The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution, Vincent Bevins

The 2010s saw transnational mass movements emerge as a major force in global politics, spreading the reach of protest beyond the bounds of the nation-state. Yet enormous though they were, many if not most of these movements failed to seriously alter the status quo. In his new book, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution, freelance journalist and noted author Vincent Bevins aims to explain why. Drawing on incisive research and hundreds of original interviews, Bevins challenges conventional wisdom to offer a provocative new account of what ultimately went wrong during the 2010s-and what future activists must learn if they hope (in the words of one critic) “to transform an uprising into a true revolution.”
An accomplished journalist with 15 years of field experience, and a regular contributor to The Economist, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, and The New York Times, among other publications, Bevins is a rising star in his field. The Clough Center is delighted to welcome him to Boston College to share what he learned in researching the last decade of mass protests around the world.
Discussants: Fernando Bizzarro (Political Science) and Mohamed Ali Kadivar (Sociology)