Political dissent refers to any expression designed to convey dissatisfaction with or opposition to the policies of a governing body. Such expression may take forms ranging from vocal disagreement to civil disobedience to the use of violence. Historically, repressive governments have sought to punish political dissent. The protection of freedoms that facilitate peaceful dissent has become a hallmark of free and open societies.

Individual rights

• Free speech, free press
• Soap box, Speaker's corner (Hyde Park), blog (weblog)
• prior restraint, censorship, self-censorship, censor
• Freedom of assembly
• Gay rights, Stonewall
• Feminism, ERA, equal pay, Title IX

Famous political dissenters

• Gandhi
• Steve Biko
• Nelson Mandela
• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon papers
• Eugene McCarthy

General Topics

• Free thinker
• Activist, Activism, political organizer, radical
• Dissident, political prisoner, prisoner of conscience
• Conscientious objector, pacifist, anti-war movement
• Enlightenment, political awareness, sheeple
• Civics, political science
• Popular movements, populist, populism
• Investigative reporter, reformer, reform, muckraker, whistle blower
• Schism, secession
• Politically correct

Techniques

• Protests, demonstrations, peace march, protest march
• Boycotts, sit-ins, riots, organizing committees, grassroots organizing
• Strike, general strike, street action
• Bumper stickers, flyers, political posters
• Street theater, political puppets
• Burning in effigy
• Self-immolation (setting self on fire)
• Revolution, Revolt, Rebellion, Palestinian Intifada, Insurrection, popular uprising
• Samisdat
• Propaganda, counter-propaganda, slogans, sloganeering, meme

1960s

• Protests against the Vietnam War, Kent State, Jane Fonda ("Hanoi Jane")
• Make love not war
• 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago
• Paris 1968
• Nuclear war protests: Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, "Ban the Bomb", mass action, peace sign
• Counter-culture, 1960s
• Generation gap, Silent Majority, Moral Majority
• Abbie Hoffman, Yippie, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
• Timothy Leary, "Turn on, tune in, drop out", communes, back to the land movement

Massacres

• Tiananmen Square, Democracy Wall Movement
• Sharpeville massacre
• Leonard Peltier, American Indian Movement, Wounded Knee, Ruby Ridge
• 228 Incident

Politics

• Political party, political faction, factionalism, splinter group, special interest group
• Green Party
• Third political party, Third party (United States)

Anti-dissent

• House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC), blacklisting, witch hunt
• Surveillance
• Secret police, secret trial, Star Chamber, torture, police brutality
• J. Edgar Hoover using FBI against political dissenters like King and Lennon
• Stalinism, Maoism, Gang of Four, Cultural Revolution
• Purges, Gulag, The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Andrei Sakharov
• Political re-education, thought crime
• Pinochet Chile
• Palmer raids
• Sedition Act (early US history), treason
• Authoritarianism, fascism, Orwell's 1984, Animal Farm

Protest songs, protest music

• John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Imagine
• Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan
• Phil Ochs
• Woody Guthrie, Arlo Guthrie, ''Alice's Restaurant
• Eve of Destruction, Canned Heat (band)
• Neil Young's Rockin' in the Free World, This Note's for You

Satire

• Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Dick Gregory
• Political satire, editorial cartoon
• Spitting Image, satire on TV, Saturday Night Live

Non-violence

• Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
• Jesse Jackson
• Segregation, integration, desegregation busing, "separate but equal"
• Quakers
• Civil rights protests, Rosa Parks, Lunch counter sitins

Unclassified

• Suffragettes
• Ku Klux Klan
• Christian dissent, anti-abortion (pro-life movement)
• Gdańsk Shipyard takeover, 1980, Lech Wałęsa
• Hungarian Revolt 1956, East German revolt (1950s), Prague Spring 1968
• Separatism, Quebec separatism, October crisis, Louis Riel, Basques
• Tibet
• Spartacus
• Socrates condemned to death by hemlock
• White backlash, reverse discrimination
• American Revolution, Boston Tea Party
• Greenpeace, Rainbow Warrior
• Anarchists vs. globalism
• PETA, animal liberation
• Earth Day
• Terrorism, freedom fighter
• Eco-terrorism, Earth First, tree sitter, tree spiking
• Berlin Wall coming down, graffiti on it, the mass border crossings in Germany in 1989 (year?)