Robert Cohen / Oxfam Blogs: Why so Many Uprisings? Why Now

Credit: Oxfam Blogs

"So why now? So many simultaneous protests could of course be mere coincidence, especially as people are protesting over so many different issues – corruption, fuel or transport prices, inept governance, civil rights, demographics, and often a cocktail of all of them.

But the sheer number suggests it is at least worth looking for common causes. At this point, every campaigner and political scientist worth their salt says it was their issue wot done it – inequality, human rights, civil society space, food security, neoliberalism, electoral fraud etc etc. But the challenge for them (and me) is to answer the question why now, rather than 2009, or 2029?"


Read the Oxfam Blogs article in From Poverty to Power


"If there is a single ideological glue to them, it is desire to have one’s voice heard. At the time of tectonic political shifts where politicians and old ideologies have lost much of their credibility, a thing which has not lost its credibility is the desire and the right to be heard and counted. It is in a sense a democratic protest but since standard two-party democracies have lost much of their shine after 2008, the revolts have trouble defining themselves in an ideological and political sense.

We should expect more of such diverse, often inchoate revolts of globalization until more structured political forces appear on the scene and show themselves to be able to channel the grievances and use them to come to power." Branko Milanovic


Read article in Milanovic's blog