For decades, the Miss America pageant had excluded minorities while celebrating a very narrow definition of womanhood. Then two separate protests – a women’s liberation picket and the lesser-known Miss Black America pageant – said ‘enough is enough.’
Protesters decry the decision by the South African Broadcasting Corporation not to air scenes of violent protest.
Reuters/Mike Hutchings
There were high hopes that the SABC would become a true public broadcaster after the end of apartheid when it was used ruthlessly as a propaganda machine. But those hopes have since been dashed.
South African President Jacob Zuma reacts during the official announcement of the municipal election results in Pretoria.
Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters
Various commentators have wrongly over the last 22 years said that black people voted blindly for ANC governments. There’s no better example why the academy needs a dramatic post-colonial overhaul.
Are NSW citizens adequately engaged in the policymaking process?
AAP/Joel Carrett
Good governance is the right thing to do, and boosts the legitimacy of decision-making. If moral chivalry doesn’t appeal, here are two more reasons: it’s cost-efficient and delivers better solutions.
A protester outside the Republican convention in Cleveland.
REUTERS/Jim Urquhart
RNC protests in Cleveland have been peaceful, but are they effective? A historian explains what happened at the DNC in 1968 and why activists may want to reconsider their tactics.
Protesters are standing up against the police’s road blocks in Harare, Zimbabwe.
Reuters/Philimon Bulawayo
The protest by Zimbabweans against police road blocks and banned imports highlights a new political economy that is rising on the back of informalisation of the economy.
Riot police detain residents of Epworth suburb after a protest by taxi drivers turned violent in Harare, Zimbabwe.
Reuters/Philimon Bulawayo
Zimbabwe has experienced another wave of discontent, manifesting in protests by its citizenry. This may well herald a change in the idea of citizenship in the country.
Brent Thompson, an officer with Dallas Area Rapid Transit, was one of five police officers killed Thursday.
LinkedIn via Reuters
The shooting deaths of five police officers in Dallas are a tragic reminder of the dangers that police face. They pay a price in mental and physical health.
Rioters threw stones and looted shops during a recent protest at the Phomolong informal settlement outside Pretoria.
Reuters/Striger
The past decade has shown a strong connection between political protests and the looting of foreign-owned shops in South Africa. Research shows that local leaders use protests to maintain their power.
Soweto schoolchildren protest against Afrikaans in 1976.
Anti-Apartheid Movement Archive, Bodleian Library, Oxford UK
Forty years after the students uprisings of 1976, South Africa is again in the midst of a political movement led by students.They have changed the tenor and shape of political discussion around education.
Burkina Faso is among the African countries that have experienced popular protests in recent years.
Ahmed Yempabou/EPA
Grassroots protesters are questioning the logic of export-led ‘growth’ and renewed fiscal austerity pushed through the ‘Africa rising’ narrative. They want policies that meet their basic needs.
A brisk ten-minute walk from where I currently live gets me to Place de la République. Before you get there these days you will see large numbers of gendarmes in riot gear, hear the sounds of a largish…
A deep-seated and sustained anger against sexual violence is emerging in South Africa.
AIDS Healthcare Foundation/Flickr
Anti-rape protests at a South African university have far bigger implications for the country’s ongoing fight against rape culture and patriarchal gender norms.
It isn’t just the ‘bad guys’ who are exposed to restrictive powers and tougher penalties. Anyone whose behaviour is regarded as a public safety risk is potentially in the frame.
Supplication to authority – through pleading or vehement protest – is hardly the only way to bring about change in a democracy.
Sumaya Hisham/EPA
There are two concepts in education theory – the social construction of knowledge and the notion of self-efficacy for development –- that could help build a true democracy.
Riot police detain a supporter of Forum for Democratic Change, Uganda’s leading opposition party, as they break up a campaign procession.
Reuters/James Akena
A short tour of Australia’s protest song history shows that protest music didn’t so much disappear as morph from the mainstream. In other words, it’s still very much with us.
Senior Associate Fellow on the Middle East at RUSI; Associate Professor in Politics & International Relations, Deputy Director of the Centre on US Politics, UCL
