International Center on Nonviolent Conflict

Repression, Resilience, and Mass Movements: A Page from Chilean History

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In a matter of days Chile went from vibrant democracy to closed society after the military coup of 1973. At the time, my maternal grandfather, Carlos Matus, was Minister of the Economy and President of the Central Bank of Chile, serving under Salvador Allende. The armed forces arrested my grandfather two days after the coup and shipped him off to the southern tip of Chile, to a concentration camp on Dawson Island […]

How Can Civil Resistance Work Against Violent Coups?

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Watch the webinar below:

This live webinar was recorded on Thursday, Dec. 7, 2017 at 12 p.m. (Eastern Time-US)

Download a copy of the monograph here

Questions participants asked that we didn’t get to address during the live session:

  1. Q: I’m wondering how strictly you define coup—whether an illegitimate government itself could be said to have engineered a coup (say in an instance in which a leader comes to power through voter fraud, or, once in office, rules in a manner consistently counter to constitutional law, but having come to the leadership position through an electoral process).
    A: My study only looked at more traditional coups (and included Honduras and the Maldives as well despite using dubious Constitutional rationalizations), not the situations you describe, but I think similar lessons apply. There is term in Spanish for the second scenario you mentioned—auto-gulped. Fujimori successfully did one of those in Peru, but when Serrano tried that in Guatemala in 1993, he was thrown out in part through a civil resistance campaign.
  2. Q: Can organized CR and spontaneous CR work simultaneously? How as a researcher do you differentiate between them if you are studying an anti-coup CR as a participant observer?
    A: No CR campaign is either/or. There is always some spontaneity in even the most well-organized campaign and there is at least some organization, albeit often ad hoc, in the kind of emergency mobilizations that follow a coup or coup attempt. Admittedly, this was one of the fuzzier categories in my research. At the same time, my research reconfirmed my sense that there are clear advantages to situations in which some opposition organization(s) or representatives of the ousted government can communicate with pro-democracy forces and call for specific acts of resistance and encourage nonviolent discipline

 

Webinar Summary

Based on his ICNC Monograph, Civil Resistance Against Coups, Professor Zunes will examine civil resistance movements against efforts by the military or other elements of the power elite to forcefully overthrow democratic governments and replace them with autocratic regimes. Building on six different scenarios of civilian-driven nonviolent counter-coups, consisting of two cases each, the webinar will address such questions as: How are such uprisings similar and different than the more protracted pro-democracy struggles against already-existing dictatorships? What is relevant from the existing literature regarding anti-authoritarian civil insurrections and what is unique to counter-coups? How can civil society successfully mobilize large numbers of people in a short time prior to the consolidation of power by undemocratic forces? What potential is there for civil society to organize in advance and plan contingencies for rapid mobilization in the event of a coup? What in particular would be most effective in terms of planning?

Presenter

Dr. Stephen Zunes is a Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, where he serves as coordinator of the program in Middle Eastern Studies. He also currently serves as a senior policy analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus project of the Institute for Policy Studies, an associate editor of Peace Review, a contributing editor of Tikkun, and as an academic advisor for the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. He is the author of scores of articles for scholarly and general readership on Middle Eastern politics, U.S. foreign policy, strategic nonviolent action, international terrorism, nuclear nonproliferation, and human rights. He is the principal editor of Nonviolent Social Movements (Blackwell Publishers, 1999), the author Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003) and co-author (with Jacob Mundy) of Western Sahara: War, Nationalism and Conflict Irresolution (Syracuse University Press, 2010).

 

Relevant Readings

Gene Sharp and Bruce Jenkins’ monograph The Anti-Coup

Adam Roberts’s article “Civil Resistance to Military Coups”

 

 

Are You On Twitter?

Follow @nvconflict and #ICNCwebinars on Twitter to join the conversation during the webinar.

 

 

Can Integrating Civil Resistance and Peacebuilding Strategies Improve Movement Effectiveness?

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This live webinar by Veronique Dudouet was recorded on Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2017 at 12 p.m. EST

Watch the webinar

Webinar Summary

Do the distinct approaches of civil resistance and peacebuilding complement one another, and if so, how? What are the implications for the ongoing work of activists, scholars, and policy makers worldwide? Having published ICNC’s inaugural Special Report, Powering to Peace: Integrated Civil Resistance and Peacebuilding Strategies by Véronique Dudouet, earlier this year, we are offering this November 15 webinar to further explore Dudouet’s groundbreaking findings, focusing on the concrete points of intersection between the fields of nonviolent conflict and peacebuilding for improving the effectiveness of popular movements for rights, freedom, and justice.

Presenter

Dr. Véronique Dudouet is senior researcher and program director at the Berghof Foundation in Berlin. She has been coordinating participatory action research, training and policy advice activities on resistance and liberation movements in transition’ since 2005. She holds an MA (2001) and PhD (2005) in Conflict Resolution from the Department of Peace Studies, Bradford University, UK, as well as an MPhil in International Relations and Security and a BA in Political Science from the Institute d’Etudes Politiques, Toulouse, France. Her current research interests include transitions from armed to unarmed insurgencies, the role of external actors in nonviolent resistance, negotiation and third-party intervention in asymmetric conflict, inclusive post-war governance. As a scholar-activist, she has been involved in several anti-war and nonviolent campaigns, including as a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in the Palestinian territories. She also carries out consultancy projects for various civil society organizations, state and international agencies (EU, OECD, UNDP). Besides numerous publications in the fields of conflict transformation and peacebuilding, she has published numerous book chapters and academic articles on civil resistance, as well as a co-authored report (with Howard Clark, 2009) for the European Parliament on Nonviolent Civic Action in Support of Human Rights and Democracy, and an edited book on Civil Resistance and Conflict Transformation: Transitions from Armed to Nonviolent Struggle (Routledge 2014).

Relevant Readings

Powering to Peace: Integrated Civil Resistance and Peacebuilding Strategies
By: Véronique Dudouet
Publisher: International Center on Nonviolent Conflict
Date of publication: 2017 (44 pages)

Negotiating Civil Resistance
By: Anthony Wanis-St.John and Noah Rosen
Publisher: United States Institute of Peace
Date of Publication: 2017 (22 pages)

New ICNC-supported Educational Resources for Practitioners

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We support the development of new educational resources for activists and organizers, and publish these through ICNC Press. Forthcoming titles include:

The Path of Most Resistance: A Step-by-Step Guide to Planning Nonviolent Campaigns

by Ivan Marovic
ICNC Press, 2018 (forthcoming)

Description:
The Path of Most Resistance: A Step-by-Step Guide to Planning Nonviolent Campaigns is a practical guide for activists and organizers of all levels, who wish to grow their resistance activities into a more strategic, fixed-term campaign. It guides readers through the campaign planning process, breaking it down into several steps and providing tools and exercises for each step. Upon finishing the book, readers will have what they need to guide their peers through the process of planning a campaign. This process, as laid out in the guide, is estimated to take about 12 hours from start to finish.

The guide is divided into two parts. The first lays out and contextualizes campaign planning tools and their objectives. It also explains the logic behind these tools, and how they can be modified to better suit a particular group’s context. The second part provides easily reproducible and shareable lesson plans for using each of those tools, as well as explores how to embed the tools in the wider planning process.

Key Terms in the Study and Translation of Civil Resistance (tentative title)

by Hardy Merriman and Nicola Barrach-Yousefi 
ICNC Press, 2019 (forthcoming)

The amount of English-language literature in the field of civil resistance has rapidly expanded in recent decades, while the demand for materials in languages other than English has dramatically risen. This glossary of over 150 terms is created to help make this knowledge available to people around the world. Its primary goal is to help with the translation of information on civil resistance from English into other languages. We also expect other readers will also find value in it—a great deal can be learned through deep understanding of the terms in this field.

Liberating Politics: The Potential of Civil Resistance

by Ivan Marovic and Hardy Merriman
ICNC Press, 2019 (forthcoming)

Description:
For 11 straight years, freedom and democracy has declined around the globe. The world is in a slow-moving crisis, with authoritarians playing offense and adapting their strategies to prevent and counter civil resistance. Meanwhile, populists are also trying to drive popular discontent and use it for their own personal gain. Civil resistance movements must adapt their strategies in the face of these realities, and new thinking is required.

Liberating Politics aims to take the best insights from scholars and grassroots practitioners over the last decade and make them available to anybody who is preparing for or following the next wave of nonviolent resistance movements. Research in the field of civil resistance has progressed significantly in recent years, but far too little of it has been accessible to activists. Using data and examples with diagrams, photos and other visuals, this book will provide up-to-date understanding of diverse aspects of civil resistance and practical insights about waging nonviolent struggle, drawn from cases around the world. It will be available online for free download and in hard copy for a low price.

 

 

Calls from ICNC Academic Initiatives

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Throughout the year, ICNC is offering a number of academic opportunities, resources, and support that it makes available to scholars and students. The field of civil resistance has grown immensely and these academic programs aim to respond to the growing demand for knowledge and skills and contribute to expanding the quality of education, research, and curriculum related to civil resistance. This page has all of the current and past calls for the ICNC’s programs, such as learning opportunities, curriculum support, and research grants.

Current Calls:

Webinar Opportunity:

Past Calls:

ICNC Learning Opportunities:

Curriculum Support for Teaching Civil Resistance Courses:

Research Grant on Civil Resistance:

Call for Proposals for Case Studies on Civil Resistance and Peacebuilding Strategies

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The International Center on Nonviolent Conflict invites interested authors to submit proposals for writing case studies on the interplay of civil resistance (CR) and peacebuilding (PB) strategies.

These case studies are expected to refer to the analytical framework developed by Veronique Dudouet in the ICNC Special Report “Powering to Peace: Integrated Civil Resistance and Peacebuilding Strategies” (see Table 1 below) and to provide illustrative and specific examples from conflict events to demonstrate how civil resistance and peacebuilding strategies worked together or separately in four identified phases of violent conflict: latent; overt; settlement and post-settlement.

The proposal submission deadline is October 15th, 2017.

Submit your proposal online here

Prospective applicants are strongly encouraged to review the ICNC Special Report “Powering to Peace” before submitting their proposals.

ICNC aims to commission up to five case studies depending on the relevance and strength of the submitted proposals.

Case Studies on Civil Resistance and Peacebuilding

Case studies that could potentially offer a wealth of relevant information to discuss the intersection between peacebuilding and civil resistance strategies in different stages of conflict include:

  • The anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa and the ensuing democratic transition;
  • Peace zones in the Philippines;
  • Peace communities in Colombia or ongoing nonviolent organizing and mobilizations in support of the implementation of the provisions of the Havana peace agreement;
  • Mali in the early 1990s that witnessed an unarmed pro-democratic mobilization and negotiated process with armed rebels;
  • The end to the civil war in Liberia in 2003 and the subsequent transition out of violent conflict;
  • Insurrection in Nepal prior to 2006, the civil resistance that ushered in the transition of government in 2006, and the post-transition dynamics;
  • The independence struggle and post-independence settlement in East Timor;
  • Egypt before, during and after the 2011 revolution;
  • Tunisia before, during and after the 2011 revolution;
  • Afghan communities’ autonomous organizing and peaceful resistance against the Taliban;
  • The end of civil war in Guatemala up until the popular uprising against corruption in 2015;
  • Burkina Faso’s mass based civilian mobilization against a long-term dictatorship in 2014 and later against the military junta.

We also welcome proposals for an in-depth analysis of other cases of conflicts in which civil resistance and peacebuilding strategies might have played a role.

Once selected, the authors will have 75 days to complete a 9,000-10,000 word (excluding footnoting, appendixes, bibliography) study that analyzes civil resistance and peacebuilding strategies while referencing a specific, conflict-related, empirical case. After a successful peer-review assessment and a completion of needed revisions, the study will be published by ICNC and will accompany its released special report “Powering to Peace.”

Joint-author Proposals

We will consider single-author proposals, but our preference is for jointly-submitted (by at least two authors) proposals, in which the authors complement each other’s scholarly expertise with field or practitioner-informed experience.  Case studies should include practical applications of strategies of peacebuilding and civil resistance in resolving, transforming or containing a violent conflict.

Proposals should be submitted online and are not to be longer than 1,200 words. References, tables, footnotes and appendices do not count against this word limit. Please do not send complete papers.

Criteria for Proposal Selection

Relevance:

  • The proposal integrates the analytical framework from the ICNC Special Report on peacebuilding and civil resistance strategies (See Table 1 below) into the analysis of a specific case study
  • The selected case study highlights a political instability in which civil resistance and peacebuilding strategies can be identified and were deployed in a single phase or across various stages of conflict development (latent; overt; settlement and postsettlement- for more see Table 1 below and the accompanying special report) and the interplay and impact of both strategies can be thoroughly described and evaluated
  • the selected case study looks into a single, country-specific conflict (rather than conflicts across countries) in a defined time frame and identifies various stages in which a conflict developed and different domestic actors that devised and deployed peacebuilding and civil resistance strategies to address and mitigate violence. Support by external parties for domestic actors and their peacebuilding and civil resistance strategies can also be evaluated.

Significance:

  • Initial findings included as part of the proposal highlight important aspects of civil resistance and peacebuilding strategies in all four, or in most, conflict stages (as outlined in Table 1) of a selected case study
  • Initial conclusions of the proposed study suggest a potential rich array of practical takeaways and lessons-learned for activists and organizers, domestic civil society organizations, and the international policy and development communities

Knowledge:

  • The authors demonstrate empirical and analytical knowledge of their identified case as well as generic knowledge of conflict studies, including a sound understanding of the differences between civil resistance and peacebuilding strategies. Prospective applicants are encouraged to consult the ICNC Resource Library and ICNC Academic Online Curriculum if they require further background on the field of civil resistance

Coherence and clarity of language:

  • The proposed structure of the future study is logical and clear
  • The language is not overly academic and is accessible to a professional, but non-scholarly, audience

Honorarium

ICNC offers a $2,000 honorarium for completed multi-authored publications and $1,000 for completed single authored publications.

Submit your proposal online here

Table 1: Conflict transformation strategies: A comprehensive staged approach. Source: Veronique Dudouet, “Powering to Peace: Integrated Civil Resistance and Peacebuilding Strategies,” ICNC Special Report, 2017, p. 31.

Powering to Peace: Integrated Civil Resistance and Peacebuilding Strategies

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By: Véronique Dudouet, July 2017
Series editor: Maciej Bartkowski
Volume editor: Amber French
Free Download: English | French
Purchase copies: English | French
Purchase e-book (Nook | Kindle)

This report explores the complementary ideas and practices that civil resistance and peacebuilding approaches present, each from different points along the conflict transformation spectrum. Both strategies oppose violence in all its forms, and seek to pursue just peace by peaceful means. However, they take different approaches to conflict transformation, in particular how they analyze primary causes of violence and how they respond to conflict. Drawing on a number of case studies, this report aims to help practitioners and scholars understand how integrating these strategies can help establish a path for “powering to peace.”

About the Author

Dr. Véronique Dudouet is senior researcher and program director at the Berghof Foundation in Berlin. She has been coordinating participatory action research, training and policy advice activities on resistance and liberation movements in transition’ since 2005. She holds an MA (2001) and PhD (2005) in Conflict Resolution from the Department of Peace Studies, Bradford University, UK, as well as an MPhil in International Relations and Security and a BA in Political Science from the Institute d’Etudes Politiques, Toulouse, France.

Her current research interests include transitions from armed to unarmed insurgencies, the role of external actors in nonviolent resistance, negotiation and third-party intervention in asymmetric conflict, inclusive post-war governance. As a scholar-activist, she has been involved in several anti-war and nonviolent campaigns, including as a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in the Palestinian territories. She also carries out consultancy projects for various civil society organizations, state and international agencies (EU, OECD, UNDP).

Besides numerous publications in the fields of conflict transformation and peacebuilding, she has published numerous book chapters and academic articles on civil resistance, as well as a co-authored report (with Howard Clark, 2009) for the European Parliament on Nonviolent Civic Action in Support of Human Rights and Democracy, and an edited book on Civil Resistance and Conflict Transformation: Transitions from Armed to Nonviolent Struggle (Routledge 2014).