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    In July, the Trump-era wave of protests started taking a back seat to campaign rallies
    Erica Chenoweth. 10/19/2018. “In July, the Trump-era wave of protests started taking a back seat to campaign rallies.” The Washington Post. See full text.Abstract

    Erica Chenoweth and Jeremy Pressman contribute to The Washington Post's monthly series on political crowds in the United States. 

    For 18 months now, as we’ve counted attendance at political gatherings around the United States, we’ve seen crowds in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For the first time since President Trump’s inauguration, we found one state with no political gatherings. In all, in July, we tallied 743 protests, demonstrations, strikes, marches, sit-ins, rallies and walkouts in all states and the District — except South Dakota.

    Our conservative guess is that between 71,502 and 73,483 people showed up at these political events, although more probably showed up, as well. This number is the lowest in one month that we’ve seen since December 2017. This year, January, March and June included some of the highest protest numbers in U.S. history, and June featured unusually high attendance because of LGBTQ Pride, Families Belong Together (which protested the policy that separated migrant families at the border), and the Poor People’s Campaign, among others.

    Read the full article. 

    Here’s What Erick Erickson Gets Wrong About Dictators and Migration
    Kathryn Sikkink. 12/4/2018. “Here’s What Erick Erickson Gets Wrong About Dictators and Migration.” The Washington Post. See full text.Abstract
    In a recent op-ed, conservative writer Erik Erickson argued that the U.S. government should support the “next Pinochets” to create more stability in Latin America and stop the flow of refugees seeking access to the United States.

    The remark was instantly controversial because Augusto Pinochet was a Chilean dictator who committed massive human rights abuses.

    Read the full article here.

    People Power is Rising in Africa
    Zoe Marks, Erica Chenoweth, and Jide Okeke. 4/25/2019. “People Power is Rising in Africa.” Foreign Affairs. See full text.Abstract
    New article in Foreign Affairs from Carr Center's Zoe Marks and Erica Chenoweth, with Jide Okeke, delineates how protest movements are succeeding where even global arrest warrants can’t.

    A new tide of people power is rising in Africa. On April 2, a nonviolent resistance movement in Algeria succeeded in pressuring Abdelaziz Bouteflika to resign after 20 years as president. Nine days later, protesters in Sudan were celebrating the ouster of Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s president of 30 years, after a three-month-long uprising against his regime.

    The nonviolent overthrows of Bouteflika and Bashir are not aberrations. They reflect a surprising trend across the continent: despite common perceptions of Africa as wracked by violence and conflict, since 2000, most rebellions there have been unarmed and peaceful. Over the past decade, mass uprisings in Africa have accounted for one in three of the nonviolent campaigns aiming to topple dictatorships around the world. Africa has seen 25 new, nonviolent mass movements—almost twice as many as Asia, the next most active region with 16.

    Read the full article on Foreign Affairs.

    protest_01
    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.

    Elections Under Oppression in Cambodia: A Predictable Outcome?
    Sreang Heng. 9/4/2018. “Elections Under Oppression in Cambodia: A Predictable Outcome?” Yale Macmillan Center. See full text.Abstract
    Read more on the Cambodian elections by by Sreang Heng, Carr Center fellow.
     
    "On July 29, 2018, another parliamentary election was held in Cambodia. When the commune elections had been held on June 4, 2017, they were followed by complaints and recounts, but the official results showed that the two major rival parties had won the majority of votes: the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) received 1,156 communes (out of 1,646) while its opposition party, the Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) won 489. The Khmer National United Party received only one."

    Full publication.

    Deepfakes are Solvable—but Don’t Forget That “shallowfakes” are Already Pervasive
    Mark Latonero. 3/25/2019. “Deepfakes are Solvable—but Don’t Forget That “shallowfakes” are Already Pervasive.” MIT Technology Review. See full text.Abstract
    New article features Carr Center Technology and Human Rights Fellow Mark Latonero.

    " Mark Latonero, human rights lead at Data & Society, a nonprofit institute dedicated to the applications of data, agreed that technology companies should be doing more to tackle such issues. While Microsoft, Google, Twitter, and others have employees focused on human rights, he said, there was so much more they should be doing before they deploy technologies—not after."
    Big Tech Firms are Racing to Track Climate Refugees
    Mark Latonero. 5/17/2019. “Big Tech Firms are Racing to Track Climate Refugees.” MIT Technology Review. See full text.Abstract
    The MIT Technology Review features new report by Carr Center Technology and Human Rights Fellow Mark Latonero.

    "Simply layering technology on top of existing humanitarian problems tends to exacerbate the issues it intended to resolve. In a new report on the role of digital identity in refugee and migrant contexts, a team of researchers at the Data & Society Research Institute, led by Mark Latonero, detail the various ways these initiatives can reproduce and worsen existing bureaucratic biases."

    https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613531/big-tech-firms-are-racing-to-track-climate-refugees/

    Critical Skill for Nonprofits in the Digital Age: Technical Intuition
    Alix Dunn. 5/7/2019. “Critical Skill for Nonprofits in the Digital Age: Technical Intuition.” Stanford Social Innovation Review. Listen to the Interview.Abstract

    Not everyone needs to become a tech expert, but all activists and nonprofit leaders must develop skills to inquire about, decide on, and demand technological change. Tech Fellow Alix Dunn talks to Stanford's Social Innovation Podcast. 

    In a world where the pace of organizational learning is often slower than the pace of technological change, activists and nonprofit leaders must develop their “technical intuition.” Not everyone needs to become a tech expert, explains Alix Dunn, of the consulting firm Computer Says Maybe, but this ongoing process of imagining, inquiring about, deciding on, and demanding technological change is critical.

    In this recording from the Stanford Social Innovation Review's 2019 Data on Purpose conference, Dunn walks through her guidelines to help anyone to develop these skills.

    We Can't Future-Proof Technology. But Here are 5 Ways to Forward Plan.
    Alexa Koenig and Sherif Elsayed-Ali. 1/5/2019. “We Can't Future-Proof Technology. But Here are 5 Ways to Forward Plan.” World Economic Forum . See full text.Abstract
    New article co-authored by Carr Center Technology and Human Rights Fellow Sherif Elsayed-Ali.

    "We know that the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution are drastically changing our world. This change is happening at a faster rate and greater scale than at any point in human history – and with that change come significant challenges to the ability of our public institutions and governments to adequately respond.

    From the plough to vaccines to computers, technological innovations have generally made human societies more productive. Over time, people have figured out how to mitigate their negative aspects. For example, electrical applications are much safer to use now than in the early days of electrification. Though we came close to disaster, since the Second World War the international political system has managed to contain the threat of nuclear weapons for mass destruction.

    However, the accelerating pace of change and the power of new technologies mean that negative unintended consequences will only become more frequent and more dangerous. What can we do today to help ensure that new technologies make life better, not worse?"

    https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/how-to-plan-for-technology-future-koenig-elsayed-ali/

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