BY MARK N. KATZ Largely quiescent for decades, the Arab world has experienced a surprising—and surprisingly powerful—wave of revolutionary activity beginning in January 2011 and continuing ever since then. So far, the “Arab Spring,” as it is popularly known, has resulted in the downfall of Tunisia’s Zene el-Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak. Although [...]
BY AZIZ ABU SARAH The series of Arab protests that started in Tunisia caught governments around the world by surprise. Western powers were confident that Arab leaders would quickly restore calm, and Arab leaders trusted they would be able to crush the protests. Western leaders in particular were so sure of the status quo that [...]
BY KARINA V. KOROSTELINA The Orange Revolution in Ukraine was not just a series of protests and mass non-violent actions in the fall and winter of 2004-2005. It was an event that inspired people, especially young to believe in their own agency, their own ability to influence government and change the country for the best. [...]
BY BASSAM HADDAD I would like to start by positing two remarks about the recent events in the region. I use the word events deliberately to underscore the multitude of problematic and misleading ways in which the protests have been characterized, interpreted, connected, and written off by observers. Are these revolutions, or as Asef Bayat [...]
BY RICARDO F. VIVANCOS PÉREZ In spring 2011, massive protests in Mexico and Spain placed youth center stage in the Hispanic world.1 In Mexico, non-violent demonstrations against drug-related violence, corruption, and impunity—organized by the Movimiento Paz con Justicia y Dignidad (MPJD)2—included a silent protest in Mexico City on May 8, and the Caravana del Consuelo or [...]
BY JO-MARIE BURT 1 On a warm spring afternoon in Lima this past November, several people stood vigil outside the National Criminal Court in the hours before the verdict in the Parcco-Pomatambo case was to be handed down.1 At the center of the vigil was an old-fashioned scale, adorned in pink roses, with candles lit [...]
BY KATHRYN JACOBSON, JILL NELSON & KAREN OWEN Limited access to health information and services is one of the many challenges common to rural residents around the world, especially those who live in low income countries. One way to reach out to isolated populations is through radio communications that can provide timely and locally-appropriate information [...]
BY JOAN BRISTOL Mexico has multiple and contradictory identities in the imaginations of both Mexicans and foreigners. Ads and popular media romanticize Mexico as the land of mariachis, beaches, and picturesque ruins of ancient civilizations. Increasing instability, however, due to the drug trade and loss of governmental control in many areas has replaced romance with [...]
BY JO-MARIE BURT In spring 2008, the Transitional/Transnational Justice Working Group, a group of Mason faculty and graduate students interested in issues of global justice and human rights, launched the Human Rights, Global Justice and Democracy Project. The project’s central concern is to examine how societies that experienced mass atrocity cope with the legacies of [...]
BY SUSAN BENESCH Once unimaginable, prosecutions for state-sponsored atrocities are multiplying rapidly. They continue to deliver new milestones, both by expanding transnationally and by reaching previously untouchable defendants. Some trials astonish even their own proponents, as this symposium illustrated: Peru’s conviction of its former head of state Alberto Fujimori in April left Ronald Gamarra Herrera [...]