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Erica Chenoweth, Deborah Avant, Marie Berry, Rachel Epstein, Cullen Hendrix, Oliver Kaplan, and Timothy Sisk. 9/25/2019. Civil Action and the Dynamics of Violence, Pp. 320. Oxford University Press. See full text.Abstract

This comprehensive study introduces scholars and practitioners to the concept of civil action. It locates civil action within the wider spectrum of behavior in the midst of civil conflict and war, and showcases empirical findings about the effects of civil action in nine cases from around the world. It explains the ways in which non-violent actions during civil war affect the dynamics of violence.

Many view civil wars as violent contests between armed combatants. But history shows that community groups, businesses, NGOs, local governments, and even armed groups can respond to war by engaging in civil action. Characterized by a reluctance to resort to violence and a willingness to show enough respect to engage with others, civil action can slow, delay, or prevent violent escalations. This volume explores how people in conflict environments engage in civil action, and the ways such action has affected violence dynamics in Syria, Peru, Kenya, Northern Ireland, Mexico, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Spain, and Colombia. These cases highlight the critical and often neglected role that civil action plays in conflicts around the world.



Luís Roberto Barroso. 9/9/2019. Technological Revolution, Democratic Recession and Climate Change: The Limits of Law in a Changing World. Carr Center Discussion Paper Series. 2019009th ed. Cambridge: Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. Publisher's VersionAbstract

ccdp_2019_009_technology_democracy.pdf

 Law is a universal institution that has pretensions of being ubiquitous and complete. However, in a complex, plural and volatile world, its limits and possibilities are shaken by the speed, depth and extent of ongoing transformations, its resulting ethical dilemmas, and the difficulties of forming consensus in the political universe.

This article provides a reflection on how the Law has attempted to deal with some of the main afflictions of our time, facing demands that include the needs to (i) keep the technological revolution on an ethical and humanistic track, (ii) avoid that democracy be perverted by populist and authoritarian adventures and (iii) prevent solutions to climate change from coming only when it is too late. At a time when even the near future has become unpredictable, Law cannot provide a priori solutions to multiplying problems and anxieties. When this happens, we must set clear goals for the future of humanity, basing them on the essential and perennial values that have followed us since antiquity.



Samantha Power. 9/10/2019. The Education of an Idealist. Dey Street Books. See full text.Abstract

In her memoir, Power offers an urgent response to the question "What can one person do?"—and a call for a clearer eye, a kinder heart, and a more open and civil hand in our politics and daily lives.

The Education of an Idealist traces Power’s distinctly American journey from immigrant to war correspondent to presidential Cabinet official. In 2005, her critiques of US foreign policy caught the eye of newly elected senator Barack Obama, who invited her to work with him on Capitol Hill and then on his presidential campaign. After Obama was elected president, Power went from being an activist outsider to a government insider, navigating the halls of power while trying to put her ideals into practice. She served for four years as Obama's human rights adviser, and in 2013, he named her US Ambassador to the United Nations, the youngest American to assume the role.

Power transports us from her childhood in Dublin to the streets of war-torn Bosnia to the White House Situation Room and the world of high-stakes diplomacy. Humorous and deeply honest, The Education of an Idealist lays bare the searing battles and defining moments of her life and shows how she juggled the demands of a 24/7 national security job with the challenge of raising two young children. Along the way, she illuminates the intricacies of politics and geopolitics, reminding us how the United States can lead in the world, and why we each have the opportunity to advance the cause of human dignity. Power's memoir is an unforgettable account of the power of idealism and of one person's fierce determination to make a difference.

 



Michelle G. Kurilla. 9/10/2019. “Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Talks Ethics and Technology at Kennedy School.” The Harvard Crimson. See full text.Abstract

Luís Roberto Barroso, current justice of the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil and senior fellow of the Harvard Kennedy School, warned that advances in technology will pose new dangers to Brazilian and American democratic institutions in a speech at the school Monday evening.

 

He said the development of artificial intelligence — which he called the “fourth industrial revolution” — will prompt urgent questions about the proper limits of freedom of expression on the internet, including ways to combat hate speech and fake news.

Read the full article here



David Robson. 5/13/2019. “The '3.5% rule': How a small minority can change the world.” BBC Future. Publisher's VersionAbstract

Research featuring Carr Center's Erica Chenoweth. 

Nonviolent protests are twice as likely to succeed as armed conflicts – and those engaging a threshold of 3.5% of the population have never failed to bring about change.
 

"In 1986, millions of Filipinos took to the streets of Manila in peaceful protest and prayer in the People Power movement. The Marcos regime folded on the fourth day.

In 2003, the people of Georgia ousted Eduard Shevardnadze through the bloodless Rose Revolution, in which protestors stormed the parliament building holding the flowers in their hands."

Read the full article on BBC Future.



Sigal Samuel. 8/7/2019. “Trump wants to “detect mass shooters before they strike.” It won’t work.” Vox.Abstract

New article on Vox highlights the work of Desmond Patton, Technology and Human Rights Fellow.

Patton, emphasized that current AI tools tend to identify the language of African American and Latinx people as gang-involved or otherwise threatening, but consistently miss the posts of white mass murderers.

"I think technology is a tool, not the tool," said Patton. "Often we use it as an escape so as to not address critical solutions that need to come through policy. We have to pair tech with gun reform. Any effort that suggests we need to do them separately, I don’t think that would be a successful effort at all.”

Read full article here. 



Erica Chenoweth. 10/23/2019. “The Science of contemporary Street Protest: New efforts in the United States.” Science Advances 5 (10). See full text.Abstract

Since the inauguration of Donald Trump, there has been substantial and ongoing protest against the Administration. Street demonstrations are some of the most visible forms of opposition to the Administration and its policies. This article reviews the two most central methods for studying street protest on a large scale: building comprehensive event databases and conducting field surveys of participants at demonstrations. After discussing the broader development of these methods, this article provides a detailed assessment of recent and ongoing projects studying the current wave of contention. Recommendations are offered to meet major challenges, including making data publicly available in near real time, increasing the validity and reliability of event data, expanding the scope of crowd surveys, and integrating ongoing projects in a meaningful way by building new research infrastructure.



Douglas A. Johnson and Kathryn Sikkink. 2/28/2019. “Any Us Military Intervention in Venezuela Will Be Counterproductive.” The Hill . Publisher's VersionAbstract

Op-Ed in The Hill by Douglas Johnson and Kathryn Sikkink.

Original post here.

It is so tempting to believe that U.S. military intervention offers a quick solution to the Venezuela crisis. And by military intervention, we don’t just mean a full-fledged invasion, but any action that involves U.S. military forcefully crossing an international border. We understand why some in the Venezuelan opposition urge the use of military force. It seems simple to have the U.S. intervene and stop the killing, the incompetence, the corruption that is today’s Venezuela.

As unarmed civilians attempt to bring needed food and medicine into the country, the Maduro government responded with blockades of international bridges and violence, beginning the killing that now headlines American news. U.S. officials warn that Maduro’s days are numbered and flash threats that the U.S. might intervene militarily, a move that would seem welcome to many Venezuelans, both at home and exile. Is that a good idea?

This should give us pause — at the very time that the U.S. is negotiating with the Taliban to withdraw from Afghanistan, perhaps ending 18 years of armed intervention and the forlorn hope of building a stable democracy. The equally destructive example of Iraq and its spillover into Syria is another warning that American intervention can stimulate the creation of new enemies.

But isn’t Venezuela different? There is a long tradition of democracy, eroded by a corrupt regime held in power by a small but powerful military. We now have an active leader of the opposition and massive numbers of citizens in the streets every day. Surely this is a time when American troops will be welcomed as liberators. And what about the examples of Grenada and Panama? Didn’t military intervention “work” there? But these small states have virtually no similarities to the political and geographic situation in Venezuela.

Hugo Chavez and Nicolás Maduro, fearing the history of invasion and U.S. supported coups, consciously armed and trained tens of thousands of their supporters into militias precisely to prepare for armed attacks against their governments. We should understand that the traditions of “going into the mountains” hold a fascination and moral example in Latin America. Better armed and trained than ever the FARC was in Colombia, would we wish a 50-year civil war on our southern neighbor?

Only one course of action will forestall this scenario: The Venezuelan military must render itself to its own people, not to a foreign power.

The political campaigns and pressures already underway offer very promising avenues for change. A campaign of non-recognition of the Maduro government has led to 50 countries recognizing Juan Guaido as president. This campaign is completely in line with Latin American and Venezuelan traditions. In 1907, an Ecuadoran Foreign Minister issued the Tobar Doctrine, calling for non-recognition of any government that came to power by non-constitutional means. In the 1950s, the democratically elected Venezuelan President Romulo Betancourt, followed with his “Betancourt Doctrine,” saying that Venezuela would deny diplomatic recognition to any government that came to power by unconstitutional means. At the time, not many Latin American countries followed suit, but since that time, the OAS has elaborated a legal and political framework to address governments that come to power illegally, as Maduro’s second term would be.

American intervention has a long history in Latin America; likewise, this has been a source of distrust and opposition throughout the Americas, one that Chavez & Maduro, Castro and others have nurtured and used to create political power. Perversely, the threat of American intervention strengthens Maduro’s core support, rather that weakens it.

Although this conflict may extend itself even longer and more unarmed civilians may be killed and more children may die from malnutrition and disease, there is hope that change will happen. And there is good evidence that this hope is the strategically best option for all.

Compelling evidence from Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan in their book “Why Civil Resistance Works” demonstrates that disciplined nonviolent movements are more effective overall, and generally quicker to good effect, than violent conflicts. Using an original data set of all known major nonviolent and violent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006, they show that nonviolent campaigns are more likely to win legitimacy and attract widespread support than violent movements. There are lessons to be learned from this evidence, and the Venezuelan opposition now seems to be heeding those lessons. Chenoweth and Stephan also find that nonviolent conflict is much more likely than violent efforts to lead to a democratic outcome. That is what we and what the Venezuelan people want. A U.S. military intervention would derail that success.

The Venezuelan movements against Maduro have been prolonged and often numerous with civilian participation, but the opposition parties were disunited, unable to create an inclusive vision to unite the population. It was easy for Maduro to dismiss the opposition as right-wing conservatives opposed to the inclusive vision promised by Chavez.

With the compelling leadership of Juan Guaido, that has changed. The opposition is united, not just under a charismatic leader, but with a broadening vision that has consciously reached out to the poor and other constituents of the Maduro regime, shifting their loyalties as only a nonviolent campaign can.

Chenoweth and Stephan identify what they call the “participation advantage” of nonviolent movements. Everyone can participate at levels of risk they are willing to undertake, publicly and privately creating resistance to the regime and raising its costs of repression. A wider demographic of participants brings in new tactics to keep the regime off balance; it brings in new networks of family, friendship, and influence that increase the likelihood of recruitment of military and security forces; and it brings legitimacy to an alternative vision for society.

These will be dangerous times for many activists, but it is their risks and sacrifices that can bring about a truly democratic change. Let us do nothing to rob them of their moments of courage and victory.

NOTE: This post has been updated from the original to update the number of countries recognizing Juan Guaido as president to 50.

Dr. Kathryn Sikkink (@kathryn_sikkink) is the Ryan Family Chair of Human Rights at the Harvard Kennedy School. Douglas A. Johnson is a Lecturer in Public Policy and the former Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy (@CarrCenter) at the Harvard Kennedy School.



Douglas A. Johnson. 6/25/2019. “Reclaiming Stonewall: Welcome to the Celebration—and the Struggle.” The Nation.Abstract

A new edition of The Nation examines the meaning of Stonewall. 


Guest edited by Timothy McCarthy, the issue asks us, 'What still needs to be done?'

• Read all of the essays.
• Read Timothy Mccarthy's framing essay, Reclaiming Stonewall: Welcome to the Celebration—and the Struggle.

"Anniversaries are occasions for remembrance, even pride and celebration, but they should also be moments of reckoning, which offer us the opportunity to reflect critically on where we come from, where we are, and where we go from here. 

To help us reckon with the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, The Nation invited a remarkable group of LGBTQ activists, artists, and academics to reflect on its many legacies. Ranging in age from 23 to 88 years old, the participants in “Reclaiming Stonewall” represent the stunning diversity of our community across generations. Combining the personal and the political, this collection of living queer histories is something of an archive of our moment, when many of us are grappling with what might be called the paradox of progress: the coexistence of important changes—in courtrooms and legislatures, hearts and minds—with seemingly intractable challenges.

As we reckon with the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, let us heed all these voices and ask, “What still needs to be done?” If the legacy and inheritance of Stonewall mean anything, it’s that our fight is far from over and that our collective struggle for liberation—for everyone—must continue."

—Timothy Patrick McCarthy



Alberto Mora. 3/15/2018. “Gina Haspel Is a Torturer. What Else Does the Senate Need to Know?” Politico . Publisher's VersionAbstract

A new Op-Ed by Carr Center Senior Fellow Alberto Mora in Politico.

President Donald Trump is notoriously hostile toward the CIA. He frequently denigrates it in public and reportedly rarely even bothers to read its reports. None of Trump’s critical tweets, utterances or acts, however, carries as much venom or has the potential for causing as much harm to the agency as the president’s recent nomination of Gina Haspel to serve as the CIA’s next director. If evidence were needed of the president’s continuing grudge against the agency, this is it.

Original post, in Politico, here.

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