Theory & Event 14(4): Occupy Wall Street Movement (2011)

“As we go to press, the Occupy Wall Street movement is in its third month. Inspired in part by the Arab Spring and the acampadas in Madrid and Barcelona, the occupation movement has reinvigorated left politics in the US and spread to more than a thousand cities worldwide. In the place of hopelessness and stagnation, there is an open sense of possibility. Now, as a vivid and undeniable feature of our political setting, outrage over inequality, unemployment, debt, and the political power of money and corporations has a form for its expression. Occupation is that form.

Several weeks ago, we invited political and media theorists to reflect on the event of Occupy Wall Street. Given our intermediated setting as well as the open, horizontal, and practically viral nature of the movement, these reflections aren’t outside the event. Rather, they are part of it, pushing its momentum and understanding in some directions rather than others. Some of the contributions began their lives as blog posts. Some are interventions aiming to influence and advise. Some draw out the global dimensions of the movement. Some attend to the affective and sensory modes of being occupation enables. One was initially delivered as a speech in Zuccotti Park. Together the pieces collected for this supplement to 14.4 produce a theorization of a movement that is just beginning and that in this movement of beginning insists on, claims, and asserts, perhaps more than anything else, the freedom to configure its own space of action.” (from Introduction)

With contributions by Franco Berardi, Wendy Brown, John Buell, William E. Connolly, Jodi Dean, Richard Grusin, John Protevi, McKenzie Wark, Slavoj Zizek

Edited by Jodi Dean
Published in November 2011
E-ISSN: 1092-311X

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Patrick Meier: Do “Liberation Technologies” Change the Balance of Power Between Repressive States and Civil Society? (2011)

Do new information and communication technologies (ICTs) empower repressive regimes at the expense of civil society, or vice versa? For example, does access to the Internet and mobile phones alter the balance of power between repressive regimes and civil society? These questions are especially pertinent today given the role that ICTs played during this year’s uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and beyond. Indeed, as one Egyptian activist stated, “We use Facebook to schedule our protests, Twitter to coordinate and YouTube to tell the world.” But do these new ICTs—so called “liberation technologies”—really threaten repressive rule? The purpose of this dissertation is to use mixed-methods research to answer these questions.

The first half of this doctoral study comprises a large-N econometric analysis to test whether “liberation technologies” are a statistically significant predictor of anti-government protests in countries with repressive regimes. If using the Internet and mobile phones facilitates organization, mobilization and coordination, then one should expect a discernible link between an increase in access to ICTs and the frequency of protests—particularly in repressive states. The results of the quantitative analysis were combined with other selection criteria to identify two country case studies for further qualitative comparative analysis: Egypt and the Sudan. The second half of the dissertation assesses the impact of “liberation technologies” during the Egyptian Parliamentary Elections and Sudanese Presidential Elections of 2010. The analysis focused specifically on the use of Ushahidi—a platform often referred to as a “liberation technology.” Descriptive analysis, process tracing and semi-structured interviews were carried out for each case study.

Dissertation thesis
Faculty of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
Dissertation Committee: D. Drezner, L. Diamond, Clay Shirky, C. Gideon
286 pages

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Sarah van Gelder (ed.): This Changes Everything: Occupy Wall Street and the 99% Movement (2011)

The Occupy Wall Street movement named the core issue of our time: the overwhelming power of Wall Street and large corporations— something the political establishment and most media have long ignored.

But the movement goes far beyond this critique. This Changes Everything shows how the movement is shifting the way people view themselves and the world, the kind of society they believe is possible, and their own involvement in creating a society that works for the 99% rather than just the 1%.

Attempts to pigeonhole this decentralized, fast-evolving movement have led to confusion and misperception. In this volume, the editors of YES! Magazine bring together voices from inside and outside the protests to convey the issues, possibilities, and personalities associated with the Occupy Wall Street movement.

This book features contributions from Naomi Klein, David Korten, Rebecca Solnit, Ralph Nader, and others, as well as Occupy activists who were there from the beginning, such as David Graeber, Marina Sitrin and Hena Ashraf. It offers insights for those actively protesting or expressing support for the movement—and for the millions more who sympathize with the goal of a more equitable and democratic future.

YES! Magazine is donating royalties from this book to support the Occupy Wall Street/99% movement.

Publisher Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2011
ISBN 1609945875, 9781609945879
84 pages

publisher
google books

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