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What's New
Announcing: ICNC Regional Institute in Kathmandu, Nepal
Applications are now being accepted for the South Asian Regional Institute on the Study and Practice of Strategic Nonviolent Action from April 20 – 26, 2020 in Kathmandu, Nepal.
The Asian Action Institute is designed for activists, organizers, scholars, teachers, civil society professionals, as well as civic and political leaders across South Asia interested in learning the dynamics and effectiveness of civil resistance.
A field trip will also be offered as an opportunity to meet with a local community engaged in civil resistance.
The Institute is organized in partnership with the Center for Social Change (CSC), the Department of Conflict, Peace and Development Studies (DCPDS) at Tribhuvan University, and the National Network of the Families of the Disappeared and Missing Nepal (NEFAD).
Cost: $150. There are partial and full scholarships available for food, lodging, and local transportation, especially for grassroots activists without institutional funding.
Application Deadline: Wednesday, February 5, 2020
Get more information
(4:30pm Nepal Standard Time; 5:45am EST) -
Apply for ICNC’s 2020 Participant-Led Online Course
ICNC is pleased to announce that applications are now being accepted for our 2020 Participant-Led Online Course: “Civil Resistance Struggles: How Ordinary People Win Rights, Freedom, and Justice.”
This course is unique because it is entirely driven by a carefully selected group of applicants from around the world interested in exploring unique content on civil resistance scholarship and practice set up by ICNC and who are ready to engage in lively interactions with their fellow learners.
Course Dates: February 13 – April 1, 2020
Apply Now! -
With civil resistance actions erupting all over the world, journalists are turning to ICNC for context and analysis about this global trend. ICNC has provided insight for these recent print, TV, radio and online news articles:
– Aftenposten (Norway)
Access the stories
– BBC
– Bloomberg Businessweek
– Charged Affairs
– The Chautauquan Daily
– Democracy Digest
– Deutsche Welle (Chinese edition)
– Die Welt (Germany)
– El Pais (Spain)
– Globely News
– The Hill
– Honolulu Star-Advertiser
– Le Monde (France)
– Nouvel l’Obs (France)
– Red Line Agrinio (Greece)
– Public Radio International
– Trouw (Netherlands)
– Vice
– VOA News (Cambodia)
– Vox
– Washington Post
– Weekendavisen (Denmark)
– World Politics Review -
New Blog Post
Moving into 2020 calls for reflection on events and insights gained in recent years. Here are 20 key stories from Minds of the Movement—10 that were most-read by readers, and 10 picked by editors.
We hope this helps you energize and refocus for “20-20” vision in the new decade of civil resistance work!
10 Most-Read Stories
1. After Armenia’s Velvet Revolution, New Colors and Vibes in the Country’s Politics and Society
By: Lilit Makunts | May 10, 2018
The 2018 Velvet Revolution was different from what the people of Armenia had seen before. It drew on abundant sources of creativity, innovation, and inclusiveness […]
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.
Learn More -
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, and Catalan.
Learn More -
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.
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.
Learn More -
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
Learn More
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 has all of the current and past calls for the ICNC’s programs, such as learning opportunities, curriculum support, and research grants. -
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 and ArabicEvents 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.
Learn More -
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 and ArabicEvents 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)….
Read More -
Powering to Peace: Integrated Civil Resistance and Peacebuilding Strategies
by Veronique Dudouet
Learn More
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. […]”
Learn More
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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.
Learn More -
New Blog Post
Minds of the Movement editors write: “Moving into 2020 calls for reflection on events and insights gained in recent years. Here are 20 key stories from Minds of the Movement—10 that were most-read by readers, and 10 picked by editors.
We hope this helps you energize and refocus for “20-20″ vision in the new decade of civil resistance work! […]”
Read now! -
Read now!
María Belén Garrido and Cécile Mouly write: “Last October, Ecuadorian president Lenin Moreno announced the removal of petrol and diesel subsidies, sparking 11 days of protests. The protests ended on October 13, following an agreement between the government and the indigenous movement—the main group opposing the move. A resolution was swift, but state repression and violence from both within the resistance movement and by outside actors left eight dead and over 1,300 injured. With such a heavy toll in such a short time, can the movement truly be considered a success? More importantly, what can be learned from this episode? […]” -
Minds of the Movement Co-Editor Amber French writes: “December 26 was a day of remembrance in Iran, observed by a moment of silence for the approximately 1,500 estimated to have been killed in the government crackdown on protesters since late November. During this moment, people will stop wherever they are—in the street, on the sidewalk, at restaurants. Their standstill is a low-risk, hard-to-repress nonviolent method designed to send a clear signal of dissent and disapproval to the Rouhani government. […]”
Read now!