Gabrielle Bardall, Research Officer with IFES' F. Clifton White Applied Research Center for Democracy and Elections, participated in Dictators and Demonstrators: Sharing Strategies on Repression and Reform, a symposium organized by The Center for Democracy and Civil Society at Georgetown University in cooperation with Freedom House & the Forum for the Study of Democracy. The event, which took place on December 10 at the Council on Foreign Relations, had two sessions. The first, in which Ms. Bardall participated, addressed the new strategies and technologies that demonstrators must adopt in their struggle against oppressive regimes. The second session gave insight into the ways oppressive regimes are responding to these new technologies in order to be able to preempt and squelch demonstrations. Other panelists included speakers from the University of Calgary, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Temple and Trinity Universities as well as the National Endowment for Democracy.

Ms. Bardall discussed the pros and cons of new media approaches to the collection and analysis of election violence data for use in election violence monitoring, early warning and peace advocacy. New media approaches to data collection, such as SMS, Twitter, Facebook, and other "mash-ups", are offering exciting opportunities improve the cost, speed, quantity and quality of data collected around incidents of election violence, however these young medias must still overcome certain challenges. Ms. Bardall argued that they can be most effective in preventing violent breakdowns of the electoral process when paired with solid data verification tools and effective conflict analysis. Her research suggests practical solutions to using new media to build constructive links between society and state.

Look for the paper in an upcoming edition of the Center for Democracy and Civil Society's Democracy and Society Journal.