Chatter: Lessons from the Decade of Mass Protests, with Vincent Bevins

From the protests in Brazil initially focused on bus fares to the protests in Hong Kong seeking to stop an extradition bill to the protests across the Middle East now collectively referred to as the "Arab Spring," the political and economic mass demonstrations from 2010 to 2020 made it a decade of public protest like no other. Yet the vast majority of these efforts failed to bring about their desired changes--and many of them actually led to the opposite of what they wanted. Vincent Bevins, author of the new book If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution, has chronicled this decade with stories from his on-the-ground reporting and extensive interviews with activists in ten countries around the globe.

David Priess spoke with Vincent about why mass protests during this decade so often fell short of their objectives, the principle of horizontalism, the role of social media in mobilization and action, and other themes as they relate to the mass protests in Brazil, Turkey, Hong Kong, Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Syria, South Korea, and other countries.

Among the works mentioned in this episode:

• The book If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution by Vincent Bevins
• The movie The Candidate
• The book From Mobilization to Revolution by Charles Tilly
• The book Minor Detail by Adania Shibli
• The book Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus by Georgi Derluguian

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Noam Osband and Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.