Hardy Merriman is President of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), and previously led ICNC as President & CEO from January 2015 until June 2021. He is also a senior technical advisor to USAID’s Powered by the People program.
He has worked in the field of civil resistance for over two decades, presenting at workshops for activists and organizers from around the world; developing programs and grantmaking for practitioners and scholars; publishing commentary; and speaking widely about civil resistance movements with members of international organizations, academics, and journalists. His writings have been translated into numerous languages. From 2016-2018 he was also an adjunct lecturer at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (Tufts University).
Mr. Merriman currently leads ICNC’s Civil Resistance Funders Initiative. From 2022-24, he was also a senior nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council and principal investigator of the Fostering a Fourth Democratic Wave project. He is primary author of the resulting publication Fostering a Fourth Democratic Wave: A Playbook for Countering the Authoritarian Threat (2023).
Additional recent works include the the essay “We Need People Power to Address a World in Peril” (2023); a bibliographic entry on civil resistance for the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies (2023); the book Glossary of Civil Resistance: A Resource for Study and Translation of Key Terms (2021); and the report Preventing Mass Atrocities: From a Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) to a Right to Assist (RtoA) Campaigns of Civil Resistance (2019).
He previously contributed to the books Is Authoritarianism Staging a Comeback? (2015), Civilian Jihad: Nonviolent Struggle, Democratization, and Governance in the Middle East (2010), Nonviolence: An Alternative for Countering Global Terror(ism) (2007) and Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20th Century Practice and 21st Century Potential (2005) and also co-authored literature reviews on civil resistance as well as A Guide to Effective Nonviolent Struggle (2007), a training curriculum for activists. For a full publication list, click here.
In addition to his international work with activists, Mr. Merriman was a Senior Advisor to the 2017 James Lawson Institute, and previously served as the Institute’s director in 2013 and 2014, organizing two eight-day intensive programs for North American organizers and activists. His work with academics and members of civil society includes presenting at venues such as Cambridge University (UK), Central European University (Hungary), the Community of Democracies Secretariat (Poland), Georgetown University, Harvard University, the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) (Ecuador), the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO), Stanford University, the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), University of Denver, University of Michigan, University of Sarajevo (Bosnia), University of Sydney (Australia), and many other venues. He is a graduate of Oberlin College.
Recent Blog Posts:
• “Sustaining the Field of Civil Resistance”
June 5, 2023
• “Moving from Crisis to Opportunity: A Theory of Change for Supporting Civil Resistance”
June 5, 2023
• “Start Where You Are: Addressing Four Common Questions about Civil Resistance Training”
March 25, 2021
• “We Know We Need Civil Resistance Training. Now Where Do We Start?”
March 24, 2021
• “Interpreting a Garden of Wildflowers: The Glossary of Civil Resistance”
February 24, 2021
• “Lessons of Uprisings Around the World: The Present Moment, and Possible Future”
November 21, 2019
Spanish translation: “Lecciones de los levantamientos alrededor del mundo: El momento presente y el futuro posible“
• “In a Time of Democratic Backsliding, How Should Civil Society Be Supported?”
October 22, 2019
• “Small Grants, Big Commitment: Reflections on Support for Grassroots Activists and Organizers”
January 10, 2019
• “Supporting Civil Resistance Movements: Considerations for Human Rights Funders and Organizations”
September 11, 2018
• “A Movement-centered Support Model: Considerations for Human Rights Funders and Organizations, Part II”
May 21, 2018
• “A Movement-centered Support Model: Considerations for Human Rights Funders and Organizations, Part I”
April 30, 2018
• “Democracy Insurance”
September 7, 2017
• “A Field Whose Time has Come”
June 21, 2017