“Bridging Relationships in Pro-Democracy Social Movements”

My dissertation is comprised of three essays that detail how relationships between leaders across “enemy” lines affect the arc and outcome of social movements.

The first essay details why and how South Africa’s Anti-Apartheid Movement leaders sought to liberate their enemies as part of their resistance strategy. Whereas this first essay explores the development of bridging relationships, the second essay explores the dismantling of them. It details why the 2019 nonviolent uprising in Sudan faced systematic and widespread repression, but uprisings in 1964 and 1985 did not. The third essay details why and how institutional donors in the U.S. support nonviolent, pro-democracy, social movement building in non-democracies.

In an era of political polarization, it is important to highlight not only how social movements deconstruct political institutions by organizing and mobilizing to undermine governments’ pillars of support, but also how they construct and participate in political institutions like negotiations and elections.

My committee is comprised of Dr. Erica Chenoweth (Harvard), Dr. Alex de Waal (Tufts), Dr. Marshall Ganz (Harvard), and Dr. Richard Shultz (Tufts) as chair.