Presenters:

Dr. Maciej Bartkowski / Senior Director for Education and Research, ICNC

Dr. Amy Finnegan / Faculty, University of Minnesota, Rochester

Date: Thursday, June 28th, 2012
Time: 11:00am - 12:30pm

Part One - Civil Resistance and Negotiations: This presentation highlights the synergy between negotiation and civil resistance. Based on negotiation theory and practice, it emphasizes what is critical to a successful integrative negotiation strategy. Utilizing Gene Sharp’s mechanism of change, and drawing on the civil resistance struggles in South Africa and Serbia, a more in-depth examination of the role that negotiation plays through the particular mechanisms of accommodation and nonviolent coercion are presented. In the end, the presentation raises some important questions about the timing of negotiation within a civil resistance struggle as well as the skills necessary to be an effective negotiator.

Part Two - Civil Resistance and Democratic Transitions: An overemphasis on the importance of structural conditions and processes has overshadowed the idea that people’s mobilization and civil resistance can be a democratizing force long after the authoritarian regime is gone. Recent studies suggest that countries that experience political upheavals spearheaded by civic nonviolent movements have a much better chance of more peaceful and successful democratic transitions than states where the regimes fall because of top-down pressure by reformist-minded powerholders, outside military intervention or violent insurrection. This session explores some of the movement-centered attributes and mechanisms, including openness to negotiations, deliberation and coalition building, by which broad-based nonviolent movements have facilitated democratization. It also considers the impact of nonviolent movements on successful democratic transition.

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