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ICNC Announces Ivan Marovic as new Executive Director; Hardy Merriman to return as President
With unanimous support from the Board of Directors, Ivan Marovic is now ICNC’s new Executive Director. Hardy Merriman has agreed to return to the role of President.
ICNC Executive Director Ivan Marovic
Marovic and Merriman will work together to expand ICNC’s core programs and diversify funding sources—including soliciting philanthropic grants as well as pursuing consulting relationships with organizations that seek to engage ICNC’s expertise in civil resistance, movement building, training, research, education, and other areas.
Read the full announcement -
New ICNC Monograph:
Prison Hunger Strikes in Palestine: A Strategic Perspective
How do prison hunger strikers achieve demands? How do they stay connected with the outside world in a space that is designed to cut them off from that world? And why would a prisoner put their lives at risk by refusing to eat or, at times, drink?
Prison Hunger Strikes in Palestine evaluates the process of hunger striking, including the repressive actions prisoners encounter, and the negotiation process. It analyzes differences and similarities between individual and collective strikes, and evaluates the role and impact of solidarity actions from outside the prison walls.
Download a Free Copy -
New Special Report:
Dollars and Dissent: Donor Support for Grassroots Organizing and Nonviolent Movements
Drawing on in-depth interviews and surveys with donors and grantees, this report outlines trends in donor support and details how donors’ values, organizational structures, and perceptions of risk affect their support for the work of grassroots organizers and nonviolent social movements. Furthermore, this report assists donors seeking to deepen their understanding of whether, when, where, and how to provide this support.Watch the webinar with author Benjamin Naimark-Rowse.
Download a Free Copy -
New Project:
Fostering a Fourth Democratic Wave
Protesters brave heavy rain as they march against the 2019 Hong Kong extradition bill on Sunday, August 18, 2019. Source: Studio Incendo, CC BY 2.0.
Fostering a Fourth Democratic Wave is a joint project between the Atlantic Council and ICNC, aimed at catalyzing support for nonviolent pro-democracy movements fighting against authoritarian rule.
The project recognizes that civil resistance movements are one of the most powerful forces for democracy worldwide and therefore central to reversing the last fifteen years of democratic recession. It will result in a publication titled Defeating the Authoritarian Threat: A Playbook for Democratic Resurgence that centers on steps the United States and its allies can take to support these movements. The Playbook will:
1. Propose new approaches and tools to support pro-democracy civil resistance movements.
2. Advance a new international norm — the “Right to Assist” pro-democracy movements — and identify steps to advance and implement it.
3. Develop strategic and tactical options to constrain authoritarian regimes and drive up the cost of their repression.
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For Activists & Organizers
How Agent Provocateurs Harm Our Movements
by Steve Chase
History shows us that peoples’ movements are more likely to succeed when they have unity among supporters, widespread participation, strategic planning, and nonviolent discipline. Unsurprisingly, movement opponents use agent provocateurs—fake activists working undercover—to behave in counterproductive ways that undermine these four keys to success.
Drawing from international examples, and an in-depth case study of the US Black Liberation Movement, this volume explores how agent provocateurs—and agent provocateur-like behavior—make movements smaller, weaker, and easier to defeat. It also offers some ideas for how activists can inoculate their movements against such harms and increase their chances of success.
• Download
• Purchase
• Watch the webinar presentation by the author
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Second edition of :
The Path of Most Resistance: A Step-by-Step Guide to Planning Nonviolent Campaigns
by Ivan Marovic
The Path of Most Resistance: A Step-by-Step Guide to Planning Nonviolent Campaigns is a practical guide for activists and organizers of all levels, who wish to grow their resistance activities into a more strategic, fixed-term campaign. It guides readers through the campaign planning process, breaking it down into several steps and providing tools and exercises for each step.
The Second Edition released in March 2021 includes chapters on tactics and running a tactical planning workshop, and a Foreword by Hardy Merriman.
Free Download:
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• Second edition: English
• First edition: Catalan | French | Polish | Portuguese (Brazilian) | Spanish | Urdu -
Visit our full resource library to find hundreds of resources on civil resistance in English and over 70 languages.
Or, if you are interested in civil resistance and don’t know where to start, we’ve made a list of general introductory resources–many of them short articles–to introduce you to the field. See our list of ten key resources for activists and organizers.
Visit the Resource Library -
ICNC Translations Program
Translating civil resistance literature into diverse languages is one of the most powerful ways to spread knowledge and increase the effectiveness of nonviolent movements struggling for rights, freedom, and justice. Learn more about our translations program or read our glossary of key terms.
We also currently host resources on civil resistance in over 70 languages and dialects on our website.
Find Translated Resources
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For Scholars & Students
The discipline of civil resistance has developed enormously in recent years, driven by new quantitative and qualitative scholarly research, as well as by numerous nonviolent movements around the world.
ICNC runs a number of grant-supported academic and educational programs to meet the growing demand for cutting edge research, applied knowledge and practical skills in this field. Look at our research, writing, teaching and other educational offerings and review current calls for proposals or applications.
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Academic Online Curriculum
ICNC’s Academic Online Curriculum on Civil Resistance (AOC) is an online resource to advance curriculum development, teaching, and research on civil resistance. It offers an extensive and regularly updated set of resources in this field, organized into clearly structured topics and case studies, and drawn in part from content that we and various academic collaborators developed for the ICNC university seminars we’ve led since 2009.Anyone can register to use the AOC at any time and it is free to use.
Topics on the AOC include:
– Civil Resistance: Nature, Ideas and History
– Strategic Considerations in Civil Resistance Struggles
– Types of Civil Resistance StrugglesAnd more!
Register Now! -
Calls from ICNC Academic Initiatives
Throughout the year, ICNC is offering a number of academic opportunities, resources, and support that it makes available to scholars and students. The field of civil resistance has grown immensely and these academic programs aim to respond to the growing demand for knowledge and skills and contribute to expanding the quality of education, research, and curriculum related to civil resistance. This page includes the current and past calls for the ICNC’s educational and research programs, such as learning opportunities, curriculum support, and research grants.One of our calls, the Rapid Field Research and Data Collection Program, accepts applications on a rolling basis and interested applicants can apply for the program throughout the year.
Learn More -
New from ICNC Press:
Preventing Mass Atrocities: From a Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) to a Right to Assist (RtoA) Campaigns of Civil Resistance
by Peter Ackerman and Hardy Merriman
Available in: English, Arabic, and SpanishEvents of the last decade demand new approaches to atrocity prevention that are adaptable, innovative and independent of a state-centered doctrine. With the aim of reducing risk factors such as civil war, we argue for a new normative framework called The Right to Assist (RtoA). […]
See ICNC Press Publications
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For the Policy Community
Fostering a Fourth Democratic Wave
Protesters brave heavy rain as they march against the 2019 Hong Kong extradition bill on Sunday, August 18, 2019. Source: Studio Incendo, CC BY 2.0.
Fostering a Fourth Democratic Wave is a joint project between the Atlantic Council and ICNC, aimed at catalyzing support for nonviolent pro-democracy movements fighting against authoritarian rule.
The project recognizes that civil resistance movements are one of the most powerful forces for democracy worldwide and therefore central to reversing the last fifteen years of democratic recession. It will result in a publication titled Defeating the Authoritarian Threat: A Playbook for Democratic Resurgence that centers on steps the United States and its allies can take to support these movements.
Learn More -
ICNC Releases Major Study on International Support to Nonviolent Campaigns
ICNC is proud to present the newest addition to its popular Monograph Series, The Role of External Support in Nonviolent Campaigns: Poisoned Chalice or Holy Grail? by Drs. Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan, authors of the groundbreaking civil resistance classic, Why Civil Resistance Works.
Published by ICNC Press, this new report employs original, qualitative, and quantitative data to examine the ways that external assistance impacted the characteristics and success rates of post-2000 revolutionary nonviolent uprisings.Download the full monograph for free here.
Watch the March 3 webinar with the renowned authors here.
Read More -
From ICNC Press:
Preventing Mass Atrocities: From a Responsbility to Protect (RtoP) to a Right to Assist (RtoA) Campaigns of Civil Resistance
by Peter Ackerman and Hardy Merriman
Available in: English, Arabic, French, and SpanishEvents of the last decade demand new approaches to atrocity prevention that are adaptable, innovative and independent of a state-centered doctrine. With the aim of reducing risk factors such as civil war, we argue for a new normative framework called The Right to Assist (RtoA)….
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A Movement-centered Support Model: Consideration for Human Rights Funders and Organizations
ICNC Senior Advisor Hardy Merriman writes: “What makes civil resistance movements effective? If funders and human rights organizations can identify key factors that answer this question, then their efforts can be oriented towards trying to support the development and growth of those factors. […]”
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Minds of the Movement Blog
Minds of the Movement is a blog for those interested in the ideas and experiences of people on the front line of civil resistance, and those who seek to understand the art and science of nonviolent struggle.
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NEW BLOG POST
Seyedeh Faezeh Alavi writes: “Shadowed by many breaking headlines and increasingly brutal repression, the Iranian revolution for secular democracy continues to forge ahead. Soon in its fifth month, the uprising has taken root across Iran. Its widening geographic spread and deepening diversity of participants have been met with an intensified crackdown ordered by the Islamic regime–evidence that its grip on power is slipping. […]”
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Amber French writes: “‘Nonviolence is naïve. Humans are violent by nature.’ ‘Violence is needed to confront violent adversaries.’ ‘Nonviolent resistance undermines institutional means of change.’ Views such as these are understandable in light of society’s socialization and ongoing elevation of violence in news, education and entertainment media. It can be frustrating to have to respond to such views on a regular basis. But if the other person is engaging in good faith, responding can also be an opportunity to deepen the conversation, learn about their perspective […]”
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Tenzin Dorjee and Amber French write: “This is why we must break the silence on self-immolation in the field of nonviolent resistance. Whether one believes self-immolation to be an act of violence or of nonviolent resistance, oppressive regimes are eager to fill the silence and portray self-immolation as an outcome of mental illness or religious extremism. Dictatorships always seek to throw a veil of doubt over acts of resistance that challenge their power. […] Without recommending this harrowing tactic to anyone, we can still honor the sacrifice of the self-immolators. For whether it is to die in the truth or to live in the truth, it is still the truth that is always worth pursuing […]”
Read more!