When people decide they want to be free, there is nothing that can stop them.

― Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Maybe those who resort to violence do so because they have not yet had the opportunity to learn about nonviolent struggle.

― Matumo Bienvenue, Congolese activist (LUCHA)

What if the most powerful force for justice and democracy has been hiding in plain sight?

Nonviolent civil resistance—ordinary people confronting injustice with courage and creativity—is reshaping the world. From India’s liberation from British rule to the U.S. civil rights movement, history has shown its transformative power. Yet today, this essential form of conflict is still widely misunderstood, misrepresented, or ignored in academic, media, and policy circles.

At the Institute for Strategic Research of Nonviolent Movements, we believe this gap in understanding threatens both democracy and peace. Civil resistance is not chaos—it is organized, strategic, and rooted in shared human agency. It is not a footnote to history—it is history, authored by everyday people.

Too often, institutional frameworks reduce conflict to war and diplomacy, erasing the people who occupy the space in between. But civil resistance is not just protest; it’s a sophisticated and effective method of struggle with over 400 documented tactics—from boycotts to whistleblowing to mass non-cooperation.

This approach does not glorify violence. It reclaims conflict as a space for transformation.

Our mission is to surface and support this overlooked power: by equipping grassroots activists, researchers, peacebuilders, and movement supporters with tools, networks, and knowledge. As U.S. support for democracy wanes, Europe has the opportunity—and responsibility—to lead.

This is not a secret to be kept. It’s a legacy to uphold.

Join us in making civil resistance visible, valued, and more effective.

-Co-founders Amber French and Erin Helfert Moësse

The Institute for Strategic Research on Nonviolent Movements (“the Institute”) is a newly created French nonprofit association inspired by and affiliated with the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), a U.S.-based educational foundation. Founded at a time of global democratic backsliding and the narrowing of civic space—particularly in the United States—the Institute establishes an independent, European-rooted platform to cultivate the study and strategic practice of nonviolent resistance.

The Institute is grounded in four core values:

• Human agency (individuals have collective power to nonviolently transform their societies; the “asset” perspective),
• Solidarity (human-to-human commitment to those who are nonviolently defending democracy, justice, and peace),
• Co-creation (partnership and knowledge-building from inception), and
• Adaptability (producing a corpus and frameworks that local actors can repurpose and break down into formats relevant to them).

Our mission is to deepen understanding and strengthen the practice of nonviolent struggle for democracy, justice, and peace—especially in Francophone and European contexts—through interdisciplinary research, education, and the amplification of local knowledge. While building on ICNC’s legacy, the Institute operates as an autonomous, non-religious (“laïque”), and non-partisan organization governed under French law (Association loi 1901), with a firm commitment to ethical, non-prescriptive, and evidence-based action.

Strategically positioned at the intersection of research, pedagogy, and practice, the Institute aims to become a multilingual hub for civil resistance education, critical policy dialogue, and activist engagement—particularly across France, the European Union, and Francophone Africa. Our approach is grounded in the social sciences and shaped through demand-driven collaboration with local partners. We support grassroots actors not by prescribing solutions but by equipping them with adaptable tools—such as theories, network channels, online courses, guides, benchmarking tools, training formats, blogs, podcasts, and comparative analyses..

Over the 2025–2026 period, the Institute will prioritize:

• Establishing visible presence and partnerships in Europe;
• Launching pilot programs focused on education, translation, and cross-sectoral dialogue;
• Convening a scientific and strategic Advisory Council to guide future directions;
• Developing joint resources with universities, think tanks, NGOs, and movement leaders.

In the long term, the Institute aspires to become a recognized center of excellence in Europe for education, policy-relevant research, and strategic network-building to support the study and practice of nonviolent struggle. Its success will depend on clear strategic focus, humble and reciprocal partnership, and an unwavering commitment to advancing nonviolent action as a credible, inclusive, and effective pathway to democracy, justice, and peace.

Our sister organization, the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), is a nonprofit educational foundation founded in 2002 to promote the study and use of civilian-based, nonviolent strategies by movements to defend human rights, justice, peace, and democracy. For two decades, ICNC has been at the forefront of research and education on civil resistance. It has produced seminal books and films, offered learning programs, and led workshops for activists, scholars, journalists, and policy-makers across every region – North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East. ICNC acts as a catalyst to stimulate interest in nonviolent conflict, collaborating with like-minded NGOs and educational institutions worldwide. Importantly, ICNC maintains a strictly non-partisan and demand-driven approach: it does not align with any government or political ideology and only provides support or workshops in response to requests from local activists, refraining from giving advice but instead teaching planning tools and sharing resources, among others. Historically funded by a private endowment, ICNC in recent years began seeking outside funding (since 2021) as part of a leadership transition, opening the door to greater partnership with foundations and international donors.

Rationale for a Europe-based Institute for Strategic Research on Nonviolent Movements

The Institute for Strategic Research on Nonviolent Movements was established in 2025 with the blessing of ICNC but is an autonomous organization and regional partner going forward. A longstanding resident of France, then-ICNC Senior Advisor, Amber French, developed from 2017 forward new projects and networks, in French language. Recognizing the growing need for European leadership in the defense of democracy and human rights, ICNC made a move in 2025 to lean into this work by aiding in the founding of the Institute, to be presided by Amber, also drawing on deep ICNC roots in Francophone Africa in particular.

As an ICNC partner, the Institute will carry forward certain regional projects initiated in France and Francophone Africa, as well as form and run its own region-specific initiatives. Shedding the Anglophone frame and that of a US-based organization created space for the work to develop its own trajectory, focus, identity, relevance, and organizational culture. Further, the Institute is free to initiate closer engagement with European as well as African institutions, funders, and civil society networks.

The missions of ICNC and the Institute are essentially the same – championing people power – but growing demand, strategic necessity, blooming ICNC partnerships and opportunities in France, and recent political changes in the United States all coalesced to finally ripen conditions for Europe-side ICNC collaborators to bear a torch. By registering as an organization in Europe, the Institute can mobilize European resources and leadership to continue the work of creating spaces of strength for grassroots democratic struggles at a time when U.S. engagement is uncertain. Additionally, a Europe-based center provides geographic and cultural proximity to many countries in Africa, the Middle East, Eurasia, and Asia where nonviolent movements are active and where European actors have longstanding involvement. It also aligns with the European Union’s own emphasis on defending democracy and civic space

The Institute will be uniquely positioned as Europe’s premier center focused on civil resistance and people power. While there are many peacebuilding and human rights NGOs in Europe, the Institute fills a niche by concentrating specifically on nonviolent civil resistance strategy and education, connecting action to research to policy. It will draw on ICNC’s intellectual capital and deep-rooted global network, while cultivating partnerships with European universities, think tanks, and NGOs to firmly embed civil resistance knowledge in academic curricula, policy discussions, and activist education across Europe. The Institute will collaborate rather than duplicate: for example, it can work with existing peace research centers, democracy support organizations, and advocacy networks, serving as a resource on methodologies of nonviolent struggle. By basing operations in France, the Institute can more effectively engage European scholars (many of whom have contributed to civil resistance research), tap multilingual capacities for outreach (regional languages like French, Spanish, Arabic, and Swahili are key to reaching Europe and Africa), and contribute to European policy dialogues on security, defense and democracy. The result will be a truly transatlantic and transregional approach to nonviolent conflict: ICNC in Washington, DC will partner with the new Paris-based Institute to coordinate closely, ensuring consistency in mission while tailoring programs to regional contexts and leveraging each other’s strengths.

In summary, the Institute emerges from a solid foundation built by ICNC, but responds to new challenges and opportunities. It stands at the intersection of global experience and regional initiative – poised to reinforce the study and practice of civil resistance in Europe’s neighborhood (Europe itself, Africa, and beyond) by reaffirming our collective commitment to European values of democracy and peace.

The mission of the Institute for Strategic Research on Nonviolent Movements is to cultivate the study and strategic practice of nonviolent struggle in support of democracy, justice, and peace—particularly within European and African contexts.

To achieve this, the Institute works at the intersection of research, education, interdisciplinary dialogue, and the amplification of locally rooted knowledge. It co-creates tools, projects, and resources with movements and institutions—ranging from comparative analyses and barometers to online courses, podcasts, and network channels—that enable people to challenge repression, resist injustice, and reclaim agency through nonviolent means. The significance of this notion is that instead of suffering in apathy, fleeing, collaborating, or taking up arms, ordinary people are supported in developing feasible, effective, relevant alternatives for channeling both their anger and hope to achieve their rights or bring an end to violence.

The Institute is non-partisan and non-prescriptive. It does not promote any specific political platform but rather creates spaces of strength and connection for civic actors to organize, plan, and build democratic alternatives through nonviolent strategies that are ethical, effective, and inclusive.

Vision

The Institute envisions a world in which nonviolent action is widely recognized, resourced, and practiced as a legitimate and effective force. Thus the Institute is not about pacifism, peacebuilding, or preventing conflict per se. Instead, we are about understanding how nonviolent means of struggle work, how people use them, and what impacts and implications nonviolent strategy has for our world. In our ideal world, individuals and communities—regardless of geography—can organize collectively to challenge injustice without resorting to violence, not because violence is wrong (of course, it is), but because violence is not effective at building democracy and peace.

Civil resistance is not marginal but mainstream: integrated into political, academic, and security discourse; reflected in national and regional defense strategies; and embedded in educational systems. Indeed, activists are at the forefront of defending against injustice and corruption, yet they benefit from little to no institutional or formal training. Societies take activists’ agency and impact for granted and are desensitized to or distracted from stories of people power. We envision a world where academia, policymakers, and others are able to understand international relations and local politics through a civil resistance frame. This opens space for richer intellectual exchanges, better informed policies, and more strategic struggles without more violence.

We imagine a Europe that actively supports nonviolent movements in its neighborhood and beyond, offering not only diplomatic rhetoric but also tangible resources and policy frameworks that strengthen civic space and crowd out violent alternatives. In this future, activists, scholars, journalists, policymakers, and the general public are literate in the logic and history of nonviolent struggle—leading to more strategic, inclusive, and impactful mobilizations for human rights and democratic renewal.

Key elements of our vision include:

• Networked Movements: Citizens and communities—particularly in authoritarian or conflict-affected settings—have access to knowledge, tools, and international networks that support coordinated and disciplined nonviolent action.
• Mainstreamed Nonviolent Strategy: Civil resistance and civilian-based defense are recognized as credible pillars of foreign and domestic policy. Governments invest in training populations for nonviolent societal defense against coups, occupation, hybrid warfare, and other forms of democratic erosion—complementing, not replacing, traditional security approaches.
• Resilient Democracies: Democracies are made stronger and more durable through active nonviolent engagement by citizens, both in peacetime and under threat. This includes narrative resistance to counter disinformation, solidarity actions across borders, and civic defense mechanisms grounded in nonviolent strategy.
• A Learned Society + Platform for Organizing and Action: The Institute serves as a multilingual, transregional platform for learning and exchange to further the study and practice of civil resistance. At the same time, it bridges action and policy by capturing, documenting, analyzing, and disseminating insights from movements past and present—equipping both frontline actors and institutional allies with the knowledge to act effectively and ethically.

By pursuing this mission with clarity, humility, and collaborative spirit, the Institute seeks to help shape a world in which achieving democratic transformation is possible violence.

Problem Statement

Around the world and in many parts of Europe’s neighborhood, people face entrenched repression, human rights violations, and violence. Too often, responses to these challenges default to apathy, violence, or top-down interventions that fail to produce sustainable change with heavy costs in human lives. However, history and research (see ICNC’s Resource Library for dozens of such studies) show that organized civil resistance – ordinary people using nonviolent tactics like strikes, boycotts, mass protests, and non-cooperation – can be remarkably effective in bringing about democratic change. Despite this, knowledge of strategic nonviolent action is not widespread, and activists frequently lack the training, resources, and support to maximize the impact of nonviolent campaigns. Moreover, governments and international actors sometimes underestimate nonviolent strategies’ potential, under-investing in them or ignoring community-based defense approaches in favor of military – or the contrary, peacebuilding – solutions. Indeed, nonviolent action occupies a third path of action that releases humanity from a sterile false dichotomy that has forced people into black and white thinking for far too long. Nonviolent action “makes the pie bigger.”

Theory of Change

The Institute believes that if grassroots activists and civic leaders are equipped with supportive networks and a framework for exchanging knowledge and wisdom, then they will be able to organize more effective movements that challenge injustice and build democracy without violence, because nonviolent methods enable broad-based participation, reduce barriers to involvement, and erode the sources of an oppressor’s power more sustainably than armed struggle. Furthermore, if policymakers, donors, and institutions are made aware of the efficacy of civil resistance and integrate support for nonviolent action into their strategies, then movements will have the external enabling environment and resources necessary to prevail and to gain long-lasting access to democracy, justice, and peace, effectively easing the burden on militaries and governments in crisis situations. And it is like riding a bicycle: Even where democratic backsliding happens later on and illiberal forces roll back those rights, a trained and educated population never forgets how to act as checks and balances against those anti-democratic trends. Finally, academia and the media overlook the more complex dynamics at play in popular episodes of people power, focusing only on street actions. If academia and the media are made aware of the dynamics of nonviolent struggle, our societies will have a better understanding of how transformational change occurs, notably, that violence is not a requirement for defending rights and freedom.

Our theory of change can be visualized in a few key linkages:

• Inputs/Activities: The Institute provides high-quality education (workshops, publications, adaptive curricula), networking opportunities, peer mentoring, and support to organizations committed to nonviolent action. The Institute also conducts research and outreach to influence policy and public opinion in favor of nonviolent approaches (for example, promoting civilian-based defense concepts as part of growing conversations on comprehensive defense.
• Outputs: Engaged members of society gain greater knowledge of civil resistance strategies (e.g. how to maintain nonviolent discipline, build coalitions, plan strategic campaigns). They form connections with peers and mentors (through the Institute’s programs and alumni network). New resources (training manuals, translated materials, case studies) become available in local languages (such as French and Swahili for parts of Africa). On the institutional side, decision-makers receive data and policy tools (like the proposed “comprehensive defense” barometer), highlighting the role of civil society in defense and democracy protection (an overlooked yet critical ingredient of defense against modern, diffused forms of conflict such as hybrid warfare).
• Outcomes: Equipped with supportive networks, a theoretical framework, and resources, activists design and launch more strategic, disciplined and creative nonviolent campaigns. These campaigns attract widespread participation (since nonviolent action lowers barriers of participation in struggle for the general public) and are able to persist in the face of repression. Over time, movements achieve concrete wins – for example, policy changes and/or policy implementation, resignation of corrupt officials, protection of election results, crowding out of violence, or successful implementation of a constructive program to replace a corrupt system. Concurrently, European and international supporters increasingly fund and endorse nonviolent action: e.g. donors funding civil society resilience programs, governments advocating for comprehensive defense (albeit broader than nonviolent civilian-based defense) as a component of national defense plans, doctoral research being completed (including by activist-scholars) and university or high school classes being taught on nonviolent action, and media (including activist-journalists) giving meaningful and accurate coverage to nonviolent movement narratives. On the societal level, more people resort to nonviolent struggle instead of suffering in apathy or taking up arms, effectively crowding out violence as a form of conflict (replacing it with nonviolent forms of conflict, since humans cannot be expected to be conflict-free).
• Impact: The long-term impacts are societies that undergo transitions or reforms with minimal violence, emerging with stronger democratic institutions and civic engagement rather than war-torn divisions. As Dr. Erica Chenoweth’s research famously found, nonviolent campaigns from 1900-2006 were twice as likely to succeed as violent ones (53% vs 26% success rate) and were far more likely to lead to democratic outcomes. Therefore, by fostering more successful nonviolent movements, the Institute contributes to the manual spread of democracy and peace (as opposed to rhetoric). Additionally, a norm begins to take root that nonviolent action is a viable “weapon” for national defense and social change, which in turn encourages future movements to choose civil resistance over armed struggle – a positive feedback loop.

Amber French, Co-founder and CEO

Erin Helfert Moësse, Co-founder

Ivan Marovic, Secretary-General

Cathy Smith, Treasurer

INSTITUTE WEBSITE COMING SOON.

In the meantime, contact ICNC for more information on how to get involved and support the new Institute:

icnc@nonviolent-conflict.org