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. Please see the instructions for registering and accessing the AOC further down this page.

AOC includes 40 modules and hundreds of articles, videos, and other relevant resources. A list of preliminary topics available on the universal e-class include:

Civil Resistance: Nature, Ideas and History
1. Introduction to Civil Resistance 2. Historical Record of Civil Resistance 3. Dynamics of Nonviolent Civil Resistance 4. Skills/Agency vs. Conditions/Structures 5. Forgotten History of Civil Resistance 6. Misconceptions and Controversies

Strategic Considerations in Civil Resistance Struggles 
7. Movement Formation/Mobilization 8. Coalition Building and Sustaining the Movement  9. Strategic Planning and Tactical Innovation 10. Everyday Resistance as a Strategy for a Political Change 11. Leadership and Nonviolent Conflict 12. Backfire & Repression 13. Dilemma Actions 14. Security Divisions 15. Cultural Resistance 16. Negotiations and Civil Resistance 17. Radical Violent Flank 18. Costs and Risks in Civil Resistance

Civil Resistance and its Interplay with Actors, Norms, Processes and Structures 
19. Women in Civil Resistance 20. Media and Civil Resistance 21. Technology & Civil Resistance 22. Third Party and External Actors 23. Human Rights and International Law 24. (Democratic) Transition 25. Countering Extreme Violence 26. Peacebuilding and Civil Resistance

Types of Civil Resistance Struggles 
27. Self-Determination Struggles 28. Resistance to Coups 29. Self-Organized Societies in Unstable Environments 30. Movements Against Exploitation of Resources 31. Landless People’s Movements 32. Anti-Corruption Campaigns 33. Civil Resistance in Non-Democracies 34. Civil Resistance in Democracies 35. Civil Resistance Movements that Haven’t Succeeded (Yet) 36. Nonviolent Civilian Defense

Individual Case Studies
37. Constructive Resistance/Prefigurative Actions 38. Critiques of Civil Resistance and Rejoinders 39. Case Studies (Bahrain; Cheran, Mexico; China; Civil Rights Movement; Egypt; Guatemala; Iran; Mali; Occupy Movement; Palestine; Russia; Serbia; South Africa; Struggles of Native Americans in U.S. and Canada; Syria; Tibet; Tunisia; Ukraine).

Game, Research and Curriculum Development 
40. The Game of Civil Resistance 41. The Future of Research on Civil Resistance 42. Teaching on Civil Resistance

Access to AOC is free though interested users have to follow the steps below to register and open an account in order to gain access to the e-resources. Please make sure to follow all the steps listed below or you may encounter difficulty with your account creation. Click on the images for a full screen image.

1.  Visit the webpage: https://courses.nonviolent-conflict.org/ 

2. Create an account. Click “Register” at the top right corner of the screen, fill out the registration questions and click on “Create your account.”

3.  After completing the registration fields, you will see the following page. You must go to your email in order to activate your account.

4. You will receive an email from “ICNC” with the subject line “Activate Your ICNC Online Courses Account.” You must follow the instructions in the email in order to activate your account. After clicking on the link in the email, you will be automatically taken back to the ICNC online course page. You can click on “Explore Courses” at the top of the page to see the e-library.

5. You will have to scroll down the course page to find the AOC course box. You can also type “AOC” into the search bar. Click on the AOC course box and you will be taken to a page where you can click on “Enroll in AOC”.

6. After enrolling, you’ll be automatically taken to the “My Courses” page. Click on “View Course” or click directly on the course name in order to access the AOC content.

We appreciate your feedback and suggestions on how we can improve this popular tool. Please share your comments either by emailing us directly at academicinitiative@nonviolent-conflict.org or by filling out a short survey that is included in the AOC introduction available after you enroll for this resource.

The AOC is also available to users on ICNC’s mobile app. The app is free and available for download on iPhone and Android devices. To download the app, search for “ICNC Online Courses” in your app store.

Key features include:

• Make posts in interactive discussion forums & share information about civil resistance & nonviolent movements
• Download individual videos, PDFS, text, units, sections or entire courses
• Access downloaded content offline anytime
• Delete units, sections, or entire courses