Chatter: Lessons from the Decade of Mass Protests, with Vincent Bevins

The Lawfare Podcast

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4.7 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 4 January 2024

⏱️ 74 minutes

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Summary

From the protests in Brazil initially focused on bus fares to the protests in Hong Kong seeking to stop an extradition bill to the protests across the Middle East now collectively referred to as the "Arab Spring," the political and economic mass demonstrations from 2010 to 2020 made it a decade of public protest like no other. Yet the vast majority of these efforts failed to bring about their desired changes--and many of them actually led to the opposite of what they wanted. Vincent Bevins, author of the new book If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution, has chronicled this decade with stories from his on-the-ground reporting and extensive interviews with activists in ten countries around the globe.

David Priess spoke with Vincent about why mass protests during this decade so often fell short of their objectives, the principle of horizontalism, the role of social media in mobilization and action, and other themes as they relate to the mass protests in Brazil, Turkey, Hong Kong, Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Syria, South Korea, and other countries.

Among the works mentioned in this episode:

The book If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution by Vincent Bevins

The movie The Candidate

The book From Mobilization to Revolution by Charles Tilly

The book Minor Detail by Adania Shibli

The book Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus by Georgi Derluguian

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Noam Osband and Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The following podcast contains advertising.
0:04.0	To access an ad-free version of the Lawfair Podcast,
0:08.0	become a material supporter of Lawfair at Patreon.com slash Lawfair. That's Patreon.com
0:16.4	slash Lawfair. Also check out Lawfair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, lawfare no bull, and the
0:27.4	aftermath. Welcome to Chatter. I'm David Pries. This week, journalist and author Vincent Bevans on
0:40.5	lessons from the decade of mass protests.
0:43.0	This image, I think, really defines much of the rest of the decade
0:48.0	because the image of the people in the square
0:50.0	is incredibly inspiring. It is undeniably inspiring. It is
0:53.4	inspiring. It's hard not to be moved even when you know how it all ends.
0:57.0	The way that social media makes these uprisings
1:00.6	more possible also in many ways makes them weaker.
1:05.0	As I said, you know that Charles Tilly, not quote exactly, but that characterization that people reach for what is familiar.
1:11.0	Even if something unfamiliar might work better, there was
1:13.9	often reaching for something that was like a powerful image rather than something
1:18.2	that was really well tailored to local conditions.
1:23.4	Vincit Bevins, welcome to Chatter.
1:29.4	Vincent Bevins, welcome to Chatter.
1:31.2	Thank you for having me.
1:32.2	You have tackled a question that has been on my mind for a while, and I did not know that somebody who had
1:38.3	been on the ground during some of these events was actually looking at it until recently when I saw some of your
1:44.6	writings on it and that's the question of why the mass protest decade as you call
	...

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