In the past two decades, autocracies have been on the rise and aspiring autocrats in democracies have been gaining in numbers and strength. The 2020 democracy report by the V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy) Institute noted that by 2020, autocracies have formed a clear majority for the first time since the beginning of 2000, constituting 92 countries with 54% of the global population or 4.2 billion people. Furthermore, 35% of the world’s population, an additional 2.7 billion people, live today in countries that are experiencing a significant decline in their democracy index and that are often headed by elected anti-democratic demagogues. This is colloquially known as the third wave of authoritarianism, or “autocratization” […]

Cuando los ciudadanos llevan a cabo una resistencia civil por la democracia en contra de un gobierno autoritario, ¿cómo pueden ayudar los miembros de las fuerzas del orden, la seguridad interior, los servicios de inteligencia y las fuerzas armadas del país? Recientemente, en Bielorrusia algunos miembros de las fuerzas de seguridad estatales arrojaron públicamente a la basura sus tarjetas de identificación y uniformes en protesta contra el dictador y su largo tiempo al mando. […]

“It took more than a month of nonviolent pro-democracy protests by Belarusians—met consistently with vicious repression by the Lukashenko government—before some democratic countries selectively imposed sanctions on key perpetrators of the regime. Democracies can and must do better in providing support and concrete assistance to pro-democracy movements and thus mitigate violence against unarmed people and, in the long run, help increase the chances of success for the pro-democracy resistance. […]”

ماچه بارتکوفسکی مینویسد: “بگذارید بگویم که شما دارید درنیروی پلیس، امنیت داخلی، سرویسهای اطلاعاتی ویا درارتش خدمت میکنید. مافوق شما دستورمیدهد که جنبش دموکراسی خواه و مردم غیرمسلح که به عنوان اعتراض بیرون آمدهاند را سرکوب کنید. شما با آنچه حاکمیت وجیرهخواران اطرافش میخواهند بکنند، موافق نیستید و با تمام وجود میدانید اگرازاین دستورات پیروی کنید، دیگر به مردم خدمت نمیکنید. شما دنبال راههایی هستید که سرکوب را به تاخیر انداخته وازمسیرخود خارج کنید و یا درمقابل دستورات حاکمیت برای سرکوب جنبش بیخشونت بایستید.
“[…]شما تنها نیستید

当公民用民主运动反抗独裁统治的时候，安保部队（警察、内部安全机构、情报部门和军队）的成员  可以提供什么帮助？[…]

Когда граждане в борьбе за демократию оказывают гражданское сопротивление авторитарному правлению, как им могут помочь сотрудники правоохранительных органов, внутренней безопасности, разведывательных служб и военнослужащие страны? […]

“Dictatorships project unwavering discipline when they exercise—or aspire to exercise—enduring control over their societies. In response, movements must work on honing and harnessing their own discipline. Being more disciplined than their opponents gives movements an edge in winning. Discipline is a behavior that is learned and perfected through practice and training. It has less to do with command and control structures through which orders are given or punitive sanctions are exercised. […]”

Podczas wielu moich spotkań z ludźmi z całego świata, wielokrotnie zadawano mi pytanie, jak można doprowadzić do masowej mobilizacji obywateli w społeczeństwie, które jest zdemobilizowane? Innymi słowy, w jaki sposób przekształcić sprzeciw niewielkiej grupy w opór wielu? Pytanie to często wynika z frustracji aktywistów wywołanej istniejącą ich zdaniem apatią ogółu, […]

Quand des citoyens s’engagent dans la résistance civile pour défendre la démocratie et lutter contre un régime autoritaire, comment les forces de l’ordre, les membres de la sécurité intérieure, les services de renseignement et l’armée du pays peuvent les aider ? En Biélorussie, certains membres des forces de sécurité viennent de jeter publiquement leurs cartes d’identité militaires et leurs uniformes à la poubelle pour protester contre le dictateur au pouvoir depuis plusieurs décennies. […]

Let’s say that you serve in the police, interior security, intelligence services, or the military. A ruler at the helm orders you to repress a pro-democracy movement and its unarmed people who are going out to protest against him. You do not agree with what the ruler and his political sycophants expect from you. Deep down, you know you would be no longer serving the country and its people if you were to follow those orders. You are looking for ideas on how to delay, derail, or go against the ruler’s orders to suppress the nonviolent movement. You are not alone. […]

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. […]

Dos libros recientes, Movimientos sociales y Guerra civil, y Resistencia civil en la Primavera Árabe: Triunfos y desastres, estudian las secuelas de la Primavera Árabe, y arriban a la conclusión de que los movimientos de resistencia civil pueden conducir a un incremento de la violencia, el autoritarismo y democracias fallidas. […]

The strategy web of vulnerabilities and resiliencies is a tool that, to my knowledge, has not been used in the civil resistance field despite its direct relevance to practitioners’ work, as well as the insight it can provide to movement and campaign analysts. […]

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.

Without a strategic approach to countering disinformation warfare from abroad, activists are in danger of becoming “useful innocents”—unwitting assistants for external interests bent on sowing discord and undermining democratic practices and trust in democracy. As such, activists must be better prepared for the authoritarian onslaught, and An Activist’s Guide to Fighting Foreign Disinformation Warfare aims to serve just this purpose. […]

The United States did not begin through the muzzle of a musket against British King George III. Our country was born through persistent nonviolent resistance of tens—if not hundreds—of thousands of residents of the American colonies. […]

From American colonists nonviolently resisting British rule (1765-1775), to the Indian Independence Movement (1920s-1940s), to the Solidarity movement in Poland (1980-89), it is well known that movements engaged in extensive alternative institution-building. Forty-five years after pioneering scholar Gene Sharp’s 198 methods of nonviolent action […]

People often look to elites to understand whether and how transitional justice will be realized in a society. But a top-down perspective focused on the roles of prominent individuals, institutions, and international power-brokers overlooks a critical driver of transitional justice: the activism of the affected population. A notable example of this is Brazil’s esculachos […]

Immediately after the Arab Spring, political scientists and experts embarked on soul searching to find the answers to two simple questions: why they failed to predict these uprisings; and why some revolutions succeeded through nonviolent means despite the presence of brutal regimes. Scholars recognized that their past focus on the durability of  […]

Two recent books, Social Movements and Civil War and Civil Resistance in the Arab Spring: Triumphs and Disasters, examine the aftermath of the Arab Spring, and come to the conclusion that civil resistance movements can lead to rising violence, authoritarianism and failed democratization. As Adam Roberts, one of the editors of Civil Resistance in the Arab Spring, observes […]

In my interactions with people from around the world, I’ve been asked a recurring question: how do we build mass mobilization in a society that is demobilized? In other words, how do we transform the dissent of the few into resistance of the many? The question is often born out of activists’ frustration with a perceived […]