Contentious Policy Making

This course explores avenues to influence public policy beyond the routine means of voting and elections, through disruptive methods. These methods include demonstrations, boycotts, strikes, social movements and revolutions, as well as foreign interventions, sanctions, and war. We discuss a variety of movements and conflicts, including the Civil Rights Movement and the Women's Suffrage Movement in the United States, the American and Iranian Revolutions, and the Middle East conflicts. We explore the role of social movement organizations, ideologies, culture, information technology, leaders, tactical innovations and adaptation, and strategic decision-making in the political processes of contentious policy making.