University Scholar Series: Kim Komenich

Revolution Revisited On March 21, 2012, SJSU Assistant Professor Kim Komenich spoke in the University Scholar Series hosted by Provost Ellen Junn at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library. Kim Komenich worked for 30 years as a photojournalist for the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner. He was awarded the 1987 Pulitzer Prize in Spot News Photography for photographs of the Philippine Revolution he made while on assignment for the Examiner. Komenich’s current creative project, “Revolution Revisited,” is a 25th Anniversary look back at the 1986 Philippine “People Power” Revolution. In 2012, he will publish the book, Revolution Revisited, and a full-length documentary film by the same name.https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/uss/1026/thumbnail.jp

Jeannie Sowers Associate Professor of Political Science travels to Egypt

Professor Sowers travelled to Egypt in February 2013 to continue her research on environmental issues and politics and to learn more about the ongoing political revolution that began in January 2011.With the assistance of a CIE travel grant funded by the Yale-Maria bequest for Middle East Studies, I was able to spend twelve days in Cairo during February 2013. I returned to Egypt, where I have been conducting research on environmental issues and politics for some time, to learn more about the ongoing political revolution that began in January 2011. Specifically, I was interested in debates over the controversial constitution that had just been passed through a referendum, which many people boycotted in protest. I talked with a people from a variety of political perspectives and parties about what the new constitution and ongoing revolution means to Egyptian

Friend from France: The Popular Image of the Marquis de Lafayette in Early America

This paper addresses the impressions the Marquis de Lafayette made upon the American people during the American Revolution and his return tour in 1824. As someone who has admired Lafayette since I was young, I was aware of the fact that many locations are named after the general and that he plays a prominent role in shows such as the Broadway musical Hamilton. I wanted to study why Lafayette had such an impact on the American people, and why he has been memorialized in a positive manner. As a promoter of liberty, Lafayette was embraced by the colonists for his stubbornness and willingness to defend the American cause. Despite being unable to carry his ideals of liberty to France, Lafayette was remembered fondly by the American people and welcomed back fifty years after the Revolution to widespread acclaim. Although he was a foreigner, he was hailed as a hero and found eternal remembrance in locations that still carry his name

A Radical Revolution in Thought: Frederick Douglass on the Slave’s Perspective on Republican Freedom

While the image of the slave as the antithesis of the freeman is central to republican freedom, it is striking to note that slaves themselves have not contributed to how this condition is understood. The result is a one-sided conception of both freedom and slavery, which leaves republicanism unable to provide an equal and robust protection for historically outcast people. I draw on the work of Frederick Douglass – long overlooked as a significant contributor to republican theory – to show one way why this is so. Focusing the American Revolution, the subsequent republican government established new political institutions to maintain the collective interests of the whole population. The political revolution was held in place by processes of public reason that reflected the values and ideas of the people that had rebelled. The black population, however, had not been part of this revolution. After emancipation, black Americans were required to accept terms of citizenship that had already been defined, leaving them socially dominated, subject to the prejudices and biases within the prevailing ideas of public discourse. Douglass argued that republican freedom under law is always dependent on a more fundamental revolution, that he calls a ‘radical revolution in thought’, in which the entire system of social norms and practices are reworked together by members of all constituent social groups – women and men, black and white, rich and poor – so that it reflects a genuinely collaborative achievement. Only then can we begin the republican project of contestatory freedom as independence or non-domination that today’s republicans take for granted

Defending Truths, Restoring Worlds

The post in post-truth is premature, and also assigns too much importance to Brexit and the victory of Donald Trump in the US. Worst of all, it can foster the impression that people like Brexit voters and Trump supporters are irredeemably exiled in alternative fact bubbles beyond the reach of science, rational thought, and common decency. We have to find ways to work productively with these kinds of citizens, instead of merely condemning them, if we want to trigger both a worldwide alternative energy revolution and the revolution in politics and economics that a truly just and sustainable energy transition demands

The Right to a Criminal Appeal in the People\u27s Republic of China

Nineteen-seventy-nine was a watershed year for the People\u27s Republic of China. Recovering from the destructive Cultural Revolution, the nation began its present period of growth and modernization, including the reinstatement of its legal institutions. As part of its attempt to transform itself into a state ruled by law, the People\u27s Republic enacted its first criminal procedure code in 1979, including a detailed formal procedure for criminal appeals

The dictator’s dilemma: the role of social media in revolutions

This paper develops a revolution model incorporating the effects of social media. It is seen that social media changes the outcomes of traditional revolution models due its effects on the cost/benefit analysis of would-be participants. The paper also considers various strategies for the dictator to stop the revolution in light of social media. Finally, the paper offers extensions and different ways to evaluate the effectiveness of social media in a revolution.•Introduction: So, you want to be a dictator? These days, it is tougher to lead an authoritarian regime in the face of democratic ideals, free speech and globalized media. Look to the Arab Spring, the inspiration for this paper, as an example of dictators overthrown by these modern forces. Rebels mobilized in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya against longstanding dictators to achieve a self-determined life. This paper hopes to find ways to help you, the would-be dictator, stay in power. In order to do this, the paper will explore and model the factors that encourage the overthrow of a dictator and hence inform how the dictator can rebuff any rebellions before they start.All revolutions differ; perhaps, however, modern and future revolutions have fundamentally changed due to the internet and social media. The greatest problem for would-be revolutionaries is organization. Social media helps overcome collective action problems by dissemination of information to organize people. Facebook and Twitter brought people to Tahrir Square in Egypt to protest Hosni Mubarek because they were inspired by posted messages and videos. Wael Gholim created a Facebook page “We Are All Khaled Saeed” that created an online arena for people to share their discontent. When the page called for protests on January 25th, hundreds of thousands mobilized.Social media has also changed the effectiveness of the dictator’s methods to quell a revolution. In the past, a dictator could kill a dissident to silence him while only angering a few close relatives and friends. Today, as in the case of Khaled Saeed, the deceased can become a rallying cry for thousands and his message quickly spread. The dictator’s action, while silencing one, angers thousands. Since the revolutionaries’ tactics have changed, perhaps the dictators need to as well. In some Asian countries, authoritarian regimes restrict internet access such as China’s “great firewall”. Pakistan has decided to build its own web wall to partially block users from certain websites while North Korea effectively does not have internet.  Restricting the internet involves a trade-off between the internet’s efficiency gains and the possibility of social unrest.Of course, there is always the good old-fashioned bribe. The problem is enforcing the bribe. Hopefully, the bribe is not taken and then used against the dictator. Instead of a cash bribe, the dictator could employ or create governmental positions for his opposition. This co-option of leading revolutionaries may help kill a revolution before it starts.  Perhaps the best method of keeping a revolution at bay is to make the people happier by governing better.The dictator has many choices to stop a revolution; some more effective than others. In order to examine the dictator’s choices, a revolution model needs to be constructed

Was there an ‘Industrious Revolution’ before the Industrial Revolution? An Empirical Exercise for England, c. 1300-1830

It is conventionally assumed that the pre-modern working year was fixed and that consumption varied with changes in wages and prices. This is challenged by the twin theories of the ‘industrious’ revolution and the consumer revolution, positing a longer working year as people earned surplus money to buy novel goods. In this study, we turn the conventional view on its head, fixing consumption rather than labour input. Specifically, we use a basket of basic consumption goods and compute the working year of rural and urban day labourers required to achieve that. By comparing with independent estimates of the actual working year, we find two ‘industrious’ revolutions among rural workers; both, however, are attributable to economic hardship, and we detect no signs of a consumer revolution. For urban labourers, by contrast, a growing gap between their actual working year and the work required to buy the basket provides great scope for a consumer revolution.Consumer Revolution; Cost-of-Living Index; Day Wages; ‘Industrious’ Revolution; Industrial Revolution; Labour Supply; Standard of Living

Guest Editor’s Foreword: Religiosity in Contemporary Ukraine

Excerpt: The issues of civilizational identity became paramount to the social existence of the church in the decade of revolution and war (2010-2020). This decade has become the most heroic and, at the same time, the most tragic one in the history of modern Ukraine, for its people and its churches. The Maidan and the Revolution of Dignity (late 2013 to early 2014) gave the people of Ukraine great hopes and expectations for the choice of a European future. The annexation of the Crimea by Russia and the ongoing war in the east of Ukraine, as planned by the Kremlin’s current leaders, should have destroyed those hopes, but instead they gave rise to resistance and defence of their choice. The heroism of Ukrainians helped to hold back the military pressure of Russia in 2014 and has been holding up to the present day. However, the gradual loss by Ukraine of what is most valuable, namely its people and citizenry, as well as the territories and economic potential, in addition to hardships and woes of war, created complex problems. All citizens of Ukraine, regardless of their religious affiliation and preferences, have been affected by these problems