This legislation marked the totalitarian conclusion of a mass political movement that began one year earlier when an estimated 1 million people marched in the streets of Hong Kong on Jto protest creeping mainland-style authoritarianism and spelled an end to the “one country, two systems” principle China had agreed to decades prior.
Over the summer, Beijing enacted a new national security law, under which the Beijing-controlled Hong Kong government and its security forces have either arrested or forced into exile nearly all opposition leaders while remaking youth reeducation to stifle future generations of dissent. And amid the pandemic, the backsliding of democracies and growth of authoritarianism has accelerated worldwide.Īs the Covid-19 pandemic crisis intensified across 2020, and with the United States and European Union largely distracted and divided from one another, the Chinese Communist Party seized an opportunity to crush current and future protests in Hong Kong. It is not hyperbole to state that this is the contest for the emerging world order. The global contest over whether citizens may advocate publicly for their political rights or must submit to the will of unelected or corrupt governments is being determined in real time from Yangon to Minsk. This year could mark a turning point in what has been a multi-decade era of rising global political protests (as one of us examined in depth here). Political protests have become the most visible sign of the struggle for democracy in countries around the world, and they deserve special notice and support. The answers to these questions also are central to the contest for lasting influence in a post-Covid-19 world between democracies and authoritarian states-especially China and Russia. Will these movements achieve meaningful political change? And which will turn more violent-especially in the response by state security forces?īoth questions have unique salience to the foreign policy objectives of the Biden-Harris administration and its priority of elevating human rights and revitalizing democracy at home and abroad. In 2021, as global mass political protests continue to increase in scale and frequency across continents and countries, two critical questions come to the fore. Over the course of last year, 68 countries experienced mass protest movements, with violence erupting around protests in more than 18 countries-a sharp and worrisome uptick from 2019. The negative effects of Covid-19 actively aggravated the principal grievances that had brought protesters to the streets in growing numbers over the past decade.Īnd return they did by late spring 2020 in countries around the globe, first with growing protests over the lockdowns themselves, then catalyzed once more by a raft of social, economic, and political grievances tied to inequality, corruption, and violence from police forces. But, as one of us wrote last April, it was apparent that mass protests would rapidly return despite the exceptional public health situation. During those first months, protesters experimented with online activism, drive-by and drive-in events, and other forms of socially distanced engagement. Global Political Protests and the Future of DemocracyĪlmost one year ago, the world entered its first Covid-19 lockdowns and political protesters nearly vanished from the streets. Responding to Egregious Human Rights Abuses.Building Sustainable and Inclusive Democracy.Family Planning, Maternal and Child Health, and Immunizations.
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