By Michael Beer
Date of Publication: March 2021
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Description:

Civil Resistance Tactics in the 21st Century belongs on the bookshelf of anyone who is studying or practicing nonviolent action.

For scholars of civil resistance: This monograph updates Gene Sharp’s 1973 seminal work The Methods of Nonviolent Action, reworking Sharp’s classifications to include 148 additional tactics (methods).

For trainers and teachers: Brief yet comprehensive, this overview explains the mechanisms by which nonviolent tactics succeed and allows students to differentiate the immense field of nonviolent action from institutionalized lobbying, electioneering, legal fights, and armed conflict.

For activists: This resource, in conjunction with Nonviolence International’s voluminous Nonviolent Tactics Database and Organizing & Training Archive, enlarges the activist toolbox and focuses on the central role of tactics in organizing strategic campaigns for success and power.

This monograph will serve as a foundational text not only “in the field” of action, but also in classrooms studying nonviolent action, civil resistance, peacebuilding, and creative conflict resolution around the world.

About the Author:

Michael Beer serves as the Director of Nonviolence International, an innovative and respected Washington DC based nonprofit promoting nonviolent approaches to international conflicts. Since 1991 he has worked with NVI to serve marginalized people who seek to use nonviolent tactics often in difficult and dangerous environments. This includes diaspora activists, multinational coalitions, global social movements, as well as within countries including: Myanmar, Tibet, Indonesia, Russia, Thailand, Palestine, Cambodia, East Timor, Iran, India, Kosovo, Zimbabwe, Sudan, and the United States. Michael Beer has a special expertise in supporting movements against dictators and in support of global organizing for justice, environment, and peace. Michael co-parents two teenagers with his patient life partner, Latanja.

In 2014, ICNC launched the Curriculum Fellowship Program to support development of courses on nonviolent conflict and promote teaching in the growing field of civil resistance studies. That year, seven fellows were selected, and the following year (2015) there were six fellows.

In 2016, ICNC has selected six fellows to help them introduce or expand existing curricular and educational activities in the field of civil resistance. Some of these fellows will teach class-based curses at their affiliated academic institutions in the United States and Portugal, while others will develop and run online academic seminars for the Brazilian, Vietnamese and African audiences as part of the ICNC curriculum support.

We are featuring three final evaluation and learning assessment reports from the 2016 Fellows. The reports demonstrate a significant impact the ICNC-supported classroom-based and online courses have had on their participants and on learning about civil resistance and nonviolent movements, in general.

• Clay Fuller, 2016 ICNC Curriculum Fellow. Clay’s course evaluation & learning assessment
• Lilit Makunts, 2016 ICNC Curriculum Fellow. Lilit’s course evaluation & learning assessment
• Etiene Martins, 2016 ICNC Curriculum Fellow. Etiene’s course evaluation & learning assessment

2016 Fellows include:

Courtney Cook is an educator, activist, and artist. She is currently a doctoral student in the Curriculum and Instruction Department at the University of Texas at Austin. Specializing in Cultural Studies in Education, Courtney’s research focuses on critical pedagogy and humanizing dialogue as a means of engaging with systemic injustice, cultural trauma, and contemporary violence. She completed her Master’s Degree at Boston University in African American Studies in 2008 where she focused on American slavery, the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, collective memory, trauma and literature.

As a long-time English teacher, Courtney used literature and creative writing to invite her students into critical dialogue regarding civic responsibility and issues of power, race, class, gender, and ideology. As an activist and artist she has taught creative writing in prisons and worked with young people in processes of overcoming addiction. Currently she is teaching future educators about issues of race, class, gender, political oppression, and civil resistance, and is the co-organizer of the 5th annual Cultural Studies in Education Conference, “Education Under Fire: Countering Violence with Peaceful Resistance, Radical Love, and Social Imagination.” As an experienced curriculum specialist and consultant, Courtney has developed curriculum within the fields of peace education, human rights education, and anti-racist education. Currently she is developing curriculum guides for the Institute for Community, University, and School Partnership’s Blackademics Television series for educators and activists to use as resources in their classrooms and communities.

Course title: “Introduction to Civil Resistance and Sociocultural Influences on Education”
Location: University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA (August-December 2016)

Abstract: In this course, students will become familiar with the sociological, cultural, and political contexts and dimensions of education in U.S. society, and will come to understand relationships of power within society that can be found in schooling and nonviolent resistance movements.
The units on nonviolent resistance that are incorporated into this course cover an introduction to what civil resistance is and framing civil resistance in education; an examination of the strategies and tactics nonviolent movements use to organize and resist oppression; a study of schools as sites of resistance designed to help students critically reflect on the role of teaching and learning on civil resistance movements; a session on conceptualizing resistance and building community through dialogue; a deep dive into the concept of ‘collective imagining’, assessing the relationship between shared visions, individual voices, and direct nonviolent action; and finally, a further analysis of various case studies of nonviolent movements.

Clay Fuller is a research assistant for the Walker Institute of International and Area Studies, a sixth year PhD candidate (ABD) and adjunct instructor at the University of South Carolina, and he also teaches international relations online for Western Carolina University (NC). Clay studies non-democratic political institutions and the conditions under which these allow for liberal economic experimentation.

The title of his dissertation is ‘Authoritarian Liberalism: Dictatorship in the 21st Century.’ His dissertation proposes an alternative assumption to the largely held belief that authoritarian regimes that grow the domestic economy and adopt semi-democratic political institutions will eventually lose control of the process and democratize. Essentially, modern authoritarian regimes are quite capable of adopting most of the necessary conditions for democracy while successfully avoiding the sufficient. His first field is comparative politics and second is international relations. Clay’s research resides in the nexus of these two fields and offers promising new data and insight concerning the use of special economic zones (SEZs) and sovereign wealth funds (SWFs). He regularly teaches an original topics course on modern dictatorships (to which this fellowship is applied) and regularly teaches basic international relations theory courses.  View his CV here.

Course title: “Dictatorship and Civil Resistance in the 21st Century”
Location: University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, USA (August-December 2016)

Abstract: This political science course combines the traditionally domestic and/or area focus of comparative politics with the global and/or interstate levels of analysis associated with international relations. Authoritarianism, neo-authoritarianism, soft authoritarianism, dictatorship, monarchy, autocracy, totalitarianism, single-party regimes, military juntas, and the all-encompassing ‘non-democracy’ are merely a few of the many names given to world’s oldest and most common form of government. Despite ‘waves of democratization,’ in 2015 Freedom House reported that 55% of the world’s countries and 60% of the world’s population are not fully “free.” They also currently report a steady decline in freedom around the world for the entire past decade (freedom measured by civil liberties and political rights). This class explains and explores what these data and terminology mean, the methodologies used to generate these stats, and the major theoretical explanations for the continued survival of non-democracies and their leaders. In addition to learning the various theories concerning non-democratic survival, there are three other components to the course: 1) a section on data collection in dictatorships, 2) a semester-long computer simulation of the fall of a dictatorship to a civil resistance campaign, and 3) a large segment on civil resistance including its history, strategies, and tactics. It is actually not very difficult to remove a dictator from office relative to the difficulty of building a democratic society. The aim of this course is not only to educate students about the 80+ non-democratic regimes that exist today, but also to inspire students to learn more about the front end of the democratization process (removal of the dictator or regime) while simultaneously warning them about the pitfalls that face the group that replaces the regime.

Clay’s course evaluation & learning assessment

Lilit Makunts is currently an Associate Professor at Russian-Armenian University in Yerevan. She earned her Ph.D. in Cognitive Linguistics specializing in Political Discourse. She teaches Sociolinguistics, Cognitive Linguistics, and Discourse Analysis. After attending the Fletcher Summer Institute for the Advanced Study of Nonviolent Conflict in 2015 she initiated an academic course on Civil Resistance in the Department of Political Science this fall.

Still a student, she was very actively engaged in civic initiatives. Her aspiration for democratic changes in Armenia made her enter politics in 2004 and try to promote universal values. However, after about 8 years as a political board member in the Liberal Party of Armenia and the head of the youth organization (2004-2012) she realized that without civic education and the acknowledgment of people power among society no substantial democratic changes can take place. This was the major reason she quit political activity and started working with civil society groups and individuals. Together with academic teaching, she works as a trainer on different civil society platforms.

Course title: “Introduction to Civil Resistance: History and Strategies of Nonviolent Struggle”
Location: Online (November-December 2016)

Abstract: This is an online seminar that aims to provide civil society representatives, social/political activists and students with basic knowledge of civil resistance history as well as introduce them to strategies and tactics that are employed worldwide to make nonviolent resistance effective. The course intends to discuss various cases of nonviolent campaigns and movements and reflect on their efficiency by drawing parallels across local contexts. The course will begin with the introduction of civil resistance and its historical background and will focus on its common misconceptions. It will discuss the reasons why nonviolent campaigns succeed more often than violent ones and will touch upon the idea of people power and how it works. The seminar will further discuss strategic frameworks for analyzing campaigns and movements as well as explore issues of innovative and creative tactical choice. Cultural resistance will then be introduced as a creative way to challenge and fight oppression. The last component of the online course will be devoted to the discussion of the role of negotiations in civil resistance and the options regarding their application in nonviolent struggles in Armenia.

Lilit’s course evaluation & learning assessment

Etiene Martins is a Brazilian Federal Judge and a former police officer. He was a police officer for 16 years at Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil, and served at its Legal Department. In 2014, he was appointed Federal Judge and, currently, serves at the 4th Federal Court of Guarulhos City, District of São Paulo. He holds a B.A and a M.A in Public Security. In 2008, he earned LLB from the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro. Since November 2015, Etiene Martins has been Professor of Constitutional Law and International Law at Enfase Institute (Brazil).  Etiene has additionally started teaching Criminal Law at the D. João VI Police Academy. Etiene is active in the field of civil resistance training. He is a Kingian Nonviolence Conflict Resolution Co-Trainer affiliated with the Center for Nonviolence & Peace Studies (University of Rhode Island) In 2011, he attended the Kingian Nonviolence Training – Level I (University of Rhode Island) and, in 2015, the Fletcher Summer Institute on the Advanced Study of Nonviolent Conflict. In June this year, he will embark on the “Kingian Nonviolence Training – Level II – ADVANCED TRAINING in Leadership, Organization, Mobilization” at the University of Rhode Island. He is the author of the chapter “Law, Violence, and Public Security: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Philosophy Applied” published in the book Kingian Nonviolence: Applications for International & Institutional Change, 2015.

Course title: “Strategic Nonviolent Action, Peacemaking, Community Policing”
Location: D. João VI Police Academy, Rio de Janeiro-Brazil (October-November 2016)

Abstract: This is an online seminar that aims to introduce police officers to ideas and concepts of civil resistance scholarship and practice, and to show how important social and political changes can be brought about by nonviolent actions. The course also intends to make participants aware of how civil resistance campaigns can help to reduce violence and enforce the rule of law. Since civil resistance campaigns can play such an important role in fighting corrupt practices, state abuses and strengthening rule of law, police would benefit from understanding and gaining greater insight from the field of civil resistance studies. The course aims to teach its participants how to identify civil resistance campaigns, deconstruct misconceptions about civil resistance actions and nonviolent movements, and how to constructively work with activists and civil resistance campaigns. The course consists of five components: 1) an introduction to civil resistance through a historical and practical perspective; 2) an examination of nonviolent action in history, focusing on the Martin Luther King campaign; 3) a look into the strategies and skills that create successful civil resistance movements; 4) applying nonviolent action to policing; and 5) an exploration of the future of civil resistance. Collectively, these components examine the proponents, philosophies and techniques of nonviolent action in transforming violent conflicts into more constructive nonviolent contentions that will benefit resolution of personal interpersonal, societal, and international conflicts.

Etiene’s course evaluation & learning assessment

Dr. Truong Nong grew up in South Vietnam and came to America as a refugee in 1980 when he and his family escaped Vietnam in search of freedom. Dr. Nong earned a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and a Master of Arts Degree in Political Science from the University of Houston, as well as a Ph.D. degree in Education, specializing in online education, at Northcentral University, Arizona, United States. He has been a part-time faculty member at the University of Houston, teaching the Vietnamese language and Viet-studies courses.

In addition to being an educator, Dr. Nong has been an activist in the Vietnamese-American community in Houston for the past 30 years.  Currently, he serves as Advisor to the Executive Board of the Vietnamese Culture and Science Association (VCSA), a national Vietnamese American organization based in Houston. In this capacity, over the past eighteen years he has delivered a number of leadership workshops for VCSA’s annual youth-leadership camps. Further, since 2005 he has dedicated himself full-time to the establishment of the Institute for Civic Education (ICEVN), a non-profit institute that provides online civic education, leadership development, and business management to Vietnamese students worldwide.  In addition to designing and teaching the online courses offered by ICEVN, Dr. Nong has written and published several articles on the democratization process in Asia that have appeared in Vietnamese diaspora magazines.

Course title: “Dynamics and Effectiveness of Civil Resistance: History and Strategies of Nonviolent Struggle in Vietnam”
Location: Online (January-February 2017)

Abstract: The online seminar provides an overview and analysis of the strategies that civil resistance movements have employed worldwide, particularly in dealing with oppressive regimes. The course will begin with an introduction to civil resistance– presenting the scope and power of civil resistance in both theory and practice, before moving to an exploration of the strategies and effectiveness of civil resistance movements.  The course will then focus in on case studies of civil resistance in non-democracies, before locating participants specifically in the struggle for rights in Vietnam.  Here the course will examine and analyze civil resistance practice and nonviolent movements throughout the history of Vietnam, and participants will develop an understanding of the Vietnamese Constitution’s framing and rights.  The course will conclude with a discussion on the application of theory and strategies for civil resistance in repressive regimes—discussing and drawing lessons from the application of theory and strategies for civil resistance, to current conditions in Vietnam.

 Ana Isabel Rodriguez is currently a PhD fellow in International Relations and Conflict Resolution at the University of Coimbra. She holds three Masters degrees, the most recent being from Georgetown University in Latin American Studies. Ana’s two other degrees are in International Relations and in European Union Studies, both from the Universidad CEU San Pablo, Madrid. Ana has received multiple scholarship awards: the FCT Scholarship, a mixed grant from the Government of Portugal and the European Union to do her PhD (2015-019); the Fulbright Scholarship, for her MA program at Georgetown University (2012-2014); and the “la Caixa” Scholarship, for her MA in International Relations at CEU San Pablo (2009-2010). Previously, she has worked as a researcher and consultant at various international organizations, think tanks, and universities– including the Inter-American Development Bank, Human Rights Watch, and CSIS in Washington DC, and the Institute of European Studies in Madrid.

Course title: “Dynamics of Peace, Civil Resistance and Conflict”
Location: University of Coimbra, Portugal (September-December 2016)

Abstract: The course ‘Dynamics of Peace, Civil Resistance and Conflict’ will include a unit of five modules focused specifically on the dynamics of civil resistance. The overall goal of this unit is to introduce students to the topic of civil resistance and nonviolent conflict, as part of the course’s larger inquiry into the theoretical debate on the ethics of security, violence and peace. The five civil resistance modules will cover: A) The concepts, dynamics and history of civil resistance; B) Skills and conditions for the success of the civil resistance movements; C) Types of civil resistance, with a particular focus on democratic transitions and civil resistance in democracies; and D) Practical analysis of recent and current movements, such as the Indignados movement in Spain, among others. The methodology of the course will include theoretical and practical classes, with in-class presentations from students, a documentary screening, and a talk featuring a guest speaker.

In 2014, ICNC launched its new curriculum fellowship to support development of courses on nonviolent conflict and promote teaching in the growing field of civil resistance studies. During the first edition of the curriculum fellowships, ICNC has selected seven instructors and scholars to help them introduce or expand existing curricular and educational activities in the field of civil resistance at their universities and colleges. Our 2014 curriculum fellows teach in the United States, United Kingdom, Israel, and Poland.

2014 fellows include:

Benedetta Berti is a Kreitman Post-Doctoral Fellow at Ben Gurion University, a lecturer at Tel Aviv University, and a fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). Dr. Berti’s areas of expertise include human security, internal conflict, integration of armed groups, and post-conflict stabilization. Berti’s work has appeared, among others, in Foreign Policy, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, and Mediterranean Politics. Recently, Dr. Berti also authored the book Armed Political Organizations. From Conflict to Integration (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013). Dr. Berti is a Member of the Young Atlanticist group of the Atlantic Council, the Körber Foundation’s Munich Young Leader group, the ME 2.0 Israeli-Palestinian Young Business Leaders Forum, she serves as academic advisor for the Yala Online Peace Academy and is affiliated with the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations. She holds a Ph.D in international relations from the Fletcher School (Tufts University).

Course title: “Mobilization, Social Protest, Revolution: Civil Resistance from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street” (Spring 2015)
Location: Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

Abstract: This seminar will explore the vast topic of ‘contentious politics’—looking specifically at the role of social movements and civil society groups. In the course of the semester students will look at different dynamics of civil resistance and strategic nonviolent struggles, relying heavily on case studies from the Middle East (but not exclusively). Some of the key themes that will be explored in the course of the semester include: conceptualizing civil resistance in its various forms; deconstructing and criticizing the myth of the ‘effectiveness of violence’ and discussing realistic alternatives (from grassroots nonviolent mobilizations, to digital activism and to local forms of ‘everyday resistance’); as well as discovering and applying economic, political, social and organizational tools to assess when and why strategic nonviolence works. The course is highly interdisciplinary and draws from both ‘classic’ works in civil resistance and political theory, to organizational sociology, social anthropology and international relations.

Paulina Codogni, Political scientist; Vice-Rector for International Cooperation at Collegium Civitas, where she also works as a lecturer in the field of International Relations; adjunct in the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Graduate of the Warsaw School of Economics, where she studied International Political and Economic Relations. She has also graduated in Financing and Banking. The title of her Ph.D. thesis, defended at the Polish Academy of Sciences, was “The Polish elections in June 1989 – at the Threshold of the Transformation,” and it was published in 2012. Author of two other books: Year 1956, published in 2006 and The Polish Roundtable – Crossing the Rubicon, published in 2009. Co-author of Biographical Dictionary of Central and Eastern Europe 20th Century (Warsaw, 2005) and of the Polish edition of Oxford Contemporary History (Warsaw 2008). Now she is doing a research on transforming everyday life activities into forms of civil resistance.

Course title: “Salt and Politics– Nonviolent Resistance in the XX and XXI Century” (Fall 2014)
Location: Collegium Civitas, Warsaw, Poland

Abstract: This is an elective course for graduate and upper-level undergraduate students as well as Erasmus and exchange students. It is focused on introducing students to the theory and practice of civil resistance struggles and their dynamics including the role of external actors, new media and technology. During the course we analyze and interpret civil resistance campaigns with the use of canonical case studies but also referring to relatively less known campaigns. A special emphasis is placed on diverse strategies and tactics used during civil resistance struggles. We discuss main reasons for successes and failures of non-violent campaigns. The civil resistance theory and practice are addressed by analyzing different aspects of campaigns – everyday acts of resistance, women and youth participation, culture and symbols, among others. The course has incorporated books on civil resistance (among others, authored by Gene Sharp, Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan, Adam Roberts and Timthy Garton Ash, and Kurt Schock), documentaries (two segments from A Force More Powerful), articles and video materials provided by ICNC.

Shannon Gibson is a Full-time Lecturer at the University of Southern California in the School of International Relations, where she teaches courses on international organizations, environmental politics, global public health, and transnational social movements. Her research focuses on the role of civil and “uncivil” society participation in transnational politics. As part of her dissertation, “Dynamics of Radicalization: The Rise of Radical Environmentalism against Climate Change,” she conducted field and participant observation research at a variety of international summits, including World Social Forums in Brazil and Senegal, the 2010 G20 Summit in Pittsburgh, and the United Nations climate negotiations in Denmark and Mexico in order to assess the evolution and impact of environmental social movements and activist networks in the climate change regime. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation and the University of Miami’s Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy. She has co-authored an article “Environmental Praxis, Climate Activism, and the UNFCCC: A Participatory Action Research Approach,” (Globalizations 9:3).

Course title: “Order and Disorder in Global Affairs” (Spring 2015)
Location: University of California, California, USA

Abstract: “Order and Disorder in Global Affairs” (IR 382) is an upper-level undergraduate elective that focuses on the various “orders” and “disorders” created by modern globalization across political, economic, social, cultural and environmental spheres. As such, it takes a largely critical approach to the study of globalization. In order to explore globalization and its discontents theoretically and practically, the course focuses on several transnational social movements and grassroots civil resistance struggles and their attempts to bolster, reform, transform, discredit, or decommission globalization and its supporting institutions, actors and ideologies. These movements are explored through documentaries, academic and activist literature, and the instructor’s firsthand experiences as a scholar-activist. Finally, at the culmination of the course, we examine various alternative proposals, including impact and role of civil resistance movements, for creating more sustainable, just and democratic governance structures and societies. The course will integrate books, documentaries and other materials on civil resistance recommended by ICNC.

Rachel Julian has spent 20 years working on peace and nonviolence issues including peace campaigning, education, social enterprise and community development. She worked for 5 years for both the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Nonviolent Peaceforce. She has also worked for International Peace Bureau, Calderdale Community Foundation, GlobalOps and is founder and Chair of the Trustees for a local Community Centre. She now teaches, and leads courses on, International Relations, Peace and Development at Leeds Metropolitan University in the UK. Her expertise ranges from how developing movements and how organisations or projects are run, the roles and responsibilities of individuals, nonviolent social change and the importance of local ownership of peace and resistance movements. She teaches, lectures and leads workshops on nonviolence and social movements and continues working with a range of peace and justice organisations. Her PhD is on overcoming the challenge of demonstrating results in conflict transformation, and since 2012 she has been teaching undergraduate and postgraduate modules on Peace building, Managing projects, Conflict resolution and Introduction to Peace. She supervises PhD students on conflict resolution, nonviolence and peace education. Her research focuses on the development of Unarmed Civilian Peacekeeping.

Course title: “Nonviolence and Civil Resistance” (Spring 2015)
Location: Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds, United Kingdom

Abstract: The course on civil resistance is a component of the first year Undergraduate module ‘Introduction to Peace.’ Over three weeks the students will specifically study ‘Nonviolence and Civil Resistance’ will include the theory and practice of nonviolent civil resistance with a guest lecture on Gandhi, and group research on historical nonviolent intervention, growing contemporary nonviolent social movements and researching civil resistance, addressing some of the critical questions in the field through their case studies such as dealing with nonviolence and violence, power and civil resistance and social movement theory. From doing this course the students will learn the theory of nonviolence and civil resistance and have it embedded in historical and contemporary examples. They will be doing one of the assessments based on this content and will produce a display of research they have produced. The course is offered by Leeds Metropolitan University as part of the BA(Hons) International Relations and Peace Studies. The guest lecture and materials will also be available to students on the MA Peace and Development course in their module ‘Critical Perspectives on Peace and Conflict’.

Allyson McCreery is an adjunct professor at Arcadia University. She teaches classes on both nonviolent and violent conflict. She has developed academic courses on both civil resistance and visual propaganda of armed conflict. McCreery holds an MA in International Peace and Conflict Resolution (2013) from Arcadia University as well as an MA in Art History and Archaeology from Temple University (2010). Her academic research focuses on the role of the arts and cultural heritage in transforming conflict, thus bridging these academic fields. She was a Peace Fellow with the International Peace and Security Institute (IPSI) and has completed field studies in Serbia and Kosovo, Ukraine and Crimea, the Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, and Northern Ireland. Other research includes reconstructing identity in post-conflict Northern Ireland, examining the potential for cultural diplomacy in divided cities, and analyzing the role of ethnic and national symbols in divided landscapes. She has co-authored an article called “Crisis as Impetus Toward Conflict Resolution in Cyprus,” (Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice 24:4, 446–453) and is working towards the publication of several other manuscripts.

Course title: “Making Moves: Strategic Nonviolence and Civil Disobedience in American Culture”
Location: Arcadia University, Philadelphia, USA

Abstract: Throughout American history strategic nonviolence and civil disobedience have led to significant transformations in American political, economic, and social spheres. The strong force of activism in American culture, represented through actions such as peaceful protests and boycotts, has changed the course of American history. Civil rights and liberties often compose the platform of strategic nonviolence and civil disobedience as citizens exhibit resiliency in their efforts and motivations to change the status quo. This course will investigate why and how civil resistance works, noting both successes and failures across several decades from the Civil Rights Movement to current day, as well as international examples. Utilizing primary and secondary sources, students will expose the role of strategic nonviolence in initiating change through demonstrations, boycotts, and other nonviolent measures.

Benjamin Naimark-Rowse is an academic and practitioner with over a decade of experience directing NGOs and advising governments on criminal justice, democratization, human rights, and transitional justice issues. He has served as a Program Officer with the Open Society Justice Initiative, an electoral observer with The Carter Center, and the Founding Director of the Seevak Human Rights and Social Justice Fellowship. From 2007-2010, he co-directed Darfurian Voices, the first public opinion survey of Darfurian refugees on issues of peace, justice, and reconciliation, which entailed conducting 2,152 refugee interviews along the Chad/Sudan border and briefing the survey findings to key stakeholders around the world. During 2011 he conducted political analysis of the Egyptian Revolution including two field research missions in Egypt.

Ben holds a M.P.A. from Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and a B.A. with honors from the University of Chicago. He has served as an Assistant Editor of the Journal of Public and International Affairs and as a public security expert review group member for the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. He is a Truman National Security Fellow and a Ph.D. candidate at The Fletcher School at Tufts University.

Ches Thurber is a research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for cience and International Affairs and a Ph.D. candidate at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. His research pans the spectrum of intrastate conflict dynamics ranging from ontentious politics to civil war. His doctoral dissertation, “Between Mao and Gandhi: Strategies of Violence and Nonviolence in Revolutionary Movements,” examines variation in strategies employed by groups seeking to capture state power. Previously, he worked as a foreign and defense policy aide in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Course title: “From Gandhi to the Arab Spring: The Theory and Practice of Nonviolent Resistance” (Fall 2014)
Location: Tufts University, Boston, USA

Abstract: From colonial America to colonial India, the Berlin Wall to Tahrir Square, nonviolent resistance movements have proven capable of toppling regimes and recasting the geopolitical landscape. But what exactly constitutes “nonviolent resistance?” Why do some groups employ it while others turn to arms? Why and when is it effective? What, if anything, can the international community do to help nonviolent movements succeed? This seminar is intended to provide a broad, interdisciplinary overview of the study of what has been interchangeably called civil resistance, nonviolent direct action, and strategic nonviolence. It will explore questions surrounding the ethics of nonviolent action, when and where civil resistance is used, the conditions under which it is more or less effective, and its consequences for local communities, state polities, and the international system. The course will draw from seminal philosophical texts, historical accounts, and cutting-edge social science research. Students will gain an understanding of both the normative and empirical debates surrounding the practice of civil resistance and a familiarity with key cases in which it has been used.

1. What is nonviolent conflict?

In a nonviolent conflict, civilian-based resistance is used to challenge the legitimacy of an oppressor, raise the cost of repression, and to undermine the opponent’s sources of power, including the military and police.

There are over 198 tactics (or methods) of nonviolent action. Various forms of protest—such as petitions, parades, displaying symbols or mass demonstrations—can weaken an opponent’s legitimacy, and also help to recruit, mobilize, and enlarge people’s participation in a nonviolent movement. Certain acts of noncooperation—including resignations, refusal to obey orders, and civil disobedience—jeopardize the status quo. Other forms of noncooperation—such as strikes, boycotts, and refusal to pay fees and taxes—cut off an opponent’s material resources. Direct intervention in the form of sit-ins, targeted acts of economic sabotage, and blockades can directly disrupt an oppressor’s system of control.

Tactics vary widely in the amount of time and energy they require to implement (e.g. occupying a building vs. displaying a symbol), the amount of risk involved (e.g. a public strike and picket line vs. a consumer boycott or a stay-at-home strike), the degree to which people are concentrated or dispersed (e.g. a protest in front of a city hall vs. a population’s refusal to pay taxes), and the amount of people required to carry the tactic out (e.g. a hunger strike vs. mass civil disobedience). Tactics also vary widely in their function; for example some tactics—such as distributing literature to recruit or fund raise, or training members of a movement—help to build the strength of a movement while other tactics—such as a mass demonstration or a strike—may directly confront the movement’s opponent.

2. How does nonviolent conflict work?

Nonviolent conflict works by reducing an opponent’s power to control events and exploit his position in the society or nation. This can typically happen when the reliability and loyalty of key groups (such as the police, military, media, bureaucracy, businesses, laborers, students, religious institutions, or other groups), on which an oppressor depends, maintain its position, deteriorate or collapse. These groups either move towards neutrality in a conflict or actively join with the nonviolent movement to challenge the oppressor’s unjust rule.

When a society’s opposition groups are able to unite among themselves, form a nonviolent movement, develop a strategy and goals based on accurate analysis of their situation, and organize actions that effectively target and shift the loyalties and behavior of their opponent’s supporters, the oppression can no longer rule and power is shifted to the people.

WATCH – Dr. Peter Ackerman talks about key elements of civil resistance below

3. How is nonviolent conflict different from “nonviolence” or passive resistance?

“Nonviolence” is usually a moral choice. Nonviolent conflict is usually a pragmatic choice. Nonviolent conflict is about power—organizing and applying it to fight for and win rights or other political, economic, or social goals. Many people that have used nonviolent action in the past wanted to advance their rights or interests but chose nonviolent methods either because they saw that violence had been ineffective in the past or because they had no violent weapons at their disposal.

When a nonviolent movement follows a strategy aimed at unifying people, mobilizing them to act, concentrating on achievable objectives, and undermining the loyalties and cooperation of an opponent’s key supporters—especially the loyalties of the police and the military—it has the potential to wield decisive power. There is nothing passive about using that kind of power. Gandhi called nonviolent action “the greatest and most active force in the world.”

WATCH – Hardy Merriman talks about nonviolence and nonviolent conflict

VIDEO – Rev. James Lawson talks about Gandhian nonviolence

4. Can nonviolent conflict work against brutal opponents and in highly oppressed societies?

Some of the 20th century’s harshest oppressors were removed through nonviolent conflicts.

In Chile, General Augusto Pinochet tortured and killed thousands of dissidents, but a nonviolent movement developed a way to topple him.

The apartheid regime in South Africa made public assemblies in black townships illegal and threatened or even assassinated nonviolent organizers, but the indigenous nonviolent resistance was still able to shatter the regime’s internal and international support.

In the Philippines, over 70 opposition workers were killed before the 1986 election, but people still successfully organized and nonviolently dislodged dictator Ferdinand Marcos from power soon afterwards.

And the Solidarity movement in Poland opened up oppositional space where little had previously existed, both before and after the communist regime imposed martial law.

One of the key reasons why these and other nonviolent movements were effective against their brutal adversaries is because they undermined the reliable support that many of the key groups in society—including the state’s security forces—had provided to the oppressive regime. Once a nonviolent movement is able to do this, a society can become ungovernable for the existing regime, and a transition to new rulers or a new system can begin.Those who do not understand that nonviolent conflict works in this way tend to dismiss its achievements, but millions—who no longer live under dictatorships, or under other oppressive systems dissolved by nonviolent strategies—would not agree.

5. Where are the significant nonviolent conflicts happening in the world today?

Currently, groups are using civil resistance to obtain rights in nations such as Azerbaijan, Belarus, Burma, Colombia, China, Cuba, Egypt, Honduras, Iran, The Gambia, Vietnam, Zimbabwe, and other places. In places such as Tibet, West Papua, Western Sahara and the Palestinian Territories, groups are fighting nonviolently for self-determination.

To find out more about active nonviolent conflicts in the world, visit our “Movements and Campaigns” page.

6. How often has nonviolent conflict happened in history?

Nonviolent conflict has happened in history more frequently than is commonly realized.

The British gave up their occupation of India after a decades-long nonviolent struggle led by Gandhi.

The Danes and people’s in Europe used civil resistance against Nazi occupation during World War II, raising the costs to Germany of its occupation of these nations, helping to strengthen the spirit and cohesion of their people, and saving the lives of thousands of Jews in Berlin, Denmark, Bulgaria and elsewhere.

African Americans used nonviolent action in their struggle to dissolve segregation in the United States in the 1960s.

Polish workers used strikes in 1980 to win the right to organize a free trade union, a major victory in a communist country at a time when a million Soviet soldiers were stationed there.

Marcos in the Philippines and Pinochet in Chile were brought down by nonviolent campaigns in the 1980s.

The anti-apartheid movement in South Africa employed boycotts and other sanctions to weaken the white-dominated government, forcing it to negotiate a different political future for the country.

At the end of the 1980s, Eastern Europeans and Mongolians effectively used civilian-based protest to put massive pressure on communist governments, removing their hold on power.

In 2000, Serbs ousted Slobodan Milosevic, after a nonviolent movement helped co-opt the police and military, thereby dividing his base of support.

In 2002, citizens in Madagascar organized nonviolently to enforce their presidential election results.

In 2003, Georgians used nonviolent action to expose fraud and enforce election results in their country and in 2004, Ukrainians did the same.

In 2005, Lebanese used nonviolent action to end Syrian military control.

In 2006, Nepalis used nonviolent methods to restore democratic rule to their country.

7. Have governments taken into account the potential of nonviolent conflicts in their policies?

Governments do not often or consistently take into account the potential of nonviolent conflicts in their policies.

In the early- and mid-1990s, for example, the United States relied on diplomacy to end Slobodan Milosevic’s aggression in Bosnia, but it declined to provide much support to his democratic opponents inside Serbia when they were using nonviolent action to oppose him. When Milosevic later began ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, NATO`bombed Serbia until he stopped, but he remained in power. Finally in 1999, U.S. and European agencies gave modest but well-targeted support to nonviolent pro-democracy groups in Serbia, and they brought Milosevic down.

What negotiating and bombing had both failed to do—end Milosevic’s regional terrorism once and for all—nonviolent resistance accomplished. The U.S. and European support for the Serbian pro-democracy movement was not the primary reason for the movement’s success, but it did help. Fortunately some policymakers in a number of national capitals are seeing this and awakening to the realization that nonviolent campaigns usually produce democratic results, which in turn contribute to lasting peace. This is likely to change the nature of peacemaking itself.

8. What can governments and non-governmental organizations do to support nonviolent movements?

Governments that value and support human rights and international organizations should develop a comprehensive, transparent approach to assist (but not control or interfere with) civilian-based nonviolent movements. A key part of this approach should be to promote:

The transfer of generic knowledge to oppressed people about how civil resistance works and how it can be strategically planned. This could be done by funding independent efforts to provide tools, equipment and training about nonviolent struggle to groups in conflict.
International pressure on oppressive rulers should be enhanced and intelligent media coverage should be increased. This would help to promote and protect the rights of those who are engaged in nonviolent resistance and who face persecution.

VIDEO – Jack DuVall talks about civil resistance and the international community

9. Why has the successful use of nonviolent strategies to take power not been more widely appreciated?

Most people are taught that power comes from the decisions of leaders of governments, corporations, or organizations or that it comes from the threat or use of violence. Therefore, many people fail to see that when the civilians of a city, region, or country organize themselves, that they are capable of producing power and propelling change.

Some scholars, organizations, and certainly members of the news and entertainment media reinforce the view that power comes only from the decisions of leaders or by violence, because that is what they frequently talk and write about. This creates the mistaken impression that action by elites, revolutionaries, or terrorists is the strongest form of waging a conflict against oppression. Yet the truth is that over the last hundred years, bloody tyrants and even military forces have been neutralized and overcome through the use of strategic nonviolent conflict.

10. Do nonviolent movements require charismatic leaders like Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr.?

Nonviolent movements do not necessarily require charismatic leaders like Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr.

While charismatic leadership can be important, it is the ability of a movement or its leaders to use clear strategic thinking and to make wise decisions in the course of a conflict that is far more important in determining the movement’s success or failure. For example, the Chinese students who led the protest in Tiananmen Square had sensational personalities, but their movement collapsed when it had not strategy about what to do when the Chinese government refused to meet their demands.

In some situations, having charismatic or identifiable leadership can even be detrimental to a movement’s success—because the leader may be arrested, corrupted, intimidated, or make poor decisions. Movements that have had to hide or decentralize their leadership have still fared well. For example, the leaders of the Danish underground resistance to the Germans in World War II were entirely anonymous. The Serbian movement to oust Slobodan Milosevic in 2000 was largely decentralized and lacked a single identifiable leader.

Gandhi’s success with the Indian people did not rely on his charisma but rather his persistent campaigns that enlisted Indians at all levels of society to take control of their own lives and then gradually reduce the value to the British of having colonized India.Martin Luther King, Jr. was an inspiring speaker, but that talent would have made little difference if he and others had not identified shrewd ways for African Americans and their allies to put pressure on the system of segregation and undercut its economic and political support.

There are hundreds of different methods (or “tactics”) of nonviolent action that have been used in the past, and nonviolent movements are constantly creating new methods as they face new situations and use new technology.  To understand what constitutes a method of nonviolent action, see the definition of the term “nonviolent action”.A partial list of methods can be found below.  Each of the methods on this list has been catalogued and documented by Gene Sharp in his book The Politics of Nonviolent Action: Part 2 – The Methods of Nonviolent Action, (Boston: Extending Horizons Books), 1973.

Formal Statements

1. Public Speeches
2. Letters of opposition or support
3. Declarations by organizations and institutions
4. Signed public statements
5. Declarations of indictment and intention
6. Group or mass petitions

Communications with a Wider Audience

7. Slogans, caricatures, and symbols
8. Banners, posters, displayed communications
9. Leaflets, pamphlets, and books
10. Newspapers and journals
11. Records, radio, and television
12. Skywriting and earthwriting

Group Representations

13. Deputations
14. Mock awards
15. Group lobbying
16. Picketing
17. Mock elections

Symbolic Public Acts

18. Displays of flags and symbolic colors
19. Wearing of symbols
20. Prayer and worship
21. Delivering symbolic objects
22. Protest disrobings
23. Destruction of own property
24. Symbolic lights
25. Displays of portraits
26. Paint as protest
27. New signs and names
28. Symbolic sounds
29. Symbolic reclamations
30. Rude gestures

Pressures on Individuals

31. “Haunting” officials
32. Taunting officials
33. Fraternization
34. Vigils

Drama and Music

35. Humorous skits and pranks
36. Performances of plays and music
37. Singing

Processions

38. Marches
39. Parades
40. Religious processions
41. Pilgrimages
42. Motorcades

Honoring the Dead

43. Political mourning
44. Mock funerals
45. Demonstrative funerals
46. Homage at burial places

Public Assemblies

47. Assemblies of protest or support
48. Protest meetings
49. Camouflaged meetings of protest
50. Teach-ins

Withdrawal and Renunciation

51. Walk-outs
52. Silence
53. Renouncing honors
54. Turning one’s back

Ostracism of Persons

55. Social boycott
56. Selective social boycott
57. Lysistratic nonaction
58. Excommunication
59. Interdict

Noncooperation with Social Events, Customs, and Institutions

60. Suspension of social and sports activities
61. Boycott of social affairs
62. Student strike
63. Social disobedience
64. Withdrawal from social institutions

Withdrawal from the Social System

65. Stay-at-home
66. Total personal noncooperation
67. “Flight” of workers
68. Sanctuary
69. Collective disappearance
70. Protest emigration [hijrat]

Actions by Consumers

71. Consumers’ boycott
72. Nonconsumption of boycotted goods
73. Policy of austerity
74. Rent withholding
75. Refusal to rent
76. National consumers’ boycott
77. International consumers’ boycott

Action by Workers and Producers

78. Workmen’s boycott
79. Producers’ boycott

Action by Middlemen

80. Suppliers’ and handlers’ boycott

Action by Owners and Management

81. Traders’ boycott
82. Refusal to let or sell property
83. Lockout
84. Refusal of industrial assistance
85. Merchants’ “general strike”

Action by Holders of Financial Resources

86. Withdrawal of bank deposits
87. Refusal to pay fees, dues, and assessments
88. Refusal to pay debts or interest
89. Severance of funds and credit
90. Revenue refusal
91. Refusal of a government’s money

Action by Governments

92. Domestic embargo
93. Blacklisting of traders
94. International sellers’ embargo
95. International buyers’ embargo
96. International trade embargo

Symbolic Strikes

97. Protest strike
98. Quickie walkout (lightning strike)

Agricultural Strikes

99. Peasant strike
100. Farm Workers’ strike

Strikes by Special Groups

101. Refusal of impressed labor
102. Prisoners’ strike
103. Craft strike
104. Professional strike

Ordinary Industrial Strikes

105. Establishment strike
106. Industry strike
107. Sympathetic strike

Restricted Strikes

108. Detailed strike
109. Bumper strike
110. Slowdown strike
111. Working-to-rule strike
112. Reporting “sick” [sick-in]
113. Strike by resignation
114. Limited strike
115. Selective strike

Multi-industry Strikes

116. Generalized strike
117. General strike

Combination of Strikes and Economic Closures

118. Hartal
119. Economic shutdown

Rejection of Authority

120. Withholding or withdrawal of allegiance
121. Refusal of public support
122. Literature and speeches advocating resistance

Citizens’ Noncooperation with Government

123. Boycott of legislative bodies
124. Boycott of elections
125. Boycott of government employment and positions
126. Boycott of government depts., agencies, and other bodies
127. Withdrawal from government educational institutions
128. Boycott of government-supported organizations
129. Refusal of assistance to enforcement agents
130. Removal of own signs and placemarks
131. Refusal to accept appointed officials
132. Refusal to dissolve existing institutions
133. Reluctant and slow compliance
134. Nonobedience in absence of direct supervision
135. Popular nonobedience
136. Disguised disobedience
137. Refusal of an assemblage or meeting to disperse
138. Sit-down
139. Noncooperation with conscription and deportation
140. Hiding, escape, and false identities
141. Civil disobedience of “illegitimate” laws

Action by Government Personnel

142. Selective refusal of assistance by government aides
143. Blocking of lines of command and information
144. Stalling and obstruction
145. General administrative noncooperation
146. Judicial noncooperation
147. Deliberate inefficiency and selective noncooperation by enforcement agents
148. Mutiny

Domestic Governmental Action

149. Quasi-legal evasions and delays
150. Noncooperation by constituent governmental units

International Governmental Action

151. Changes in diplomatic and other representations
152. Delay and cancellation of diplomatic events
153. Withholding of diplomatic recognition
154. Severance of diplomatic relations
155. Withdrawal from international organizations
156. Refusal of membership in international bodies
157. Expulsion from international organizations

Psychological Intervention

158. Self-exposure to the elements
159. The fast
a) Fast of moral pressure
b) Hunger strike
c) Satyagrahic fast
160. Reverse trial
161. Nonviolent harassment

Physical Intervention

162. Sit-in
163. Stand-in
164. Ride-in
165. Wade-in
166. Mill-in
167. Pray-in
168. Nonviolent raids
169. Nonviolent air raids
170. Nonviolent invasion
171. Nonviolent interjection
172. Nonviolent obstruction
173. Nonviolent occupation

Social Intervention

174. Establishing new social patterns
175. Overloading of facilities
176. Stall-in
177. Speak-in
178. Guerrilla theater
179. Alternative social institutions
180. Alternative communication systems

Economic Intervention

181. Reverse strike
182. Stay-in strike
183. Nonviolent land seizure
184. Defiance of blockades
185. Politically motivated counterfeiting
186. Preclusive purchasing
187. Seizure of assets
188. Dumping
189. Selective patronage
190. Alternative markets
191. Alternative transportation systems
192. Alternative economic institutions

Political Intervention

193. Overloading of administrative systems
194. Disclosing identities of secret agents
195. Seeking imprisonment
196. Civil disobedience of “neutral” laws
197. Work-on without collaboration
198. Dual sovereignty and parallel government