In a world where attacks on the basic human rights and equal worth of all people are escalating, Advancing Equality reminds us of the critical role of constitutions in protecting equal rights. Analyzing the constitutions of all 193 United Nations countries, this book traces fifty years of change in constitution drafting and examines how stronger protections against discrimination, alongside core social and economic rights, can transform lives. Looking across gender, race and ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity, disability, social class, and migration status, the authors reveal whose rights are increasingly guaranteed in constitutions, identify which nations and groups lag behind, and share inspiring stories of activism and powerful court cases from around the globe. Advancing Equality serves as a comprehensive call to action for anyone who cares about their country’s future.

“Advancing Equality shows how far we have come around the world in protecting human rights, but also how far we still have to go. Working together and taking action, we can make sure everyone’s rights, particularly the most discriminated against and marginalized, are protected in every constitution and enforced by law and societal change to realize true equality and a better world.” ANTONIA KIRKLAND, Global Lead, Legal Equality and Access to Justice, at Equality Now

JODY HEYMANN is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, Director of the WORLD Policy Analysis Center, and Distinguished Professor of Public Policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and of Health Policy and Management at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. ALETA SPRAGUE is Senior Legal Analyst at the WORLD Policy Analysis Center and an attorney whose career has focused on advancing public policies and laws that address inequality. AMY RAUB is Principal Research Analyst at the WORLD Policy Analysis Center and an economist with over a decade of experience working on discrimination and inequality.

Listed by Unglue.it.

Von scheinbar unpolitischen Nachbarschaftswachen bis zu organisierten rechtsextremen Patrouillen - immer häufiger inszenieren sich Bürger*innen als alternative Ordnungsmacht. Nina Marie Bust-Bartels hat Bürgerwehren auf ihren Streifzügen begleitet und liefert Einblicke in die politischen Motivationen der Mitglieder. Mit ihrer Studie an der Schnittstelle von Soziologie, Ethnologie und Politikwissenschaft zeigt sie, warum vor allem Männer das staatliche Gewaltmonopol infrage stellen. Darüber hinaus untersucht sie erstmals Bürgerwehren als Strategie rechtsextremer Akteure, die durch die Kontrolle des öffentlichen Raumes politische Macht gewinnen wollen.

Listed by Unglue.it.

Civic life today is mediated. Communities small and large are now using connective platforms to share information, engage in local issues, facilitate vibrant debate, and advocate for social causes. In this timely book, Paul Mihailidisexplores the texture of daily engagement in civic life, and the resources—human, technological, and practical—that citizens employ when engaging in civic actions for positive social impact. In addition to examining the daily civic actions that are embedded in media and digital literacies and human connectedness, Mihailidis outlines a model for empowering young citizens to use media to meaningfully engage in daily life.

Listed by Unglue.it.

What is the relationship between design, power, and social justice? “Design justice” is an approach to design that is led by marginalized communities and that aims expilcitly to challenge, rather than reproduce, structural inequalities. It has emerged from a growing community of designers in various fields who work closely with social movements and community-based organizations around the world. This book explores the theory and practice of design justice, demonstrates how universalist design principles and practices erase certain groups of people—specifically, those who are intersectionally disadvantaged or multiply burdened under the matrix of domination (white supremacist heteropatriarchy, ableism, capitalism, and settler colonialism)—and invites readers to “build a better world, a world where many worlds fit; linked worlds of collective liberation and ecological sustainability.” Along the way, the book documents a multitude of real-world community-led design practices, each grounded in a particular social movement. Design Justice goes beyond recent calls for design for good, user-centered design, and employment diversity in the technology and design professions; it connects design to larger struggles for collective liberation and ecological survival.

Listed by Unglue.it.

Grensverleggende analyse van Duitse propaganda in België in de beginfase van WOI Tijdens de Eerste Wereldoorlog probeerde de Duitse bezetter België intern te splijten. Dat gebeurde door het voeren van een Flamenpolitik, een beleid dat erop gericht was de Vlamingen of in elk geval de Vlaamse beweging in het harnas te jagen tegen België. Dat lukte, want een klein deel Vlaamsgezinden, de zogenaamde activisten, collaboreerde inderdaad. Vanaf de nazomer van 1914 zou Berlijn in het bezette land de Vlaamse beweging onophoudelijk bestoken met een grootscheepse mediacampagne. De Duitse diensten, gesteund door hun Oostenrijkse bondgenoten, maakten daarbij vooral gebruik van vlugschriften en de geschreven pers, niet alleen in België maar ook in het neutrale Nederland. In de zomer van 1915 was het activisme een feit: een anti-Belgisch Vlaams-nationalisme, waarvan de gevolgen tot op heden voelbaar zijn, had het daglicht gezien. De propaganda die eraan ten grondslag lag was zó vernuftig en ingenieus dat ze niet alleen tijdgenoten overtuigde, maar zelfs meer dan een eeuw later nog steeds historici misleidt. Het is een mooi staaltje van “fake news” avant la lettre.

Listed by Unglue.it.

Mit Fridays for Future haben die Klimaproteste eine zuvor nie erreichte gesellschaftliche Breite und politische Aufmerksamkeit erlangt. Doch wer beteiligt sich eigentlich an dieser sozialen Bewegung, was motiviert die Menschen zu protestieren und welche Einstellungen haben die Beteiligten? Mehrere Umfragen unter Protestierenden aus dem Jahr 2019 bilden den Ausgangspunkt der Analyse von Sebastian Haunss, Moritz Sommer und 26 weiteren Autor*innen dieses Buchs. In zwölf Kapiteln geben sie Einblicke in Entscheidungs- und Mobilisierungsstrukturen lokaler Fridays for Future-Gruppen, analysieren die Reaktionen auf die Proteste in Medien, Politik und Gesellschaft und untersuchen die Einstellungen von Jugendlichen und jungen Erwachsenen zu Themen des Klimawandels. Die einzelnen Kapitel sind so geschrieben, dass sie einem breiteren Publikum einen Zugang zu den ersten Forschungsergebnissen zu Fridays for Future bieten.

Listed by Unglue.it.

How can those profiting from inequality, racism, human rights violations and climate change respond to their complicity in injustice and violence? In this book, Gisli Vogler argues that we need an improved conception of judging complicity under conditions of both plurality and inescapable social conditioning. Bringing Hannah Arendt’s account of political judgement into dialogue with Margaret Archer’s theory of social conditioning, Vogler formulates a new framework – what he terms an ‘ethos of reality’ – for understanding how people may judge and respond to their entanglement in injustice and violence. Such a theoretical argument is tested through a case study on the complicity of consumers in the plastic pollution caused by the food and drink industries. Additionally, Vogler analyses the interviews and writings of Nobel Laureate Herta Müller, whose lived experience of the Romanian dictatorship constitutes an example of good judgement on complicity. This book persuasively demonstrates the potential for an ‘ethos of reality’ to contribute to key contemporary debates on complicity and moral responsibility.

Listed by Unglue.it.

El presente libro analiza el avance del neoextractivismo en América Latina a través de cuatro núcleos fundamentales: el primero propone las categorías de neoextractivismo y de Consenso de los Commodities como ventanas privilegiadas para leer la crisis actual; el segundo analiza las fases del neoextractivismo desde 2003 hasta la actualidad; el tercero aborda las resistencias sociales y las nuevas gramáticas políticas desde el concepto del giro ecoterritorial, y resalta el avance de los pueblos indígenas y el protagonismo creciente de las mujeres; y el cuarto ilustra la expansión de las fronteras del extractivismo: territorialidades criminales, violencia patriarcal y energías extremas.

Listed by Unglue.it.

Die 2015 einsetzende »Willkommenskultur« in Deutschland wird vielen Aktiven als Sternstunde zivilgesellschaftlichen Engagements im Gedächtnis bleiben. Zugleich war und ist die Teilhabe von Geflüchteten umkämpft und es fallen viele rassistische Übergriffe und Anschläge in die Zeit nach dem »Sommer der Migration«. Die Beiträger*innen des Bandes liefern auf Grundlage von über 160 Interviews mit Geflüchteten, zivilgesellschaftlichen Organisationen und staatlichen Stellen eine reflektierte Bestandsaufnahme und Interpretation dieser Phase. Ihr empirisch differenzierter und vielschichtiger Überblick bietet theoretische Impulse zu Debatten um Mikropolitiken des Engagements, Solidarität und ein alltagszentriertes Demokratieverständnis.

Listed by Unglue.it.

Pauulu’s Diaspora is a sweeping story of black internationalism across the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Ocean worlds, told through the life and work of twentieth-century environmental activist Pauulu Kamarakafego. Challenging U.S.-centered views of Black Power, Quito Swan offers a radically broader perspective, showing how Kamarakafego helped connect liberation efforts of the African diaspora throughout the Global South. Born in Bermuda and with formative experiences in Cuba, Kamarakafego was aware at an early age of the effects of colonialism and the international scope of racism and segregation. After pursuing graduate studies in ecological engineering, he traveled to Africa, where he was inspired by the continent’s independence struggles and contributed to various sustainable development movements. Swan explores Kamarakafego’s remarkable fusion of political agitation and scientific expertise and traces his emergence as a central coordinator of major black internationalist conferences. Despite government surveillance, Kamarakafego built a network of black organizers that reached from Kenya to the islands of Oceania and included such figures as C. L. R. James, Queen Mother Audley Moore, Kwame Nkrumah, Sonia Sanchez, Sylvia Hill, Malcolm X, Vanessa Griffen, and Stokely Carmichael. In a riveting narrative that runs through Caribbean sugarcane fields, Liberian rubber plantations, and Papua New Guinean rainforests, Pauulu’s Diaspora recognizes a global leader who has largely been absent from scholarship. In doing so, it brings to light little-known relationships among Black Power, pan-Africanism, and environmental justice.

Listed by Unglue.it.

Redefining the Political documents the political life of a community of Black women living below the poverty line. Alex Moffett-Bateau spent a year interviewing residents of a public housing development on the far South Side of Chicago about their politics, political communities, and how they create collective power.Moffett-Bateau uses radical Black feminist political theory and develops a framework called the political possible-self, which argues that belonging to a community and developing political imagination foment change. These women employ grassroots efforts to subvert oppressive power structures by protesting institutions within their communities, addressing the benign neglect of their housing development, organizing community art shows and meals, volunteering at local public schools, and holding meetings to increase the political confidence of public-housing tenants by educating them on navigating government bureaucracies.Ultimately, Redefining the Political shows how political engagement at both the individual and community levels can be fruitful for nontraditional political contributions.

Listed by Unglue.it.

»Das Volk will den Sturz des Regimes!« Unvergessen bleibt der Ruf der Menschen in Ägypten nach Freiheit und Selbstbestimmung, der im Jahr 2011 durch die Straßen Kairos hallte. Auf theoretisch innovative und interdisziplinäre Weise kombiniert Imad Mustafa strukturelle, netzwerktheoretische, konstruktivistische und kommunikative Aspekte des Transitionsprozesses zur umfassenden Untersuchung der revolutionären Mobilisierung säkularer Netzwerke sowie der konfliktiven Auseinandersetzungen mit dem Regime und der Muslimbruderschaft. So zeigt er auf, dass Demokratisierung ein widersprüchlicher und schwieriger Prozess ist, an dessen Ende die Re-Autoritarisierung der Politik stehen kann.

Listed by Unglue.it.

Angesichts globaler Krisendiagnosen setzen einige Aktivist*innen nicht primär auf Reformen innerhalb der bestehenden Verhältnisse - sie träumen von einer komplett anderen Ordnung. Oftmals ziehen sie sich deswegen aus bestehenden Institutionen und dem Alltag der Mehrheitsgesellschaft zurück. Anstelle von Eskapismus kann es sich bei ihrem Rückzug aber auch um radikalen Widerstand handeln. Philip Wallmeier stellt ein Netzwerk an Aktivist*innen in den Mittelpunkt seiner empirischen Studie, die zwischen den frühen 1970er Jahren und der Jahrtausendwende in den USA in »Kommunen«, »intentionale Gemeinschaften« und »Ökodörfer« zogen. Die Analyse zeichnet die historischen Veränderungen nach und beschreibt anschaulich, welche Widersprüche sich in der Praxis für die Aktivist*innen bei dem Versuch ergaben, alternative Lebensformen zu entwickeln, um so die Verhältnisse grundlegend zu transformieren.

Listed by Unglue.it.

Wie lernen soziale Bewegungen? Im Unterschied zu anderen Organisationen wie Parteien oder Gewerkschaften gibt es bei ihnen in der Regel keine feste Mitgliedschaft, keine klare Aufgabenteilung und keine verlässlichen Regeln der Entscheidungsfindung. Wie kann es ihnen dennoch gelingen, ein gemeinsames Wissen auszubilden, aus vergangenen Erfahrungen zu lernen und nachfolgende (Protest-)Generationen von diesen Erkenntnissen profitieren zu lassen?

Listed by Unglue.it.

Die Konflikte um das Großprojekt »Stuttgart 21« verdeutlichen exemplarisch, wie Protestbewegungen das postdemokratische Zusammenspiel von Staat und Wirtschaft herausfordern. Bürgerbeteiligung und Kostentransparenz sind seither nahezu obligatorisch, dabei hat die Bewegung gegen »S21« ihr eigentliches Ziel, das Bahn- und Immobilienprojekt zu stoppen, verfehlt, trotz scheinbar positiver Ausgangslage. Anhand von Schlüsselereignissen im Konflikt um das Großprojekt rekonstruiert Julia von Staden die Dynamiken und Diskurse dieser sozialen Bewegung. Diese Untersuchung stellt in ihrer Art eine Neuheit in der Protest- und Bewegungsforschung dar und ist gleichzeitig ein Lehrstück für andere soziale Bewegungen.

Listed by Unglue.it.

Civic space worldwide is shrinking – nowhere is this plainer than in Palestine–Israels#13Suppressing Dissent brings together leading experts of shrinking civic space and transnational repression concerning Palestine–Israel to show how failing to address the phenomenon has impacts in the United States, the Middle East and beyond.

Listed by Unglue.it.

Long before the current calls for national service, civic responsibility, and the restoration of community values, the Progressives initiated a remarkably similar challenge. Eldon Eisenach traces the evolution of this powerful national movement from its theoretical origins through its dramatic rise and sudden demise, and shows why their philosophy still speaks to us with such eloquence.Eisenach analyzes how and why, between 1885 and World War I, progressive political ideas conquered almost every cultural and intellectual bastion except constitutional law and dominated every major national institution except the courts and party system. Progressives, he demonstrates, were especially influential as a force in American politics, higher education, and the media. They created wideranging professional networks that functioned like a "hidden national government" to counter a federal government they deeply distrusted. They viewed the university as their national "Church"—the main repository and disseminator of values they espoused. They established truly national journals for a national audience. And they drew much support from women's rights advocates and other highly vocal movements of their time.Permeated with an evangelical Protestant vision of the future, progressive thought was an integral part of the national discourse for nearly three decades. But, as Eisenach reveals, at the very moment of its triumph it disintegrated as both a coherent theory and a viable public doctrine. With the election in 1912 of Woodrow Wilson, the movement reached its peak, but thereafter lost its momentum and force. Its precipitous decline was accelerated by world war and by the rise of New Deal liberalism. By the end of the Depression it had disappeared as an influential player in American public life.In the decades that followed, the Progressive mantle went unclaimed. Conservatives blamed the Progressives for the rise of the welfare state and many liberals cringed at their theological and imperialist rhetoric. Eisenach, however, argues that we still have much to learn about and from the Progressives. By enlarging our understanding of their thought, we greatly increase our understanding of an America whose national institutions—political, cultural, educational, religious, professional, economic, and journalistic—are all largely the product of this thinking. In other words, their ideas are still very much with us.

Listed by Unglue.it.

The courageous acts of whistleblowing that inspired the world over the past few years have changed our perception of surveillance and control in today's information society. But what are the wider effects of whistleblowing as an act of dissent on politics, society, and the arts? How does it contribute to new courses of action, digital tools, and contents? This urgent intervention based on the work of Berlin's Disruption Network Lab examines this growing phenomenon, offering interdisciplinary pathways to empower the public by investigating whistleblowing as a developing political practice that has the ability to provoke change from within.

Listed by Unglue.it.