openDemocracy: What are the meanings behind the worldwide rise in protest?

There is no single set of statistics that can be used to quantify the rise in protests – in part because what constitutes a ‘protest’ is defined in different ways. However, several surveys and databases show a sharp spike in protests in 2011-2012, followed by a lull, and then a renewed intensification of citizen revolts from 2015-2016 (ILO; Gdelt; Acled). In 2016, new protests rocked Armenia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Thailand, Yemen and Zimbabwe. In 2017, there have been notable protests in Argentina, Belarus, Ethiopia, Gambia, Hungary, Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Morocco, Paraguay, Romania, Russia and Venezuela – to name but a few examples. [...]

A key characteristic is that today’s protests are driven by a diversity of issues, grievances and popular concerns. Some protests aim very directly to eject a government or regime from power – think of the on-going revolts in Venezuela that have been seeking a ‘recall referendum’ on President Nicolas Maduro’s continuation in office. Some revolts push for other types of less dramatic democratic reforms – like the protests in Iraq in 2016 that pressed for a fairer power-sharing democracy or those in Latin America seeking more extensive rights for indigenous minorities. Some focus more on cases of corruption – recent Brazilian and Indian protests being two of the best-known such examples. Many protests in the West have been primarily against austerity cuts – those in Greece and Spain being emblematic of this type of mobilisation. Others are less precise and more generically against capitalism and neoliberalism – like the various national versions of the Occupy movement. In contrast, some protests are responses to very specific, local grievances and have relatively modest aims – a growing number of protests in Russia fit into this category, for example. [...]

In fact, most protests combine a number of different features. Most mobilisations are made up of diverse elements, involving uneasy allies whose agendas and operational modes diverge significantly. Often, for example, progressive forces begin protests that are then joined by activists with illiberal or nationalist-nativist identities – the relationship between the new active citizenship and today’s much-discussed wave of populism is complex, often uneasy, yet significant. Recent activism in Ukraine – that has involved both progressive democrats and more rightist-nationalist groups – provides one particularly noteworthy example of such uneasy bedfellows combining in common revolt. [...]

Nearly all protests are ignited by a proximate cause – a particularly emblematic corruption case, a mining company’s new project, a disaster that kills many people and can be traced back to government negligence. But invariably they also emerge out of background grievances that fester for years – a slow decline in political freedoms, poor economic performance. As a general rule, protests erupt in dramatic fashion when both an immediate trigger and longer-term frustrations are powerfully present and fuse together. Think of the way that protests in Turkey moved from their specific aim of stopping a redevelopment project in Istanbul’s central square to a wider set of rights and governance issues. Think also of the way that protests in Brazil initially focused on the specific issue of bus fares, then on high-level corruption cases, then on the country’s broader political situation – and in doing so involved grassroots community groups, leftist-radicals, rights-oriented NGOs and rightist-conservative movements. In the US, Black Lives Matter has responded to specific killings, and then also harnessed a wider set of grievances about black communities’ abrogated rights. 

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Political Critique: We will save Europe! The problem with Macron’s rhetorical loop

Watching Macron’s speech at the Sorbonne last week it was exactly this – the show’s leitmotif – that came to mind. I don’t want to caricature an intervention that was valid in many ways, founded on a courageous vision and delivered with a charisma that was both strong and sober, but the more insidious ‘loop’ at its base. Indeed Macron’s intervention can certainly be seen as necessary in a context where there are so few innovative ideas. And it might actually be useful if – as it seemed to many – this was a search for an interlocutor, a way to open a dialogue, while putting his opinion out there. [...]

Let’s look at the facts. No European country has a majority that prioritises ‘being European’ over its own nationality (Eurobarometer May 2017). How we see Europe, what it is and what we think it should do varies from region to region, country to country. If for some Italian citizens it might seem an urgent priority to confront the migration question, and to worry about it, many other countries have shown they are not in agreement with solving this in a shared manner. Not to mention the economic rigour of Germany which has created resentment in half the continent but has been a landmark in the country’s domestic politics. With so many competing priorities what we are left with is a mosaic of different visions about what European institutions should be and do, dictated by internal political dynamics that necessarily have repercussions on the relationships – and power balance – between different nations.

The six ‘key points’ identified by the French President – youth, innovation, common defence, a joint eurozone budget, climate change, migration – will need to transform themselves into a passpartù, capable of opening the national gates that limit action within existing political communities. The alternative, that no leader of state can really permit, is a great relinquishing of sovereignty. Leaving aside the possibility of the collapse of the European Union, the game is played around these two extremes: either more sharing or greater concessions. In both cases it is necessary to know what ‘this Europe’ really is. Without this, the risk is that of remaining stuck inside the Pinky and the Brain loop.

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BBC4 Profile: Antonio Guterres

On Profile this week, we look at the life and career of the world's top diplomat - the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres.

When he opened the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, the 68 year old former Portuguese Prime Minister warned the world was in danger, "in pieces" and needed putting back together again.

So, who is he and how does he plan to go about it?

Mark Coles talks to childhood friends, political colleagues past and present - even Portugal's President - who help explain the events and personal tragedies that have shaped Guterres and led him to take on arguably the most difficult job on the planet.

Floods, cancer, Catholicism, chocolate and cheese...everything you need to know about new UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, on Profile this week.

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BBC4 Thinking Allowed: The Triumph of Tribalism

Andrew Sullivan on how America has become "a truly tribal society".

"I've lived here since the Reagan era", he writes, "and there have been plenty of divides. But none quite as tribal or as rooted in non-negotiable identity as this one".

He warns of what the outcome might be and reminds the listener that a liberal democracy is always a precarious enterprise.

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The Atlantic: The Toxic Nostalgia of Brexit

More than a year on from the Brexit referendum, the meaning of the result—both why it happened and where it will lead—is as unclear as it is non-negotiable. Politicians and journalists have tried in vain to interpret Brexit, labelling it, among other things, a “working-class revolt,” a working-class “tantrum” (as the current Europe minister diagnosed it at the conference), an “English revolt,” a “free-market revolution,” a “victory for real, ordinary people” and a corruption of democracy by a small, scheming elite. All these readings contain kernels of truth: “Brexit” was a blank canvas onto which a people projected their personal fantasies, fears, and fury. But Brexit cannot appease them all. [...]

As for these (other) Brits who want to remain in the EU, the sense of leaving is hard to see. To escape the bureaucracy of Brussels, Britain is undertaking perhaps the greatest bureaucratic mission in its history, replacing or replicating over 40 years of EU law, trade agreements, and institutions, with the perverse hope that the country will look no different afterwards. To expedite this task, May is pushing through a piece of legislation, known as the Withdrawal Bill, that will nullify parliamentary scrutiny until Brexit is complete, despite Brexit’s ostensible aim of enhancing the power of the British parliament. With similar absurdity, Britain is leaving the world’s largest free-trade area with the ambition of becoming a “champion of free-trade,” as Johnson envisions, and is seizing control of its borders to “embrace the world,” according to May. Becoming a “global Britain” is the destiny-du-jour. (Because of Britain’s supposedly strong reputation abroad, “the phrase global Britain makes sense,” Johnson explained during his conference speech. “If you said global China or global Russia or even, alas, global America, it would not have quite the same flavor.”)  [...]

“This is Magna Carta, it’s the Burgesses coming at Parliament, it’s the great reform bill, it’s the bill of rights, it’s Waterloo, it’s Agincourt, it’s Crecy,” Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg declared in one of his (many) conference speeches. “We win all of these things.” According to a recent poll, almost two-thirds of Leave voters are ready for the battle ahead: They believe that “significant damage to the British economy” is a “price worth paying” for Brexit. Among over-65s, this number rises to 71 percent, with half of them even ready to accept a family member losing their job for the cause. [...]

Brexit, in this regard, is already a success. Because, finally, Britain can speak of itself in the lofty language of “destiny”: its “place in the world,” its glorious past and glorious future, a fairy-tale distraction from the dull failures of its domestic politics—soaring inequality, falling living standards and poor economic growth. “The eyes of the world are upon us,” May declared in Florence. It doesn’t matter if none of this is true—the world is more indifferent to our fairy tales than we like to think. All that matters is that we’re allowed live that life again, illusory or not. Brexit is partly theater, and Britain’s soul has taken the stage—that’s why everyone must play along. “Throughout its membership, the United Kingdom has never totally felt at home being in the European Union,” May consoled the crowd in Florence. “And perhaps because of our history and geography, the European Union never felt to us like an integral part of our national story in the way it does to so many elsewhere in Europe.” Boris Johnson also admired Britain’s natural inclination to “diverge from the great accumulated conglomerate.” Now, he says, “we will be able to intensify old friendships around the world, not least with fast-growing Commonwealth economies.” For Boris, some 70 years on, Britain’s “post-imperial future” is bright.

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