Revolution and Resistance in World Politics
| DOI | 10.1177/0305829819857487 |
| Published date | 01 June 2019 |
| Date | 01 June 2019 |
| Author | Adrian Rogstad,Mia Certo,Joseph Leigh |
| Subject Matter | Editorial |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0305829819857487
Millennium: Journal of
International Studies
2019, Vol. 47(3) 323 –325
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0305829819857487
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Revolution and Resistance in
World Politics
Are we living in an age of revolution and resistance? Fifty-one years after the global
tumult of 1968, and a century since the Russian Revolution, the world-political scene is
marked by discussion of resistance movements, revolutionary politics, and new forms of
opposition to the status quo. Yet the meanings of revolution and resistance remain
ambiguous and undecided – terms that are both everywhere and nowhere in the contem-
porary world. While a variety of actors, movements and popular cultural phenomena are
labelled revolutionary, there is also a sense that ‘big-R’ revolution is dead, the social,
political and economic problems it was meant to solve essentially settled. Resistance,
likewise, is all around us yet ambiguous: as Jodi Dean notes in this issue, when the
attendance of the Washington establishment at John McCain’s funeral is presented as a
resistance meeting, the concept is stretched to its limits.
The 2018 Millennium Conference ‘Revolution and Resistance in World Politics’, held
27–28 October 2018 at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE),
aimed to interrogate the multiple meanings of revolution and resistance in the 21st cen-
tury and to foster cross-disciplinary conversations and dialogue about the concepts’ theo-
retical, empirical and international dimensions. In selecting the theme, we reflected on
the concepts, theories and spaces that have been central to the making and remaking,
imagining and reimagining of world politics. Revolution and resistance have been and
continue to be pivotal to our understanding and analysis of international relations. From
the eponymous revolutions in, inter alia, Haiti, Russia and Cuba to the critical feminist,
de/anti-colonial and civil rights movements, they have been central to the formation of
international order as we know it. Contemporary movements and moments, from upris-
ings in Algeria, Sudan and Venezuela to Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion and
the Women’s March Global, emphasise the continued relevance of revolution and resist-
ance in the contestation of world politics.
Although the theme encompassed a broad range of topics and approaches, we were
particularly interested in points of tension within the study of revolution and resistance.
What is the role of (non-)violence? Under what conditions may scholarship constitute
resistance and how are the roles of scholar-activists constituted? Must revolutions be
progressive? We asked participants to confront these and other questions in their papers
for the conference and hosted a varied and insightful group of invited speakers to discuss
and debate across two roundtables and three keynote sessions. This special issue is
857487MIL0010.1177/0305829819857487Millennium: Journal of International StudiesEditorial
editorial2019
Editorial
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