to read #books
Certainly, it is true that environmentalists squaring off against the world’s fossil fuel magnate...
Certainly, it is true that environmentalists squaring off against the world’s fossil fuel magnates face formidable opponents and that tackling global warming is a very difficult fight. But this is hardly the end of the story. … In the future, the severe storms, floods, and ecological dislocations resulting from global warming are set to cause untold billions of dollars in damages. For this reason,…
In the case of Serbia in the late 1990s, it was not hard for Otpor and other resistance groups to...
In the case of Serbia in the late 1990s, it was not hard for Otpor and other resistance groups to get a majority of the population to agree that Milosevic should go. A huge portion of the public already detested the regime. With the economy in shambles and the country reeling from a series of disastrous wars, public opinion had already been won. The problem was that people expressed their…
Whether or not one regards the 3.5 percent rule as a hard-and-fast threshold for creating change,...
Whether or not one regards the 3.5 percent rule as a hard-and-fast threshold for creating change, the measure points to an important idea: although the ultimate goal of transformational movements is to win over the support of the majority of a society, an effort’s grassroots strength is measured by the number of people who take ownership over the cause. …active supporters are the type of people…
[Erica] Chenoweth found that the number of supporters who were actively engaged in successful mov...
[Erica] Chenoweth found that the number of supporters who were actively engaged in successful movements could be quite small. She observed a trend that she would later dub the “3.5 percent rule.” … For a movement, building this minority into a committed base is just as important as swaying the public at large. Participation entails something considerably more than latent sympathy. The 3.5 percent…
In their book [Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict], [Maria] S...
In their book [Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict], [Maria] Stephan and [Erica] Chenoweth found a direct correlation between the success of a campaign and the popular involvement it managed to invite. —Mark Engler and Paul Engler, This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century #civilresistance #book
Want to read #books
Want to read #books
In transactional politics, progress comes through the steady accumulation of small victories. Tra...
In transactional politics, progress comes through the steady accumulation of small victories. Transformational change, in contrast, often occurs in more dramatically punctuated cycles. —Mark Engler and Paul Engler, This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century #politics #change
…a social understanding of power encourages advocates to think bigger. It allows them to break wi...
…a social understanding of power encourages advocates to think bigger. It allows them to break with a solely transactional view of politics and instead incorporate a transformational perspective on how to generate social change. …activists pursuing a transformational route seek to influence the public at large. They do so in the belief that, ultimately, the level of popular backing for an…