Curbing Corruption after Conflict: Anticorruption Mobilization in Guatemala

Curbing Corruption after Conflict: Anticorruption Mobilization in Guatemala

Wednesday, September 16, 2020

By: Walter Flores;  Miranda Rivers

This report analyzes the fight against corruption in Guatemala by social movements over the past five years, homing in on their major successes and challenges in working to advance transparency, accountability, and good governance. The lessons drawn from these efforts can be applicable for other movements around the world operating in similar contexts. The work also has a larger bearing for international actors helping states build peace and democratic governance following prolonged violent conflict.

Type: Special Report

Nonviolent Action

Curbing Corruption after Conflict: Anticorruption Mobilization in Guatemala (Spanish)

Curbing Corruption after Conflict: Anticorruption Mobilization in Guatemala (Spanish)

Tuesday, June 8, 2021

By: Walter Flores;  Miranda Rivers

Este informe analiza la lucha contra la corrupción en Guatemala llevada a cabo por movimientos sociales en los últimos cinco años, y se hace foco en sus principales éxitos y desafíos al trabajar para avanzar la transparencia, la responsabilidad y la buena gobernanza. Las lecciones aprendidas de los esfuerzos de los movimientos sociales para lograr un cambio positivo en Guatemala pueden aplicarse a otros movimientos del mundo que se encuentran en contextos similares. Las lecciones también tienen mayor relevancia para los actores internacionales que ayudan a los estados a reconstruir la paz y la gobernanza democrática luego de un conflicto violento prolongado.

Type: Special Report

Nonviolent Action

Precarity and Power: Reflections on Women and Youth in Nonviolent Action

Precarity and Power: Reflections on Women and Youth in Nonviolent Action

Wednesday, September 29, 2021

By: Jonathan Pinckney, Ph.D.;  Miranda Rivers

Examples abound of women and youth on the front lines of recent nonviolent action campaigns—from Alaa Salah leading demonstrators in Sudan in 2019 to the thousands of young people marching against the coup in Myanmar in early 2021. Yet significant social, cultural, and economic barriers can prevent both women and youth from participating in nonviolent action. This report, based in part on firsthand reports from activists in seven diverse countries, sheds light on these barriers and makes concrete recommendations for maximizing the impact of women and youth in nonviolent action.

Type: Peaceworks

Nonviolent Action

COVID Raises the Stakes for Zimbabwe’s Civil Society Movement

COVID Raises the Stakes for Zimbabwe’s Civil Society Movement

Wednesday, June 24, 2020

By: Miranda Rivers;  Precious Ndlovu

Countries worldwide that suffer or risk violent conflicts face a new hazard amid the COVID-19 pandemic: governments’ use of the disease as a pretext to curtail democratic freedoms and punish opposition. As COVID has spread across Africa, Zimbabwe is emerging as one of the countries most vulnerable to the disease—and most illustrative of its threat to peace and democratization efforts on the continent. Two and a half years after a military coup installed President Emmerson Mnangagwa, his government has used the health crisis to arrest members of the opposition and journalists, and divert humanitarian aid to ruling party supporters.

Type: Analysis

Global HealthNonviolent Action

Nonviolent Action in the Time of Coronavirus

Nonviolent Action in the Time of Coronavirus

Wednesday, March 25, 2020

By: Jonathan Pinckney, Ph.D.;  Miranda Rivers

Last year saw a wave of nonviolent action movements, mostly relying on tactics of large public protests and sit-ins as people took to the streets from Hong Kong to Chile to demand greater democracy, economic equality, and social justice. Some of these movements, like the revolution that successfully ousted Sudan’s longtime authoritarian ruler Omar al-Bashir, achieved many of their goals. Others, like the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, were still seeking major demands from the government when news of the rapid spread of a novel coronavirus began coming out of central China.

Type: Analysis

Global HealthNonviolent Action

How Nelson Mandela’s Legacy Still Resonates for Youth Movements

How Nelson Mandela’s Legacy Still Resonates for Youth Movements

Wednesday, November 22, 2023

By: Miranda Rivers

As December marks 10 years since the passing of Nelson Mandela, an icon of 20th-century struggles for justice and peace, a new generation of activists is building from his legacy to counter our 21st-entury crises of rising global violence. Among the signs of Mandela’s vital relevance for us now is a global, online conference to bolster nonviolent social action in pursuit of justice and peace that opens December 7, hosted by the Stanford University-based World House Project with partner groups from South Africa, India, Mexico and elsewhere.

Type: Analysis

Nonviolent Action

What Guatemala’s Anti-Corruption Movement Can Learn from the Past

What Guatemala’s Anti-Corruption Movement Can Learn from the Past

Thursday, January 21, 2021

By: Miranda Rivers;  Carlos Mendoza

Guatemalans have once again risen up by the thousands to demand major changes in how their country is governed. Their demands are intended to usher in reforms that will improve quality of life for citizens reeling from the impacts of two deadly hurricanes, as well as health and economic crises that have only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The demonstrations are reminiscent of the 2015 protests that prompted the resignations of top officials, including the country’s president. However, that movement fell short of broader, structural change. This time around, protesters can draw on lessons learned from the past to achieve long-term reform and target Guatemala’s persistent systems of corruption.

Type: Analysis

Nonviolent ActionDemocracy & Governance

Five Things You Need to Know About Foreign Funding for Social Movements

Five Things You Need to Know About Foreign Funding for Social Movements

Monday, June 24, 2019

By: Davin O'Regan;  Miranda Rivers

From Kenya to Ukraine to Guatemala, citizen-led campaigns are fighting against corruption and demanding government accountability and transparency. Government donors and private foundation have increasingly supported such efforts. But, how does foreign funding impact the goals social movements seek to achieve and the tactics they use to get there? How does foreign funding impact a social movement’s ability to mobilize the masses? And what should external funders consider when supporting social movements? USIP’s Davin O’Regan discusses the finding of a forthcoming USIP Peaceworks examining the impact of external support to social movements focused on transparency and accountability.

Type: Analysis

Nonviolent Action

Four Takeaways on the Intersection of Nonviolent Action and Peace Processes

Four Takeaways on the Intersection of Nonviolent Action and Peace Processes

Thursday, May 13, 2021

By: Jonathan Pinckney, Ph.D.;  Miranda Rivers;  Tabatha Thompson;  Adam Gallagher

How can nonviolent action and peacebuilding work together? And how can they be brought together to promote positive long-term political change? Although mass nonviolent action movements are taking place at an increasingly rapid rate, they are succeeding in achieving their goals less frequently, and where initially peaceful demonstrations have been met by state violence from Myanmar to Colombia, better understanding these questions is crucial.

Type: Analysis

Nonviolent ActionPeace Processes

New Evidence: How Religion Aids Peaceful Change

New Evidence: How Religion Aids Peaceful Change

Thursday, September 30, 2021

By: Jason Klocek, Ph.D.;  Miranda Rivers;  Sandra Tombe, Ph.D.

The pullback in 2021 of international military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Africa’s Sahel region not only shows the limits of such foreign interventions. It forces policymakers to more urgently examine other ways to support the sustainable social changes that can stabilize violence-stricken nations. New USIP research sharpens an insight about one powerful method to achieve such changes—nonviolent, citizens’ movements that improve governance and justice. Effectively, the research shows, religion helps more often than we may think. Of more than 180 nonviolent campaigns for major political change since World War II, a majority have involved religion in some way.

Type: Analysis

ReligionNonviolent Action