Last month, Kenyan media undermined a nonviolent movement against extrajudicial killings by propagating a harmful news story involving an activist. The media attack forced the movement to deal with humiliation, shame, and social polarization, instead of focusing on its struggle for justice. But the movement is now picking up the pieces and finding ways to bounce back from the attack. […]
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Would suffering from Perpetration-Induced Traumatic Stress (PITS) symptoms make agents of repression more likely to defect, or less? Do those suffering from PITS find defection to be a good therapy, and if so, is there a way of using this knowledge to encourage defections? […]
Anti-corruption movements, campaigns, and civic initiatives have become a familiar phenomenon in civil resistance and reform-oriented uprisings in many countries, particularly in the Global South. But what specific tactics and broader approach can people utilize to turn an anti-corruption movement into real change?
With the growth of online courses on civil resistance comes the challenge of measuring and assessing their impact. To this end, ICNC developed and conducts different surveys to evaluate its online courses that may serve as a useful template to others. This blog post shares the instruments we use to measure the impact of online education and the real changes we can discern from this work.
Since 2012, Solidarity Uganda has grown from a local volunteer collective in a remote farming community to an international network supporting grassroots resistance movements in over 70 countries. I hope the below tips—derived from Solidarity Uganda’s victories and shortcomings—can assist those walking similar paths, and help progressive funders understand what to look for in movement-minded organizations. […]
For over a decade, ICNC grantee Ahouty Kouakou and his colleagues from two civil society groups have been engaged in a nonviolent struggle for disability rights in Côte d’Ivoire, a small Francophone country in West Africa. Parting with the bleak Parisian winter last December, I thawed out during a three-day site visit to the country’s economic capital, Abidjan […]
The term “Revolution” has ceased being associated uniquely with bloody revolts that generally end up with new dictatorships in power, and has become a synonym of truly mass movements with poetic names, capable of paving the road to lasting democracies. Latin America is not exempt from this reality, in spite of all stereotypes that try to restrict and disqualify the development of strategic nonviolent action on our continent. […]
January 21 is a national holiday in the United States that honors Martin Luther King, Jr., who first came to prominence as a civil resistance leader during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Yet, the boycott was not inspired by King. It was inspired by Rosa Parks, one of the Highlander Folk School’s best-known graduates […]
An increasing number of human rights foundations focus on supporting “movements” and the “grassroots.” Definitions of these terms may vary, as do approaches. Amidst this backdrop, I want to offer some reflections and lessons learned on this topic from ICNC’s work. Consider this one of many reference points in the growing conversation. […]
December 28 marks the one-year anniversary of a new wave of civil resistance in Iran, that had been brewing in various towns and cities around the country since the 2009 Green Revolution. Corruption and economic hardship—although not entirely new problems—are the two main grievances that link the past year’s demonstrations […]