International Center on Nonviolent Conflict

Recovering Nonviolent History: Civil Resistance in Liberation Struggles

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Dr. Maciej Bartkowski, Senior Director, Education and Research at ICNC
Thursday, June 6, 2013 / 12:00pm – 1:00pm EST

The modern practice of civil resistance sprang from the ideas about the underlying nature of political power and agency of people that began to be formed much earlier in history than many realize.

In fact, as the newly edited book Recovering Nonviolent History. Civil Resistance in Liberation Struggles shows, in the last two centuries, many societies – regardless of geographical, cultural, religious, or political settings –  engaged in successful nonviolent resistance to defend themselves from foreign domination and protect their national communities.

In the age of revolutions, rise of violent nationalism, independence wars, brutal anti-colonial struggles and major internal and regional wars the history hides important nonviolent campaigns that were led by ordinary people with the aim of reclaiming their rights to self-rule.

This webinar talk will discuss the power and dynamics of civil resistance, bring up stories of unarmed struggles, often buried beneath eulogized violence, and account for denials of civil resistance in national annals.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Political Defiance in today’s Russia: Its Successes and Challenges

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Oleg Kozlovsky, Fulbright Visiting Scholar, George Washington University 
Tuesday, March 26, 2013 / 12:00pm – 1:00pm EST

In December 2011 tens of thousands of Russians went to the streets of Moscow and other cities to protest fraud at recent parliamentary elections. This was a shock to the regime as well as the opposition even though both had long been preparing for mass demonstrations. The protests, though truly spontaneous and surprising, were by no means random. Instead, they were a result of gradual but radical changes in the Russian society due in no small part to contained but persistent political, social and cultural activism and autonomous civic organizing of previous years.

The regime responded with charges of propaganda and repression, which might have slowed down the resistance but did not suppress it. Facing a stalemate, the Russian protest movement now has to find new methods and tactics, increase its internal mobilization and outreach to other segments of the society and stay united.

Additional Resources

The Effect of Nonviolent Palestinian Protests on Israeli Perceptions of the Conflict

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Nichole Argo, Postdoctoral Fellow in Social and Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University
February 21, 2013

We surveyed Israelis in June 2012 to see how reminders of these nonviolent protests affected their perceptions of Palestinians, prospects for peace, their own sacred values, and more generally, their belief that groups can change. To our surprise, reminders of the protests led to negative assessments across all of these measures—more so than did reminders of Palestinian violence, or even stories of traffic woes.

This presentation focuses on the results of the survey, as well as what it may tell us about the process by which nonviolent campaigns affect intergroup psychology and transformation, particularly where there is a history (or competing strain) of violence.

Abstract

Nonviolent protest and campaigning is meant to delegitimize the adversary’s use of force, in particular because of it’s ability to captivate greater public support than a military campaign might. In part, this is a psychological transformation: for individuals, politics is reconceived as a moral issue, and for previously adversarial groups, perceptions and identities are redrawn. Most recently, the world has witnessed such transformations with the Arab Spring.

Therefore, many have asked, why don’t we see more nonviolent protest in the Palestinian Territories? In fact, Palestinians in places like Budrus and Bi’ilin have embraced a rigorous nonviolent campaign, and have even achieved some political gains. While these protests have not garnered massive media attention within Israeli society, most Israelis are aware of them. Thus, one major question is: How have they affected Israelis?

We surveyed Israelis in June 2012 to see how reminders of these nonviolent protests affected their perceptions of Palestinians, prospects for peace, their own sacred values, and more generally, their belief that groups can change. To our surprise, reminders of the protests led to negative assessments across all of these measures—more so than did reminders of Palestinian violence, or even stories of traffic woes.

This presentation focuses on the results of the survey, as well as what it may tell us about the process by which nonviolent campaigns affect intergroup psychology and transformation, particularly where there is a history (or competing strain) of violence.

Additional Resources

How Communities Use Nonviolent Strategies to Avoid Civil War Violence

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Dr. Oliver Kaplan, Lecturer in Human Rights at the Josef Korbel School, University of Denver
Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Civilians would seem powerless when facing violent and heavily armed actors in settings of civil conflict, and yet communities in various countries have found ways to avoid violence. In this presentation Dr. Kaplan discusses the various strategies he has documented that communities from around the world have used to retain autonomy and self-rule in the face of competition among multiple armed groups.

Abstract

Civilians would seem powerless when facing violent and heavily armed actors in settings of civil conflict, and yet communities in various countries have found ways to avoid violence. In this presentation Dr. Kaplan discusses the various strategies he has documented that communities from around the world have used to retain autonomy and self-rule in the face of competition among multiple armed groups.

Since armed actor coercion of (and violence against) civilians has been theorized to stem from divisions within civilian societies, Dr. Kaplan argues that social cohesion among civilian communities affords them greater chances to implement nonviolent collective strategies to deceive and influence armed actors and defend their communities. He explores how these strategies vary in their organizational requirements, contentiousness, and probable effectiveness. These strategies illustrate that the unity of unarmed civilians can help impede and isolate violent “extremists.”

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Sustaining a Movement: The Resilience of Brazilian Women in a Nonviolent Struggle for Rights

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Jeffrey W. Rubin and Emma Sokoloff-Rubin
January 25, 2013

In 1986, a group of young Brazilian women started a movement to secure economic rights for rural women and transform women’s roles in their homes and communities. Together with activists across the country, they built a new democracy and fought for women’s rights in the wake of a military dictatorship. Jeffrey W. Rubin and Emma Sokoloff-Rubin, a father-daughter research team, tell the behind-the-scenes story of this remarkable movement.

Abstract

In 1986, a group of young Brazilian women started a movement to secure economic rights for rural women and transform women’s roles in their homes and communities. Together with activists across the country, they built a new democracy and fought for women’s rights in the wake of a military dictatorship. Jeffrey W. Rubin and Emma Sokoloff-Rubin, a father-daughter research team, tell the behind-the-scenes story of this remarkable movement.

Starting in 2002, Rubin and Sokoloff-Rubin traveled together to southern Brazil, where they interviewed activists over the course of ten years. Their vivid descriptions of women’s lives reveal the hard work of sustaining a social movement in the years after initial victories, when the political way forward was no longer clear and the goal of remaking gender roles proved more difficult than activists had ever imagined. Highlighting the tensions within the movement about how best to effect change, their work ultimately shows that democracies need nonviolent social movements in order to improve people’s lives and create a more just society.

Jeffrey W. Rubin is Associate Professor of History and Research Associate, Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs, Boston University. Emma Sokoloff-Rubin, a recent Yale graduate, is a reporter for Gotham Schools. Rubin and Sokoloff-Rubin are coauthors of Sustaining Activism: A Brazilian Women’s Movement and a Father-Daughter Collaboration.

Additional Resources

Download PowerPoint slides

Strategic Nonviolent Struggle in the Middle East Before the ‘Arab Spring’

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Dr. Benedetta Berti, Associate Fellow and Lecturer, Tel Aviv University
January 17, 2013

This webinar is transcribed into Chinese

Contrary to the conventional narrative Middle Eastern civil society has been active and involved in strategic non-violent struggle for years before the beginning of the massive social and political mobilizations of 2010 and 2011. The presentation looks at the characteristics of civil society and social movements in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region-focusing specifically on Tunisia and Egypt-describing the civil Society and social movements in the Middle East before the “Arab Awakening.”

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What if Gandhi had a Smartphone?

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Presented by: Dr. Joseph Bock, Director of Global Health Training at the Eck Institute for Global Health, University of Notre Dame, and Author of “The Technology of Nonviolence”
Wednesday, December 5, 2012

This webinar is transcribed into Chinese

Engaging in nonviolent resistance for political transformation during Gandhi’s struggles in South Africa and British India has many similarities to more modern approaches.  Some people claim that social media is the main ingredient.  Is that correct?  What technologies are most important?  What else is needed for the success of nonviolent movements that social media cannot provide? Can’t technology also be used by oppressive governments and troublemakers?  Can’t they use the information on digital maps that everyone else can see on the internet?  And what happens when cell phone and internet services are interrupted or shut down completely?

Additional Resources

  • Bock, Joseph G. The Technology of Nonviolence: Social Media and Violence Prevention. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012. Learn more
  • Chenoweth, Erica. “Why Civil Resistance Works.” ICNC Webinar, delivered April 8, 2010. Available online
  • Johansen, Robert C.  “Radical Islam and Nonviolence: A Case Study of Religious Empowerment and Constraint Among Pashtuns,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 34, No. 1, 1997, p. 64. Available online
  • Just Peace International, Inc.
  • Leson, Heather. “Re-Imagining Citizen Engagement.” Slideshare, February 24, 2012. Available online
    Review of Why Civilian Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict, by Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011, in Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict: Pathways toward terrorism and genocide, Vol. 5, Issue 1, 2012: 74-76. Available online

Civil Resistance 2.0: Digital Enhancements to the 198 Nonviolent Methods

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Presented by: Mary Joyce, Researcher & Consultant in Global Digital Activism, Editor of “Digital Activism Decoded”
Thursday, November 29, 2012, 12:00pm – 1:00pm EST

This webinar is transcribed into Chinese

Gene Sharp created his list of 198 nonviolent methods in 1973. In the years since, media has become dramatically more accessible to activists. Media produced by activists can now have mass reach at low cost thanks to the ease of creating user-generated content and the multiple platforms that allow for near-free self-broadcast to a mass audience in a variety of textual and visual formats. How can the canon of nonviolent methods intelligently integrate these new capacities?

This presentation will review the initial findings of Digital 198, a crowdsourced project by Patrick Meier and Mary Joyce, that is collecting digital enhancements to the 198 analog nonviolent methods as well as new methods made possible by the peer-produced, self-broadcasted, highly attention-competitive, and near-free nature of digital me

Additional Resources

Why Nonviolent Revolutions Sometimes Fail: Insights from Civil Resistance Struggles in China, Panama, and Kenya from 1985-1992

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Tuesday, April 24, 2012
12:00pm – 1:00pm EST

This webinar is transcribed into Chinese

In the 1980s, the world was captivated as East Germans brought down the Berlin wall and the Filipino “people power” movement ousted long-standing dictator Ferdinand Marcos.  Yet other civil resistance movements during this time failed to achieve political change.  Researchers have largely focused on successful nonviolent uprisings. Little attention has been given to those movements that had great potential but did not achieve their goals.  In this webinar, Dr. Nepstad explores three cases of failed civil resistance: the Chinese democracy movement of 1989, the struggle against Panamanian dictator General Manuel Noriega (1987-1989), and the attempt in Kenya to oust President Daniel arap Moi (1985-1992).

She highlights internal movement problems that undermined resisters’ effectiveness such as divided leadership, lack of cross-group cooperation, and insufficient nonviolent discipline.  She also focuses on regime counter-strategies, including massive repression, maintaining troop loyalty, and the fragmentation of opposition groups. Additionally, Dr. Nepstad examines the impact of international sanctions, showing how they can generate new allies for authoritarian leaders and shift the locus of power from local resisters to international actors. She concludes by discussing what civil resisters can do to prevent these problems: building unity by emphasizing resisters’ shared goals; implementing careful measures to ensure nonviolent discipline, encouraging security force defections by increasing the costs of regime loyalty, and making judicious choices about international involvement.

Sharon Erickson Nepstad is Professor of Sociology at the University of New Mexico.  She received her Ph.D. from the University of Colorado and did post-doctoral studies at Princeton University. She has been a visiting scholar at Notre Dame University’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.  Her areas of interest are in social movements, civil resistance, and religion. She is the author of numerous articles and three books: Nonviolent Revolutions: Civil Resistance in the Late 20th Century (published in 2011 by Oxford University Press); Religion and War Resistance in the Plowshares Movement (published in 2008, Cambridge University Press); and Convictions of the Soul: Religion, Culture, and Agency in the Central America Solidarity Movement  (published in 2004, Oxford University Press).  Her book on the Plowshares movement won the 2009 Outstanding Book Award from the American Sociological Association’s section on Peace, War, and Social Conflict.

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Anatomy of an Occupation: Did the Planners of Occupy Wall Street Really Have a Plan?

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Thursday, March 8, 2012
12:00pm-1:00pm EST

When Occupy Wall Street and the ensuing Occupy movement captured the world’s attention in the fall of 2011, the world wasn’t exactly sure what hit it. Through a series of up-close portraits of the movement in both planning and execution, this webinar will explore how it has succeeded as well as what its challenges will be in the coming months. Drawing from his experience covering the Occupy movement since the early planning stages, Nathan Schneider will focus on the role of strategizing.

The story of Occupy Wall Street, of course, is not solely one about Occupy Wall Street. This was just one among other daring attempts to mount major mobilizations in the United States that season, several of which I was covering concurrently. As the Occupy movement spread, it became ever more clear that what was taking place was one manifestation of an emerging global movement. Now, as the movement enters an election year in the United States, it faces the challenge of launching a cluster of focused, interrelated campaigns, as well as mounting successful mass mobilizations that can change the media narrative and win tangible gains.

Nathan Schneider is an editor of Waging Nonviolence, a website of news and analysis on struggles for justice and peace around the world. Beginning in July and August of 2011, he was the first journalist to be allowed to cover the planning of what would become the Occupy movement. He has since written about it for Harper’s, The New York Times, The Nation, the Boston Review, Truthout, Yes! magazine, The Catholic Worker, and more. He has also contributed to two of Occupy Wall Street’s print publications, The Occupied Wall Street Journal and Tidal: Occupy Theory, Occupy Strategy.

Additional Resources

  • Download Presentation slides
  • Schneider, Nathan. “Dreaming Big OWS Organizers Plan Spring Offensive.” The Indypendent, Issue 173, January 25, 2012. Available online
  • Schneider, Nathan. “Some Assembly Required: Witnessing the birth of Occupy Wall Street.” Harper’s Magazine, February 2012.  Click here to download
  • Schneider, Nathan. “Thank You, Anarchists.” The Nation, December 19, 2011. Available online
  • Schneider, Nathan. “Who will occupy Wall Street on September 17?” Waging Nonviolence, September 13, 2011. Available online

Civil Resistance in Bahrain: Current Political and Communication Challenges

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Tuesday, November 1, 2011
12:00pm-1:00pm EDT

In this webinar Bahraini journalist Nada Alwadi discusses the ongoing civil resistance movement in Bahrain (a small island monarchy in the Persian Gulf) which has been a part of the recent wave of popular revolts in the Middle East known as the Arab Spring. She revisits the timeline of events in Bahrain beginning in February 2011, when state repression of marches and protests around the country motivated the population to sustain their civil resistance mobilization and call for political reform. She also examines the role of U.S.-backed Saudi Arabia, which sent troops to help shore up the Bahraini monarchy and suppress the popular uprising.

Alwadi sheds light on the media blackout in Bahrain, and the current political and communication challenges facing the country and its society in the wake of a brutal state crackdown on protesters, the media, hospital staff, and ordinary members of the movement. She also relates the untold story of a struggle which has been forgotten and abandoned by the world and received little coverage from international media outlets. Finally, Alwadi discusses the importance of civil resistance in Bahrain and its larger role in building a new, freer Middle East.

Nada Alwadi was a reporter for Alwasat, the most popular newspaper in Bahrain, and covered the pro-democracy protests this spring for multiple local and international media outlets (including USA Today).  Ms. Alwadi was detained in April while reporting on the pro-democracy movement and forced to sign a statement saying that she would not write on or engage in any political activities, and was fired from her job. Ms. Alwadi is the co- founder of the Bahrain Press Association, which seeks to defend Bahraini journalists from government repression.  She chose to leave Bahrain earlier this year due to concerns over her personal safety, and is currently working from the U.S. to spread knowledge about the situation in Bahrain and the Middle East as a whole.

Additional Resources

The Arts of Protest: Creative Cultural Resistance

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Thursday, June 30, 2011
12:00pm-1:00pm EDT

Nadine Bloch, creative resistance and nonviolent direct action educator and practitioner, explores how some of the most impactful and memorable moments from civil resistance and nonviolent movements are sung by the masses, printed by the thousands, enacted through craft, painted in vivid color, or performed in traditional dress. This webinar takes a critical look at Creative Cultural Resistance: the broad use of arts, literature, and traditional practices in the service of protest and political and social actions.

Nadine Bloch teases out the strategic powers of cultural resistance. Through compelling examples this talk covers the immense diversity of methodologies that have been employed in resistance, from 2-D and 3-D arts, to sound/music and theater/movement arts. From literature and crafts, to documentation and delineation of space, as well as rituals and language preservation, we will look at the power of cultural work in organizing, mobilizing and grounding actions.

“Often such little small cultural experiments open up space and possibility for the bigger changes to happen. The real seeds for revolutionary changes can grow in artistic practices.”–John Jordan

“Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.”–Bertolt Brecht

“The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible.”–Toni Cade Bambara

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Gandhi’s Journey and the Power of Nonviolence

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Thursday, May 12, 2011
12:00pm-1:00pm EST

In this webinar Dennis Dalton, Professor Emeritus at Barnard College, Columbia University, examines the stages in Gandhi’s life as a political theorist and activist, beginning with his birth into an orthodox Hindu family and his observance of the traditional Hindu ideal of nonviolence (ahimsa). The webinar looks at Gandhi’s initial emulation of British culture and loyalty to the British colonial government in India (the Raj), followed by his subsequent disillusionment after an experience with racist rule in South Africa.

Gandhi’s campaign of mass civil disobedience against white apartheid shows him as an ultimate strategist in terms of his use of the media and mobilization of hitherto unpoliticized groups. Furthermore, his talents as a brilliant nonviolent strategist are exhibited through the case of the salt march and satyagraha, which are examined in depth. After the Amritsar massacre of 1919, Gandhi, in a spirit of forgiveness rather than retribution, moved to consolidate the last stage of his development, when he broke through narrow, exclusivist separatism to a broad, inclusivist embrace of human unity in a mature spirit of nonviolence.

The context and meaning of each of these stages lead us to ask the question: what led Gandhi, when Indian terrorists demanded that he resort to their methods in the face of brutal British domination, to declare famously, “an eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind?” This is above all a story of an individual leader’s journey to humanity, discovering a politics of both nonviolent strategic actions as well as a true compassion together with a quest for personal and political liberation.

Additional Resources

The 7 Activist Uses of Digital Tech: the Case of Popular Resistance in Egypt

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Tuesday, April 12, 2011
12:00pm-1:00pm EDT

This webinar is transcribed into Chinese

In this webinar, Mary Joyce, Founder of the Meta-Activism Project, presents a framework that divides digital technology into seven activist functions: documenting, co-creating, mobilizing, broadcasting, synthesizing, protecting and transferring resources.  She uses the recent case of the Egyptian Revolution to explore these functions. When thinking about the use of digital technology and social media in resistance we are often overwhelmed by anecdote.

Look at a dozen cases and you will see three dozen examples of how activists are using digital technology in their work.  This endless variety can be confusing not only to observers, but to activists themselves.  There are few guidelines for what tech can and cannot do or strategic frameworks to use in planning whether and how to use digital technology in a campaign.

Mary is an expert in the field of digital activism and travels the world training, speaking, and consulting on the topic. In 2007 she founded DigiActive.org, an all-volunteer organization dedicated to helping grassroots activists around the world use digital technology to increase their impact, and in 2008 she was New Media Operations Manager for Barack Obama’s national presidential campaign. She is also the editor of Digital Activism Decoded, the first book explicitly devoted to the topic of digital activism, to be published in the spring of 2010.

Additional Resources

Civil Resistance from Gandhi to Present Time

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Monday, April 4, 2011
12:00pm-1:00pm EST

Presented by: Jørgen Johansen
Lecturer and Faculty Member, Syracuse University, Strasbourg, France

This Webinar presents a short history of what civil resistance have achieved the last 90 years. This is the history of societal conflicts handled with peaceful means. How can unarmed movements succeed against states with their police and armies? What are the building blocks of a successful nonviolent strategy?

It includes a discussion on the recent development in Northern Africa and Middle East. What can be expected in the time to come and what are the main obstacles when a movement moves from ‘opposition’ to ‘position?’

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Image Management in Nonviolent Civil Society Struggles

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Thursday, March 10, 2011
12:00pm-1:00pm EST

Tom Hastings, Professor in the Department of Conflict Resolution at Portland State University presents on image management in civil society campaigns.  Most civil society campaigns seem to acquire an image; Gandhi’s movements, for the most part, were nonviolent, rooted in the increasing appearance of being persistent and cross-culturally Indian. Gandhi cultivated the image of civil discourse as a nonviolent challenger seeking justice. The images of the Birmingham Children’s Crusade in 1963 were of innocence attacked by brutality and responding with more nonviolence. Cesar Chavez transformed the macho Hispanic image to gentle but unified migrant workers intent on gaining basic collective bargaining rights even when their members were physically attacked and even when some were killed. Filipina nuns and Cory Aquino presented an image of moral leadership and nonviolence, sincere women determined to gain democracy. What are the possible effects of creating a certain image of a campaign waged by civil society? How important is image? How can one be created and defended? This presentation and discussion will ask what general principles can help organizers think about this aspect of struggle and how research might illuminate this component of nonviolent resistance.

Additional Resources

From Facebook to Streetbook: Egypt’s Nonviolent Uprising

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Thursday February 17, 2011
12:00pm-1:00pm EST

This webinar is transcribed into Chinese

Sherif Mansour, Senior Program Officer of the Middle East and North Africa at Freedom House, examines the recent Egyptian uprising that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak, focusing on the major turning points, the organizational tactics that were employed by Egyptian activists, and the early and recent manifestations of these tactics on the ground.

The Egyptian nonviolent uprising was a surprise for many. The world’s attention was primarily focused on the last two weeks. But the struggle for overthrowing Mubarak started over seven years before. Major transformations inside the pro-democracy movement from online activism to street organization mainly happened over the past three years. The breakthrough only happened in the past six months. This webinar examines some of the major turning points, the organizational tactics that were employed by Egyptian activists, and show some of the early and recent manifestations of these tactics on the ground. The webinar also highlights important logistical and moral support for the demonstrators during the uprising, and highlights some of the lessons learned and some of the critical points which can be utilized by other nonviolent struggles in the Middle East.

Additional Resources

Disrupting Corruption: People Power to Gain Accountability

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Thursday, January 27, 2011
4:00pm – 5:00pm EST

Shaazka Beyerle is a writer and educator on people power and strategic nonviolent action and a Senior Advisor with ICNC. This webinar explores how empowered citizens are engaging in civil resistance to curb graft and abuse. Corruption is intimately linked to violence, human insecurity, and oppression. For the everyday person, this means the denial of basic freedoms and rights. In virtually every part of the world over the past 15 years, citizens are proving that they are not passive onlookers of elite-driven corruption. Rather, they are drivers of accountability, reform and participatory democracy. The webinar will: identify the limitations of  top-down, technical approaches to combating corruption and; present successful cases of citizen empowerment through nonviolent campaigns.

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How can movement and revolution studies inform the theory and practice of nonviolent action?

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Wednesday, October 27, 2010
12:00pm – 1:00pm EST

Dr. Stellan Vinthagen, Associate Professor in Sociology and Senior Lecturer in Peace and Development Studies at Göteborg University in Sweden looks at how real world events and statistics show how civil resistance or nonviolent action movements, contrary to conventional assumptions, are very effective means to change societies. Several authoritarian regimes have fallen (e.g. Apartheid South Africa or Milosevic’s Serbia) after popular, relatively peaceful rebellions. Recent quantitative research reports have shown a great effectiveness of civil resistance campaigns (Karatnycky & Ackerman 2005; Stephan & Chenoweth 2008).

At the same time there are several conflicts in which civil resistance has yet to be successful, e.g. in Palestine/Israel, Tibet/China, Colombia or Western Sahara/Morocco. And we also see how some “nonviolent revolutions” are having serious democracy problems (e.g. Georgia or Kyrgyzstan). There are reasons to reflect on the role of various conditions and contexts when applying resistance strategies. Here nonviolent action studies have something to learn from other, more advanced, social science areas, e.g. social movement studies or revolution studies.

This presentation tries to inspire and illustrate possible improvements of civil resistance strategies. What happens when we apply e.g. political opportunity theory or resource mobilization theory, or Foran’s theory of revolutions to civil resistance practice and studies? It is argued that greater effectiveness is possible if we build strategies on some established theories and understandings of movements and social change.

Additional Resources

Nonviolence Today: The State of Humanity’s Most Important Art

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Thursday, October 21, 2010
12:00pm – 1:00pm EST

Dr. Michael Nagler, Professor Emeritus of Classics and Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley and President of the Metta Center for Nonviolence, gives an overview of the present state of awareness and practice of nonviolent techniques, stressing several new developments that give cause for hope despite the grim ‘realities’ of the global problématique. His presentation consists of four parts: (1) a general introduction and definition of terms: what does he mean by ‘nonviolence’ and how it is generally used in scholarly and activist discourse; similarly with associated terminology in vogue today; (2) The quantitative spread of global nonviolent action since Gandhi and King; (3) the qualitative differences in the general climate of dissent and specific advantages employed or waiting to be employed in nonviolent action today; and (4) where do we go from here?

Additional Resources

The Digital Duel: Resistance and Repression in an Online World

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Thursday, October 14th, 2010
12:00pm – 1:00pm EST

This webinar is transcribed into Chinese

Daryn Cambridge, Director for Knowledge & Digital Strategies at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, and adjunct professor at American University, looks at the emerging role of digital tools and new media in impacting the way people around the world struggle nonviolently for human rights, justice, and democratic self-rule. In addition, he will look at how these communication technologies are also being used as tools of repression by the very governments and structures these movements oppose. Looking at the evolution of communication and information sharing as a tool of resistance, Daryn will expand on contemporary struggles for rights waged with the help of online, social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube and technologies such as cellphones and digital cameras that advance the utility of these platforms.

Additional Resources

Civil Resistance in Bosnia: Pressure for Truth and Reform

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Thursday, October 7th, 2010
12:00pm – 1:00pm EST

Vanessa Ortiz, former Sr. Director for Civic and Field Learning at ICNC, and Darko Brkan, organizer for Dosta!, present two movements in Bosnia that are challenging the status quo and mobilizing citizens to action. The Women of Srebrenica is a movement that galvanized the grief of women who lost loved ones in Srebrenica, and for over 14 years, it has created pressure on the international community to not only address the issue of missing persons and uncovering of mass graves, but to identify and charge those accountable for war crimes. Dosta! (Enough!), began as an expression of citizen discontent with the current political system. It is an emerging citizens movement which has grown from 10 members to hundreds of individuals around Bosnia – across all ethnic groups. Dosta! is awakening civil society to demand an end to corruption by creating nonviolent campaigns targeting corrupt political leaders and policies, while pressing for a more accountable and transparent political system as Bosnia enters the path toward European integration.

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Costs and Risks in Nonviolent Conflict

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Thursday, September 23rd, 2010
12:00pm – 1:00pm EST

This webinar is transcribed into Chinese

Hardy Merriman, senior advisor to ICNC, looks at how civil resistance movements engage in a contest with their adversaries. In this contest, each side is capable of imposing costs on the other. Civil resistance movements may take actions that deny their adversaries legitimacy and material resources, as well as reduce the loyalty of the adversary’s supporters. Conversely, a movement’s adversary may take actions to deny a movement legitimacy, material resources, or the loyalty of the movement’s supporters. Furthermore, like in any contest, there are certain risks inherent in one’s choice of strategy. In attempting to impose costs on the other, movements and their adversaries incur risks associated with their actions. In this webinar, Merriman frames civil resistance from the perspective of two kinds of costs–material/economic costs and political/legitimacy costs–that movements and their adversaries can impose on each other. It will also survey the risks associated with movements’ attempts to impose these costs on their adversaries.

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Swallowing Camels: How the Media Misinterpret Nonviolent Struggles

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Thursday, May 27th, 2010
12:00pm – 1:00pm EST

This webinar is transcribed into Chinese

Dr. Cynthia Boaz, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Sonoma State University, uses frame analysis to analyze some of the common ways in which mainstream media coverage of nonviolent struggles and civil resistance tends to reinforce key distortions in knowledge about these struggles and even defaults to the perspective of the oppressor. She also makes suggestions for ways in which conscious citizens, activists, and media audiences can help counter these misconceptions. Key case studies are Iran’s “Green Revolution” and Burma’s “Saffron Revolution.”

Additional Resources