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Daily Archives: August 15, 2017

US Institute of Peace – Negotiating Civil Resistance

Negotiating Civil Resistance July 19, 2017. By Anthony Wanis-St. John and Noah Rosen. United States Institute of Peace.

“Reviewing the literature on negotiation and civil resistance, this report examines the current divide between the two and digs deeper to identify the fundamental convergences. It builds on these findings to illustrate why negotiations and negotiation concepts are essential to the success of civil resistance campaigns. Using historical examples, it then examines the dynamics of negotiation in the context of these strategic domains.

  • Nonviolent uprisings and protest movements can help channel popular discontent into positive political and social change.
  • Negotiation can enable opposition movements to more effectively press for such change.
  • Despite enormous complementarities, civil resistance activists and negotiation scholar-practitioners have tended to develop separate communities of practice and divergent theories.
  • Rights advocates often focus on ends; the conflict resolution community emphasizes processes and methods.
  • Demands of a movement can be structured to make either pragmatic, incremental gains toward justice or peace, or far-reaching, transformative changes to restructure a system.
  • Movement leaders need to recognize the three key purposes of a demand: collectivizing, dramatizing, and generating momentum.
  • Direct action campaigns should increase the social power of a movement by mobilizing key populations and establishing the moral high ground of the movement vis-à-vis the target regime.
  • Effective direct action has a clear target, whether a policy or a regime.
  • Broad-based participation that moves beyond demonstration and becomes transgressive shows the opponent that obedience and compliance cannot be taken for granted.
  • The leverage nonviolent movements have depends on the quality and strength of the negotiated agreements within the coalition and with the regime. Such negotiations are far from a mere formality: the process of unpacking an old regime and rebuilding a functional, harmonious society is usually a process, rarely a definitive end-state.
  • Rather than marking the formal end of a civil resistance campaign, negotiation is essential to successfully initiating, expanding, and sustaining it.
  • Despite clear and important cleavages and divergence between the negotiation and conflict resolution field, on the one hand, and the civil resistance field, on the other, their convergence is promising..”

CBO – The Effects of Terminating Payments for Cost-Sharing Reductions

“Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), insurers receive federal payments to cover costs incurred when offering plans with reduced deductibles, copayments, and other cost sharing to some people who purchase plans through the ACA marketplaces. If those payments for cost-sharing reductions stopped after the end of this year, participating insurers would raise premiums to cover… Continue Reading

ALA condemns racism and violence in Charlottesville

“Today American Library Association President Jim Neal released the following statement regarding the weekend’s tragic violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. [The American Library Association is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 57,000 members in academic, public, school, government, and special libraries. The mission of the American Library Association is to… Continue Reading

Free Law Project – We Have Every Free PACER Opinion on CourtListener.com

“At Free Law Project, we have gathered millions of court documents over the years, but it’s with distinct pride that we announce that we have now completed our biggest crawl ever. After nearly a year of work, and with support from the U.S. Department of Labor and Georgia State University, we have collected every free… Continue Reading

NIST – Security and Privacy Controls for Information Systems and Organizations

Security and Privacy Controls for Information Systems and Organizations, August 2017. Draft NIST Special Publication 800-53 Revision 5. This publication provides a catalog of security and privacy controls for federal information systems and organizations to protect organizational operations and assets, individuals, other organizations, and the Nation from a diverse set of threats including hostile attacks,… Continue Reading