28 ment really did bring about change. Ideally, to them, harassment will not even be an option. But while the prospects are currently grim, the last, and most important thing that gives me hope, is that thanks to #MeToo and the reforms it brought about, the job I will, hopefully, eventually land will be one where I can be free of harassment. A guarantee that many women did not have prior to the movement. The convention passed by the ILO and the subsequent legislations starting to resurface in individual countries, will protect me and millions of other hopeful young women, from the harassment that many women before us, saw as an inevitability of going to work. So, while the hashtag may have temporarily created a backlash in the form of a throwback to 70 years ago, it has also ensured the safety of millions of women around the world, every single day when they go to work, and that, for the moment, should be the success criteria by which we measure the #MeToo movement.
How Popular Protest Can Protect the Policy Space By Nicholas Accattatis Government, in democracies at least, strives to concoct a mixture of policies which reflect the public will and satisfy their diverse interests to the greatest possible degree. Thus, when people take it upon themselves to protest sometimes violently - it is strong evidence to suggest that their government is not fulfilling this function as well as it should be. As it stands, this phenomenon has become global. In Hong Kong, protests were sparked by the introduction of a bill which would have allowed criminal suspects to be extradited to China. KCL Politics Society
Across the Pacific, in Chile, the trigger was a hike in public transport fares. Hopping over the Atlantic to France, it was a rise in fuel taxes. The list is endless, and the reasons for protest appear to be diverse. Nevertheless, at its root, popular protest, whether in Hong Kong or France, is caused by the same underlying reason: the people not being heard.
Understanding the mechanism behind the shrinking of the policy space relies on a basic understanding of collective action, or action taken by a group to achieve a common goal. Mancur Olson, an American economist, outlined a particularly pessimistic view of collective action problems since “rational, self-interest individuals will not act to achieve their common or group interThis is not as simple as lambast- ests.” He argued instead that ing politicians for not fulfilling small, organised groups of similar election promises. Instead, it is a individuals will be more likely to deeper indictment of the shrink- overcome collective actions. In ing of the space within which po- 2014, two Princeton professors in litical candidates articulate their political science, Martin Gilens positions on issues. This space and Benjamin Page, carried out a can be referred to as the policy study testing whether this theory space; in its broadest form, it en- could translate to collective accompasses tion of a political all the polinature in decies for mocracies. They which a found that, of “Fortunately, democracy candidate the four major can profess has another feature which theories of how their suppolicies are deport. The counterbalances the effect cided in the reduction of the shrinking of policy United States, in the polithe prevailing cy space space: popular protest.” theory is that can be a “organised intermajor est groups have source of a very substandiscontent for the masses as it is tial independent impact on public generally issues most pertinent to policy.” them that end up being crowded out.
