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What's New
LISTEN: Interview with ICNC President & CEO Hardy Merriman
Radio hosts Jim Johnson and Jamie McMillin recently interviewed ICNC President and CEO Hardy Merriman about civil resistance, current events, international support to nonviolent movements, training, and other topics in two wide-ranging interviews on their “Solutions to Violence” radio show.
Listen to interview 1 (starts at 2:44):
Listen to interview 2 (starts at 3:03)The program is a feature of FORward Radio, a community-based station sponsored by the Louisville Chapter of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR). It airs thrice weekly on WFMP-FM 106.5 in Louisville, Kentucky.
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A Tribute to the Late Congressman John R. Lewis, A Champion of Nonviolent Resistance
Arguably the most beloved and revered surviving veteran of the modern U.S. Civil Rights movement, John Robert Lewis was a paragon of nonviolent struggles for justice. Between his impoverished, segregated childhood in Troy, Alabama in the 1940s, and his election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1986, Lewis repeatedly risked life and liberty in a lifelong quest for racial equality. The Georgia Democrat succumbed to pancreatic cancer on July 17.
Noting his intrepid role in the U.S. Civil Rights movement and an unshakeable commitment to nonviolent discipline, former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton gave glowing tributes to Lewis at his July 30 funeral in Atlanta. Former President Barack Obama delivered the eulogy […]
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ICNC Interviews
Brahim Bilal Ramdhane
Brahim Bilal Ramdhane was born into slavery in Mauritania and spent 20 years in forced labor. Today, he is the Vice President of the Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement (IRA), an organization that works to eradicate slavery in Mauritania.
In 2014, IRA launched a Freedom Caravan, traveling throughout Mauritania to raise awareness about new laws, encouraging debates and breaking the silence about slavery.
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New Blog Post
Minds of the Movement editor Maciej Bartkowski writes:
Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko is facing the biggest challenge to his 26-year authoritarian rule over 9.5 million Belarusian citizens.
He is learning firsthand about the “power of the powerless” (a phrase used by famous Czechoslovak dissident and former Czech president Václav Havel to describe nonviolent resistance against Soviet rule) as he and others witness a major awakening of a heretofore withdrawn and passive population. In a break with precedent, his political opposition is led by several women who, until recently, were not widely known. This combined with widespread nonviolent resistance happening on the eve of the August 9th presidential elections is upsetting expectations, and shaking Lukashenko’s rule to the core […]
Read more!
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For Activists & Organizers
ICNC provides practical, relevant information and educational opportunities about civil resistance to activists and organizers around the world.
Our view is that nonviolent struggle is a social science that can be studied and understood. Practitioners can increase their chances of success by learning lessons from each other as well as from cutting edge academic scholarship on this topic.
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New from ICNC Press
The Path of Most Resistance: A Step-by-Step Guide to Planning Nonviolent Campaigns by Ivan Marovic, 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. Upon finishing the book, readers will have what they need to guide their peers through the process of planning a campaign. This process, as laid out in the guide, is estimated to take about 12 hours from start to finish.It is available for purchase or free download in English, Spanish, Catalan and Portuguese (Brazilian).
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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.
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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.
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!
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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.
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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
Civil resistance movements have a proven role in advancing human rights, democratic governance, and curtailing corruption. They are a critical factor in addressing root causes of human suffering and reducing deadly violence in the world.
It is incumbent for members of the policy community who care about these issues to understand how movements work; their historic record of making change; and when, how, and under what circumstances external actors can take actions that are helpful to movements.
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New 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, 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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Powering to Peace: Integrated Civil Resistance and Peacebuilding Strategies
by Veronique Dudouet
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This report explores the complementary ideas and practices that civil resistance and peacebuilding approaches present, each from different points along the conflict transformation spectrum. Both strategies oppose violence in all its forms, and seek to pursue just peace by peaceful means. However, they take different approaches to conflict transformation, in particular how they analyze primary causes of violence and how they respond to conflict. Drawing on a number of case studies, this report aims to help practitioners and scholars understand how integrating these strategies can help establish a path for “powering to peace.” -
A Movement-centered Support Model: Consideration for Human Rights Funders and Organizations
ICNC President 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 post
Movement trainer Mariam Azeem writes: “Women’s rights have been on the social agenda in Pakistan for years, but the media largely ignored it until recently. Journalists have become more independent over the past few years, coinciding with the emergence of the Women’s March in the United States and around the world. These marches inspired Pakistani women to finally take action for their rights. […]”
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ICNC’s Maciej Bartkowski writes: “Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko is facing the biggest challenge to his 26-year authoritarian rule over 9.5 million Belarusian citizens. He is learning firsthand about the “power of the powerless” as he and others witness a major awakening of a heretofore withdrawn and passive population. […]”
Read now! -
Haitian activists Gregory François and Jean Sonel Basquin write: “On August 14, 2018, Gilbert Mirambeau, a Haitian-Canadian man in his early 30s tweeted a photo of himself blindfolded, holding a sign that said in Haitian Créole: “Kot Kob Petwo Caribe A???” (“Where is the PétroCaribe money???”). The PétroCaribe program was supposed to put money towards development, but those funds went missing, and Mirambeau’s post triggered a nonviolent movement against corruption in Haiti […]”
Read now!