Online Articles - Dissent Magazine

Declining Cities, Declining Unions: Urban Sprawl and U.S. Inequality

Colin Gordon ▪ December 10, 2014

Cities offer the natural solidarities of work and neighborhood that make sustained organizing possible. Their decline spells disaster for American labor.

Mexico On the Brink

Benjamin T. Smith ▪ December 5, 2014

Why, after nearly a decade of drug war violence, police incompetence, judicial impunity, and official corruption, have Mexicans suddenly taken to the streets to demand political change? And can Peña Nieto’s proposed reforms do anything to stem this wave of unrest?

The Passion of Mario Savio

Jonah Raskin ▪ December 1, 2014

Saint, saboteur, or square? Fifty years after the Free Speech Movement, a look back at its charismatic leader.

Inside the World’s Largest Islamist Group

Hazem Kandil ▪ November 26, 2014

Who are the Muslim Brothers? And what sort of relationship do they believe they have with the divine?

The Neo-Rurals

Max Holleran ▪ November 19, 2014

Spain’s “lost generation” heads for the hills.

A Voice Still Heard: Three Essays by Irving Howe

Editors ▪ November 8, 2014

In celebration of a new anthology of Howe’s writing, we present three of his essays not previously published in Dissent: “This Age of Conformity” (1954), “The New York Intellectuals” (1969), and “Strangers” (1977).

The Best of Intentions: Debating the ASA Boycott

Michael Zakim and Feisal G. Mohamed ▪ November 5, 2014

Last December, the membership of the American Studies Association voted to endorse a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. Has the boycott effectively challenged academic complicity with the Israeli state? Or has it only further isolated voices of dissent in Israeli society?

The End of the Drug War—Or a New Cartel of Cartels?

Benjamin T. Smith ▪ November 3, 2014

This summer, Mexico’s four major cartels signed a pact of alliance. Is this a sign that they’re weakening—or are we entering a new era of state–cartel cooperation?

Stability Maintenance

Nick Frisch ▪ October 26, 2014

Can the “umbrella movement” shake Beijing’s grip on Hong Kong’s silent majority?

Charity or Justice? Pope Francis Revisits Liberation Theology

Eric Frith ▪ September 24, 2014

Under Pope Francis, the Vatican has shown sympathy for a radical Catholic tradition. But Francis sidesteps liberation theology’s most revolutionary ideas.

Segregation’s Long Shadow

Colin Gordon ▪ September 18, 2014

What is remarkable in Ferguson is not just the way segregation has been sustained, but the way it maps so cleanly onto patterns of economic disadvantage.