The text recounts the arab spring, when tens of thousands of young people across the arab world stood up to oppose and change the governments of egypt and tunisia. to some extent, this opposition was successful in that these governments were either toppled or changed substantially, even if only for a few years. similarly, in 1989, millions of chinese stood up to their government in the tiananmen square protests. these protests, however, resulted in martial law, possibly the deaths of numerous chinese citizens, and the chinese government since has seemingly grown more powerful. and in 2007, buddhist monks marched through the streets of yangon, myanmar to protest actions of the military government, demonstrating the limits to state hegemonic domination. all of these examples represent the ability individuals to contest the state and is known