CTSJ 205 After the Arab Spring: Lessons on the Future of Resistance, Technology and New Modes of Power
In the wake of the democratic protest movements across North Africa and the Middle East in 2011 and the violent suppression of the 2009 pro-democracy revolt in Iran, we have seen the strident reassertion of authoritarian politics in both religious and secular forms and, in some places, a collapse into war. This course takes up a series of questions seeking to understand the aspirations of the activists and intellectuals who drove those promising movements. What did they mean by democracy, by empowerment, and by liberation? What political conditions did they find intolerable such that they risked their lives to change them? What political future did they envision? How do they assess the political outcomes of their various and distinct movements? What can we learn from the outcomes of those movements about the limits of protest and internet-era technology as a tool for political mobilization? What is the next generation of democracy activists doing to build the capacities, habits, and institutions necessary to bring positive liberatory change to their societies?