Suppression Of Dissent Research Articles

Activism without “Radicalism”: American Activism on Behalf of Conscientious Objectors during World War I

This article explores the tactics that civilian activists used to influence U.S. War Department policies and U.S. Army procedures regarding conscientious objectors during World War I. The varying nature of civilian activists' tactics during the war points to a sustained desire to effect change and the important realization that in order to do so, activists had to remain “nonradical” in the government's eyes. Furthermore, activists operated during a time of intense government suppression of dissent, which made their desire to remain “nonradical” both more urgent and more difficult to achieve. This article concludes with analysis of an organization that activists carefully crafted to appear “nonradical” in order to effect radical change.

Ordering Peace: Thailand's 2016 Constitutional Referendum

Thailand’s August 2016 constitutional referendum marked the second occasion on which a military junta has sought popular endorsement to legitimize its efforts to reform the country’s political system. As in the previous referendum of August 2007, Thai voters endorsed military plans to reduce levels of democracy. Draconian moves by the regime curtailed open debate about the content of the draft constitution, which virtually nobody had read. Partly as a result of the junta’s suppression of dissent, “No” votes declined — but the draft charter was still opposed by almost 40 per cent of voters, testifying to continuing high levels of political polarization along regional lines. This article argues that the referendum process may have helped the military to impose order on Thai society during the difficult period of royal transition, but did not create any genuine peace between the country’s fractious competing groups and interests.

Lincoln’s Autocrat: The Life of Edwin Stanton by William Marvel

Reviewed by: Lincoln’s Autocrat: The Life of Edwin Stantonby William Marvel Angela M. Zombek Lincoln’s Autocrat: The Life of Edwin Stanton. By William Marvel. Civil War America. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015. Pp. xx, 611. $35.00, ISBN 978-1-4696-2249-1.) In Lincoln’s Autocrat: The Life of Edwin Stanton, William Marvel paints an extraordinarily detailed portrait of the life of Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of war. Marvel, like Elizabeth D. Leonard in her biography, Lincoln’s Forgotten Ally: Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt of Kentucky(Chapel Hill, 2011), spotlights a key figure in the Lincoln administration and reveals the instrumental role that cabinet members played in orchestrating the war effort, ensuring loyalty, and consolidating federal power during the sectional crisis. According to Marvel, Edwin Stanton, the humble Steubenville, Ohio, native born during the War of 1812, matured to be a power-hungry, deceptive, self-interested legal mind who brought the federal government into a “virtual dictatorship” during the Civil War’s second year, especially as dissident newspaper editors were targeted (p. 221). Marvel’s treatment of Stanton is admittedly harsh in light of the author’s purpose to correct and counterbalance Stanton: The Life and Times of Lincoln’s Secretary of War(New York, 1962) by Harold M. Hyman, who completed the unfinished project begun by Benjamin H. Thomas. Hyman, according to Marvel, depicted Stanton in the most shining light possible, overlooking and excusing his administrative mistakes and downplaying his calculating nature. [End Page 941]Marvel contends that Stanton’s early development significantly influenced how he maneuvered his way to power in the federal government and in Lincoln’s administration. Marvel provides a masterful overview of Stanton’s youth in Steubenville, the struggles of his parents, his personal trials, especially the death of his beloved first wife, and challenges he faced and overcame in making a name for himself in the legal profession. One of the major strengths of Marvel’s work is how he situates Stanton’s personal life and experiences within the political, social, and economic dynamics of the nineteenth century. Most chapters open with national vignettes giving a clear sense of how Stanton and his family experienced and reacted to economic downturns and political crises like the bank war and the South’s secession. That said, it would have been helpful if chapter titles reflected the chronological progression of Stanton’s life and experiences, instead of being based on vaguely descriptive phrases that ultimately do not match the level of detail that Marvel brings to his depiction of Stanton’s life. That minor quibble aside, Marvel achieves his objective of reassessing Stanton’s life and demonstrating just how manipulative, ambitious, and intense Stanton was as he built his legal career and became a powerful member of Lincoln’s cabinet despite his “lack of experience and aversion to all things military” before his appointment as secretary of war (p. 150). Subtle criticisms such as these reinforce Marvel’s purpose as he depicts how Stanton used his position to attack General George B. McClellan, flip-flopped on issues like emancipation and the arming of black soldiers to appease whatever constituency was serving as his immediate audience, adopted a hard line on prisoner exchanges to give the North a numerical advantage, and left a legacy as one who treaded heavily and, according to Marvel, unnecessarily on civil liberties. Here again lies another of Marvel’s minor flaws—his narrative does not aim to shift the scholarly conversation on civil liberties and suppression of dissent during wartime that is led by Mark E. Neely Jr., among others. But Marvel’s blatantly critical depiction of Stanton often ignores much of the war’s broader context that led to the Lincoln administration’s restriction of civil liberties. Marvel often makes these issues seem primarily about Stanton’s ego rather than decisions inspired by the exigencies of war. Nonetheless, Marvel’s extraordinarily detailed and meticulously researched work is eye-opening, providing a window not only into Stanton’s life and personal challenges but also into how nineteenth-century Americans experienced day-to-day life. Angela M. Zombek St. Petersburg College Copyright © 2016 The Southern Historical...

Introduction

China’s emergence as a major global power is reshaping the cyber domain. The country has the world’s largest internet-user community, a growing economic footprint and increasingly capable military and intelligence services. Harnessing these assets, it is pursuing a patient, assertive foreign policy that seeks to determine how information and communications technologies are governed and deployed. This policy is likely to have significant normative impact, with potentially adverse implications for a global order that has been shaped by Western liberal democracies. And, even as China goes out into the world, there are signs that new technologies are becoming powerful tools for domestic social control and the suppression of dissent abroad.Western policymakers are struggling to meet this challenge. While there is much potential for good in a self-confident China that is willing to invest in the global commons, there is no guarantee that the country’s growth and modernisation will lead inexorably to democratic political reform. This Adelphi book examines the political, historical and cultural development of China’s cyber power, in light of its evolving internet, intelligence structures, military capabilities and approach to global governance. As China attempts to gain the economic benefits that come with global connectivity while excluding information seen as a threat to stability, the West will be forced to adjust to a world in which its technological edge is fast eroding and can no longer be taken for granted.

Battle for the Soul of the Internet

China’s emergence as a major global power is reshaping the cyber domain. The country has the world’s largest internet-user community, a growing economic footprint and increasingly capable military and intelligence services. Harnessing these assets, it is pursuing a patient, assertive foreign policy that seeks to determine how information and communications technologies are governed and deployed. This policy is likely to have significant normative impact, with potentially adverse implications for a global order that has been shaped by Western liberal democracies. And, even as China goes out into the world, there are signs that new technologies are becoming powerful tools for domestic social control and the suppression of dissent abroad.Western policymakers are struggling to meet this challenge. While there is much potential for good in a self-confident China that is willing to invest in the global commons, there is no guarantee that the country’s growth and modernisation will lead inexorably to democratic political reform. This Adelphi book examines the political, historical and cultural development of China’s cyber power, in light of its evolving internet, intelligence structures, military capabilities and approach to global governance. As China attempts to gain the economic benefits that come with global connectivity while excluding information seen as a threat to stability, the West will be forced to adjust to a world in which its technological edge is fast eroding and can no longer be taken for granted.

Cyber Espionage

China’s emergence as a major global power is reshaping the cyber domain. The country has the world’s largest internet-user community, a growing economic footprint and increasingly capable military and intelligence services. Harnessing these assets, it is pursuing a patient, assertive foreign policy that seeks to determine how information and communications technologies are governed and deployed. This policy is likely to have significant normative impact, with potentially adverse implications for a global order that has been shaped by Western liberal democracies. And, even as China goes out into the world, there are signs that new technologies are becoming powerful tools for domestic social control and the suppression of dissent abroad.Western policymakers are struggling to meet this challenge. While there is much potential for good in a self-confident China that is willing to invest in the global commons, there is no guarantee that the country’s growth and modernisation will lead inexorably to democratic political reform. This Adelphi book examines the political, historical and cultural development of China’s cyber power, in light of its evolving internet, intelligence structures, military capabilities and approach to global governance. As China attempts to gain the economic benefits that come with global connectivity while excluding information seen as a threat to stability, the West will be forced to adjust to a world in which its technological edge is fast eroding and can no longer be taken for granted.

Evolution of the Chinese Internet: Freedom and Control

China’s emergence as a major global power is reshaping the cyber domain. The country has the world’s largest internet-user community, a growing economic footprint and increasingly capable military and intelligence services. Harnessing these assets, it is pursuing a patient, assertive foreign policy that seeks to determine how information and communications technologies are governed and deployed. This policy is likely to have significant normative impact, with potentially adverse implications for a global order that has been shaped by Western liberal democracies. And, even as China goes out into the world, there are signs that new technologies are becoming powerful tools for domestic social control and the suppression of dissent abroad.Western policymakers are struggling to meet this challenge. While there is much potential for good in a self-confident China that is willing to invest in the global commons, there is no guarantee that the country’s growth and modernisation will lead inexorably to democratic political reform. This Adelphi book examines the political, historical and cultural development of China’s cyber power, in light of its evolving internet, intelligence structures, military capabilities and approach to global governance. As China attempts to gain the economic benefits that come with global connectivity while excluding information seen as a threat to stability, the West will be forced to adjust to a world in which its technological edge is fast eroding and can no longer be taken for granted.

Military Cyber Capabilities

China’s emergence as a major global power is reshaping the cyber domain. The country has the world’s largest internet-user community, a growing economic footprint and increasingly capable military and intelligence services. Harnessing these assets, it is pursuing a patient, assertive foreign policy that seeks to determine how information and communications technologies are governed and deployed. This policy is likely to have significant normative impact, with potentially adverse implications for a global order that has been shaped by Western liberal democracies. And, even as China goes out into the world, there are signs that new technologies are becoming powerful tools for domestic social control and the suppression of dissent abroad.Western policymakers are struggling to meet this challenge. While there is much potential for good in a self-confident China that is willing to invest in the global commons, there is no guarantee that the country’s growth and modernisation will lead inexorably to democratic political reform. This Adelphi book examines the political, historical and cultural development of China’s cyber power, in light of its evolving internet, intelligence structures, military capabilities and approach to global governance. As China attempts to gain the economic benefits that come with global connectivity while excluding information seen as a threat to stability, the West will be forced to adjust to a world in which its technological edge is fast eroding and can no longer be taken for granted.

The Surgical Elimination of Violence? Conflicting Attitudes towards Technology and Science during the Psychosurgery Controversy of the 1970s.

In the 1970s a public controversy erupted over the proposed use of brain operations to curtail violent behavior. Civil libertarians, civil rights and community activists, leaders of the anti-psychiatry movement, and some U.S. Congressmen charged psychosurgeons and the National Institute of Mental Health, with furthering a political project: the suppression of dissent. Several government-sponsored investigations into psychosurgery rebutted this charge and led to an official qualified endorsement of the practice while calling attention to the need for more "scientific" understanding and better ethical safeguards. This paper argues that the psychosurgery debate of the 1970s was more than a power struggle between members of the public and the psychiatric establishment. The debate represented a clash between a postmodern skepticism about science and renewed focus on ultimate ends, on the one hand, and a modern faith in standards and procedures, a preoccupation with means, on the other. These diverging commitments made the dispute ultimately irresolvable.

The Martyr Pop Moment: Depoliticizing Martyrdom

ABSTRACTThe military regime that seized power in Egypt in July 2013 has suggested that the security personnel, rather than the unarmed protestors who died in the 25 January 2011 uprising, were the martyrs that the nation should celebrate. This rhetorical claim in support of authoritarian suppression of dissent must be understood in the context of the popular culture of the immediate post-Mubarak period, particularly the ‘martyr pop’ music video clips. This mass-media form disseminated a strategically ambiguous rhetoric that celebrated the martyrs but largely ignored the political cause for which they died. Such depoliticization of martyrdom suited the sensibilities of the intellectual class, whose economic and political investments in the hegemony of the neoliberal state outweighed their stated commitments to political change.

Graduate students as proxy mobbing targets: insights from three Mexican universities

Struggles between academics often involve mobbing and suppression of dissent and discontent. In some of these struggles, graduate students become targets as an indirect method of attacking their supervisors or mentors. Three case studies from Mexico are used to develop a preliminary framework for classifying and understanding methods used in such attacks. Some suggestions for responding to proxy attacks are outlined

Teaching and Learning Guide for: ‘Securitizing America: Strategic Incapacitation and the Policing of Protest Since the 11 September 2011 Terrorist attacks’

Teaching and Learning Guide for: ‘Securitizing America: Strategic Incapacitation and the Policing of Protest Since the 11 September 2011 Terrorist attacks’

The Impact of Military Rule on Democracy in Nigeria

The paper seeks to explain the rationale of the militarize dispositions of politicians in the current democracy. It adopts descriptive and case history perspective, asserting that the behavioral trend is an outcome of the long years of military governance. The military rulership affects the executive, legislature, the judiciary and the civil society. The values and norms imbibe manifests in the practice of the current democracy. This explicates the use of force rather than dialogue in the suppression of dissent in 'Odi', and 'Zaki-biam', disobedience of the court orders, closure of media houses, the arrest of journalists and militancy as in the Niger-Delta . Democracy should be based on its values; the actors should learn these from the Center for Democracy, to replace the military ethos, which they display with recklessness in the democratic environment. It is instructive to note that the era of military rule can only end with good governance.

THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN: SHARI‘A POLITICS AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF ISLAMIC LAW

Although in many Muslim societies, there is a great deal of popular enthusiasm for strengthening criminal codes by relying on shari‘a rulings, Iran's Islamic experience of the past three decades has led to very different viewpoints about shari‘a and its compatibility with the modern legal structures of a Muslim-majority country. Studying the Iranian case shows how difficult it is to implement laws based on shari‘a. Moreover, the disillusioning experiences of clerical despotism since the Revolution of 1979, corruption, gross mismanagement of Iran's faltering economy, harsh suppression of dissent, and an even harsher stance on criminal justice (codified in the Islamic Penal Code) have provoked increasing alienation and anticlericalism in Iran.

The free press crisis of 1800: Thomas Cooper's trial for seditious libel

The far-reaching Sedition Act of 1798 was introduced by Federalists to suppress Republican support of French revolutionaries and imposed fines and imprisonment if any person shall write, print, utter or publish . . . scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States. Such a broadly and loosely defined offense challenged the freedom of the American press and gave the government the power to drag offending newspaper editors into court. The trial of Thomas Cooper in particular became an important showcase for debating the dangers and limits of the new law, one with great implications for both the new republic and federal constitutional law. Cooper's trial has now been rescued from long neglect and illuminated by Peter Charles Hoffer, one our nation's preeminent legal historians. While most modern students of the Sedition Act regard it as an extreme measure motivated by partisan malice, Hoffer offers a much more nuanced view that weighs all the arguments and fairly considers the position of each side in historical and legal context. Hoffer sets the stage by revisiting both the much better known 1735 trial of Peter Zenger and the subsequent fashioning of the First Amendment during the first meeting of the U.S. Congress.. He then describes the rise of political factions in the early republic, congressional debate over the Sedition Act, and Thomas Jefferson's and James Madison's Kentucky and Virginia Resolves. After a close reading of Cooper's allegedly seditious writings, Hoffer brings the trial record to life, capturing prosecution and defense strategies, including Cooper's attempt to subpoena President Adams and Federalist trial judge Samuel Chase's management of the prosecution from the bench. Long after the Federalists had departed the scene, echoes of the free-press crisis continued to roil American politics-reappearing in the debates over antislavery petitions, the suppression of dissent during the Civil War and two world wars, and most recently in the trials of suspected terrorists. Hoffer's book is an authoritative review of this landmark case and a vital touchstone for anyone concerned about the role of government and the place of dissent in times of national emergency.

Dubai: gilded cage

In less than two decades, Dubai has transformed itself from an obscure Gulf emirate into a global center for business, tourism, and luxury living. It is a fascinating case study in light-speed urban development, hyperconsumerism, massive immigration, and vertiginous inequality. Its rulers have succeeded in making Dubai into a worldwide brand, publicizing its astonishing hotels and leisure opportunities while at the same time successfully downplaying its complex policies towards guest workers and suppression of dissent. In this enormously readable book, Syed Ali delves beneath the dazzling surface to analyze how-and at what cost-Dubai has achieved such success. Ali brings alive a society rigidly divided between expatriate Westerners living self-indulgent lifestyles on short-term work visas, native Emiratis who are largely passive observers and beneficiaries of what Dubai has become, and workers from the developing world who provide the manual labor and domestic service needed to keep the emirate running, often at great personal cost.

After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness?

This article examines a small number of documentary films made since 2000 which focus on the post-genocide situation in Rwanda. It begins by tracing some of the debates about the contested versions of national unity and reconciliation produced by the RPF-led government, which seeks, at least at the level of its rhetoric, to transcend the politics of ethnicity and to end once and for all the culture of impunity which is seen as one of the root causes of the genocide. Acknowledging that the government has achieved a measure of peace and security in a relatively short space of time, critics argue that ethnicity is, however, still an issue in Rwanda and that there is an official RPF narrative — `we are all Rwandans now' — which many academics, journalists and NGO officials have bought into, while at the same time ignoring the elements of authoritarianism and the suppression of dissent which, it is claimed, mark the behaviour of the ruling, Tutsi-dominated elite. The documentary films are analysed in the context of these conflicting accounts of the complexities of the reconciliation process and are shown as cultural practices which reflect upon the contradictions and tensions manifested in the attempts to find top-down solutions to problems which require sensitive deployment of local knowledge, local resources and the experiences of everyday life in still predominantly rural Rwanda.

Jules Boykoff, Beyond Bullets: The Suppression of Dissent in the United States

Jules Boykoff, Beyond Bullets: The Suppression of Dissent in the United States

Jules Boykoff, "Beyond Bullets: The Suppression of Dissent in the United States" (Oakland: AK Press, 2007)

Left History features articles from a variety of theoretical approaches; these include feminist, marxist, and postmodernist deliberations on topics such as race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, culture, the state, labour, the environment, theory, and method.

Surveillance and Social Movements: Lenses on the Repression-Mobilization Nexus

Police monitoring of law-abiding activists at protest events. A CIA-sponsored program dedicated to investigating financial transac tions. An NSA initiative to collect data from massive numbers of domestic phone calls. The Pentagon's aborted Terrorism Informa tion and Prevention System, TIPS, and Total Information Awareness programs. The USA Patriot Act. Over the last half-decade, Ameri can citizens have been bombarded with a dizzying array of issues and controversies re lated to state surveillance initiatives. While the potential impact of surveillance activities is widespread-some claim, for instance, that the recent NSA program sought to obtain da ta from every call placed in the U.S.-its ef fects are most squarely centered on settings that pose a challenge to the institutional po litical status quo. It is clear that such efforts have enormous potential effects on the shape of political contention, and that these effects emerge in multifaceted ways. Rich historical accounts offer a window into these complexities. Take Jeremy Varon's Bringing the War Home, a compelling and nuanced chronicle of New Leftist militancy in the U.S. and Germany dur ing the 1960s and 1970s. Varon focuses on two organizations in particular: the Weather Underground (WU) in America and the West German Red Army Faction (RAF). While not a comparative study per se, he uses these two juxtaposed cases to develop a layered analysis of how activists in both countries came to embrace violent revolutionary ac tion, and how varied interactions with the state and civil society shaped their distinct trajectories. Policing agencies in both nations em ployed a variety of means to actively monitor and disrupt the WU and RAF. Surveillance through wiretaps, agent observation of pub lic events, illegal break-ins, and infiltration by informants and provocateurs-constituted the meat of the state's repressive efforts, at least in the U.S. Varon notes that, even be fore the Weatherman organization went un The Suppression of Dissent: How the State and Mass Media Squelch US American Social Movements, by Jules Boykoff. New York, NY: Routledge, 2006. 288 pp. $80.00 cloth. ISBN: 0415978106.