QUESTION 1: This weeks slide compared the Arab Spring to the Occupy Movement. In the Occupy Wall St. campaign that spread across the U.S., participants pursued a leaderless strategy. Do you think taking a leaderless strategy & using tools such as “the peoples’ microphone” are advantageous tactics? Why or why not? Think about this in context of all of the assigned reading and ‘lecture’ material. Be sure to reflect arguments or examples from the assigned work in your answer.
QUESTION 2: Bishara (2012) mentions the importance of winning over regional powers in the countries where the Arab Spring protests were successful in creating leadership change. Does his discussion imply that opposition campaign leaders need to be concerned with gaining domestic & international support to be successful? Are there different tactics for doing so? If regional powers do not want leadership change, can an opposition campaign be successful? Does this play into Chenoweth & Stehpan’s (2011) interpretation of success/partial success or the implications of pursuing nonviolent tactics? Again, restrict your answer as much as possible to the assigned text and lecture material; you can bring in outside examples to illustrate your argument.