Peaceful protest is a strong driver for democratization across the globe. Yet, it doesn't always lead to democratic transition, as seen in the Arab Spring revolutions in Egypt or Yemen. Why do some nonviolent transitions end in democracy while others do not? In From Dissent to Democracy, Jonathan Pinckney systematically examines transitions initiated by nonviolent resistance campaigns and argues that two key factors explain whether or not democracy will follow such efforts. First, a movement must sustain high levels of social mobilization. Second, it must direct that mobilization away from revolutionary "maximalist" goals and tactics and towards support for new institutions. Pinckney tests his theory by presenting a global statistical analysis of all political transitions from 1945-2011 and three case studies from Nepal, Zambia, and Brazil. Original and empirically rigorous, this book provides new insights into the intersection of democratization and nonviolent resistance and gives actionable recommendations for how to encourage democratic transitions.

An eminent psychologist explains why dissent should be cherished, not feared We've decided by consensus that consensus is good. In In Defense of Troublemakers, psychologist Charlan Nemeth argues that this principle is completely wrong: left unchallenged, the majority opinion is often biased, unoriginal, or false. It leads planes and markets to crash, causes juries to convict innocent people, and can quite literally make people think blue is green. In the name of comity, we embrace stupidity. We can make better decisions by embracing dissent. Dissent forces us to question the status quo, consider more information, and engage in creative decision-making. From Twelve Angry Men to Edward Snowden, lone objectors who make people question their assumptions bring groups far closer to truth--regardless of whether they are right or wrong. Essential reading for anyone who works in groups, In Defense of Troublemakers will radically change the way you think, listen, and make decisions.

“Highly illuminating ... for anyone interested in the Constitution, the Supreme Court, and the American democracy, lawyer and layperson alike." —The Los Angeles Review of Books In his major work, acclaimed historian and judicial authority Melvin Urofsky examines the great dissents throughout the Court’s long history. Constitutional dialogue is one of the ways in which we as a people reinvent and reinvigorate our democratic society. The Supreme Court has interpreted the meaning of the Constitution, acknowledged that the Court’s majority opinions have not always been right, and initiated a critical discourse about what a particular decision should mean before fashioning subsequent decisions—largely through the power of dissent. Urofsky shows how the practice grew slowly but steadily, beginning with the infamous and now overturned case of Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) during which Chief Justice Roger Taney’s opinion upheld slavery and ending with the present age of incivility, in which reasoned dialogue seems less and less possible. Dissent on the court and off, Urofsky argues in this major work, has been a crucial ingredient in keeping the Constitution alive and must continue to be so.

In this first comprehensive overview of the intersection of immigration law and the First Amendment, a lawyer and historian traces ideological exclusion and deportation in the United States from the Alien Friends Act of 1798 to the evolving policies of the Trump administration. Beginning with the Alien Friends Act of 1798, the United States passed laws in the name of national security to bar or expel foreigners based on their beliefs and associations—although these laws sometimes conflict with First Amendment protections of freedom of speech and association or contradict America’s self-image as a nation of immigrants. The government has continually used ideological exclusions and deportations of noncitizens to suppress dissent and radicalism throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from the War on Anarchy to the Cold War to the War on Terror. In Threat of Dissent—the first social, political, and legal history of ideological exclusion and deportation in the United States—Julia Rose Kraut delves into the intricacies of major court decisions and legislation without losing sight of the people involved. We follow the cases of immigrants and foreign-born visitors, including activists, scholars, and artists such as Emma Goldman, Ernest Mandel, Carlos Fuentes, Charlie Chaplin, and John Lennon. Kraut also highlights lawyers, including Clarence Darrow and Carol Weiss King, as well as organizations, like the ACLU and PEN America, who challenged the constitutionality of ideological exclusions and deportations under the First Amendment. The Supreme Court, however, frequently interpreted restrictions under immigration law and upheld the government’s authority. By reminding us of the legal vulnerability foreigners face on the basis of their beliefs, expressions, and associations, Kraut calls our attention to the ways that ideological exclusion and deportation reflect fears of subversion and serve as tools of political repression in the United States.

This dissertation examines how power, defined as higher rank in a hierarchy, affects dissent, the expression of disagreement with a value, goal, or practice embraced by a group majority. I examine this relation in the context of ethics in organizations in order to understand whether those higher in organizational hierarchies are more likely to intervene when unethical practices are ongoing in organizations. I propose that although possessing power confers the psychological and social freedom to dissent, the process of attaining power makes individuals unlikely to see the need to dissent. Specifically, I suggest that advancing to a position results in greater identification with the group. By creating this identification, power may lead individuals to adopt the morality embedded in the group. As a result, advancing in the hierarchy may cause individuals to see existing practices as more ethical, and high power individuals may dissent less than those who have not advanced in the hierarchy. I refer to this as the theory of power attainment. On the basis of this theory, I propose a negative relation between power and dissent. I explored this topic in a series of five studies. The first study explored lay perceptions of power and ethics. It examined whether organizational members considered high power individuals more responsible for ethics in organizations, and members' lay theories of how attaining power affects individuals' ethics. In this study, I found that 73 percent of survey respondents believed advancing in a hierarchy makes individuals more responsible for the organization's ethics, but only 42 percent believed that power inclines individuals to do so. Moreover, 42 percent reported that advancing in the hierarchy makes individuals less ethical. Thus, although most individuals perceived high power people to be responsible for organizational ethics, most respondents did not think high power individuals generally fulfill this responsibility. The second study examined the relations between power, group identification, and dissent. It used the priming methodology currently dominant in the research on power to examine two central hypotheses: Power increases group identification and decreases dissent. In this study, I found attaining power enhanced group identification. However, attaining power had no effect on dissent using this approach. The third study examined the effect of power on dissent in a laboratory study. It examined these central hypotheses as the prior study: Those who advance to a position of power in a group identify more with the group and dissent less than individuals who do not advance to power. In this study, individuals ostensibly interacted with a group and were randomly selected or not selected to advance in the group hierarchy. They later had the opportunity to dissent when the group decided whether to lie to obtain additional compensation for participating in the study. In this study, a negative relation between power and dissent emerged. Relative to a control condition, high power individuals dissented less. This occurred regardless of whether groups recommended lying or telling the truth. Low power had no effect on dissent relative to the control condition. Increased group identification among high power individuals explained the negative relation between power and dissent. Attaining power caused greater identification with the group and therefore, less dissent. The findings of Study 3 were puzzling in light of current power research, which has found that power decreases conformity. Study 4 aimed to integrate the findings of Study 3 with the existing power research by examining moral awareness as a moderator of the effect of power on dissent. I predicted that high power individuals would dissent more than others when their personal moral standards were salient due to the freedom power confers, but less when these standards were not salient because power makes individuals more susceptible to social influence from the group. In this study, individuals did or did not advance to a position of power in the group. Then, before they saw an ethically questionable negotiation strategy recommended by the group, they either wrote about the ethical virtues they saw as important in the negotiation (high moral awareness condition) or the goals they saw as important in the negotiation (low moral awareness condition). This study found a main effect of power on views of the group decision's ethicality. High power individuals rated the group's decision as more ethical than did individuals in a control condition. Moral awareness had no effect of power on dissent. Finally, Study 5 examined the relation between power and dissent using archival survey data. In an archival study of over 11,000 employees in 22 U.S. federal government agencies, I found evidence that higher power was associated with lower odds of perceiving and reporting unethical activity. However, among individuals who did perceive unethical activity, higher power was associated with higher odds of dissent, consistent with existing power theory. This research suggests that attaining power changes how individuals react to social influence; power appears to enhance conformity with the choices of those who accorded power. Because this finding stands in stark contrast to prior research on power, this research highlights the value of examining power in a social context. This research also provides one explanation for how unethical practices may persist in organizations. Power confers the psychological and social freedom to dissent and is widely perceived to confer responsibility for ensuring ethical behavior, policies, and practices in organizations. However, advancing in power appears to lead individuals to see the organization's values, goals, and practices as more ethical than they would otherwise. Therefore, by the time individuals achieve the psychological and social freedom to dissent, they may not see the need for dissent. As a result, high power individuals may not intervene to stop unethical practices.

A fresh interpretation of the foundation of modern Turkey demonstrating the crucial role of ordinary people under Atatürk in the 1920s and 30s.

"Women, Power, and Dissent in the Hills of Carolina is a unique and impassioned exploration of gender, labor, and resistance in western North Carolina. Based on eight months of field research in a mica manufacturing plant and the surrounding rural community, as well as oral histories of women who worked in mica houses in the early twentieth century, this landmark study canvasses the history of the mica industry and the ways it came to be organized around women's labor.Mary K. Anglin's investigation of working women's lives in the plant she calls ""Moth Hill Mica Company"" reveals the ways women have contributed to household and regional economies for more than a century. Without union support or recognition as skilled laborers, these women developed alternate strategies for challenging the poor working conditions, paltry wages, and corporate rhetoric of Moth Hill. Utilizing the power of memory and strong family and community ties, as well as their own interpretations of gender and culture, the women have found ways to ""boss themselves."""