How Nonviolent Struggle Works

Download or read book How Nonviolent Struggle Works written by Gene Sharp and published by . This book was released on 2013-08-01 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Why Civil Resistance Works written by Erica Chenoweth and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2011-08-09 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than a century, from 1900 to 2006, campaigns of nonviolent resistance were more than twice as effective as their violent counterparts in achieving their stated goals. By attracting impressive support from citizens, whose activism takes the form of protests, boycotts, civil disobedience, and other forms of nonviolent noncooperation, these efforts help separate regimes from their main sources of power and produce remarkable results, even in Iran, Burma, the Philippines, and the Palestinian Territories. Combining statistical analysis with case studies of specific countries and territories, Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan detail the factors enabling such campaigns to succeed and, sometimes, causing them to fail. They find that nonviolent resistance presents fewer obstacles to moral and physical involvement and commitment, and that higher levels of participation contribute to enhanced resilience, greater opportunities for tactical innovation and civic disruption (and therefore less incentive for a regime to maintain its status quo), and shifts in loyalty among opponents' erstwhile supporters, including members of the military establishment. Chenoweth and Stephan conclude that successful nonviolent resistance ushers in more durable and internally peaceful democracies, which are less likely to regress into civil war. Presenting a rich, evidentiary argument, they originally and systematically compare violent and nonviolent outcomes in different historical periods and geographical contexts, debunking the myth that violence occurs because of structural and environmental factors and that it is necessary to achieve certain political goals. Instead, the authors discover, violent insurgency is rarely justifiable on strategic grounds.

Download or read book A Theory of Nonviolent Action written by Stellan Vinthagen and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-11-15 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this ground-breaking and much-needed book, Stellan Vinthagen provides the first major systematic attempt to develop a theory of nonviolent action since Gene Sharp's seminal The Politics of Nonviolent Action in 1973. Employing a rich collection of historical and contemporary social movements from various parts of the world as examples - from the civil rights movement in America to anti-Apartheid protestors in South Africa to Gandhi and his followers in India - and addressing core theoretical issues concerning nonviolent action in an innovative, penetrating way, Vinthagen argues for a repertoire of nonviolence that combines resistance and construction. Contrary to earlier research, this repertoire - consisting of dialogue facilitation, normative regulation, power breaking and utopian enactment - is shown to be both multidimensional and contradictory, creating difficult contradictions within nonviolence, while simultaneously providing its creative and transformative force. An important contribution in the field, A Theory of Nonviolent Action is essential for anyone involved with nonviolent action who wants to think about what they are doing.

Download or read book Sharp's Dictionary of Power and Struggle written by Gene Sharp and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sharp's Dictionary of Power and Struggle is a groundbreaking book by the "godfather of nonviolent resistance." In nearly 1,000 entries, the Dictionary defines those ideologies, political systems, strategies, methods, and concepts that form the core of nonviolent action as it has occurred throughout history and across the globe, providing much-needed clarification of language that is often mired in confusion.

Download or read book Nonviolent Struggle written by Srđa Popović and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Civil Resistance and Power Politics written by Sir Adam Roberts and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2011-09-29 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This widely-praised book identified peaceful struggle as a key phenomenon in international politics a year before the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt confirmed its central argument. Civil resistance - non-violent action against such challenges as dictatorial rule, racial discrimination and foreign military occupation - is a significant but inadequately understood feature of world politics. Especially through the peaceful revolutions of 1989, and the developments in the Arab world since December 2010, it has helped to shape the world we live in. Civil Resistance and Power Politics covers most of the leading cases, including the actions master-minded by Gandhi, the US civil rights struggle in the 1960s, the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, the 'people power' revolt in the Philippines in the 1980s, the campaigns against apartheid in South Africa, the various movements contributing to the collapse of the Soviet Bloc in 1989-91, and, in this century, the 'colour revolutions' in Georgia and Ukraine. The chapters, written by leading experts, are richly descriptive and analytically rigorous. This book addresses the complex interrelationship between civil resistance and other dimensions of power. It explores the question of whether civil resistance should be seen as potentially replacing violence completely, or as a phenomenon that operates in conjunction with, and modification of, power politics. It looks at cases where campaigns were repressed, including China in 1989 and Burma in 2007. It notes that in several instances, including Northern Ireland, Kosovo and, Georgia, civil resistance movements were followed by the outbreak of armed conflict. It also includes a chapter with new material from Russian archives showing how the Soviet leadership responded to civil resistance, and a comprehensive bibliographical essay. Illustrated throughout with a remarkable selection of photographs, this uniquely wide-ranging and path-breaking study is written in an accessible style and is intended for the general reader as well as for students of Modern History, Politics, Sociology, and International Relations.

Download or read book The Paradox of Repression and Nonviolent Movements written by Lester R. Kurtz and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-15 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Political repression often paradoxically fuels popular movements rather than undermining resistance. When authorities respond to strategic nonviolent action with intimidation, coercion, and violence, they often undercut their own legitimacy, precipitating significant reforms or even governmental overthrow. Brutal repression of a movement is often a turning point in its history: Bloody Sunday in the March to Selma led to the passage of civil rights legislation by the US Congress, and the Amritsar Massacre in India showed the world the injustice of the British Empire’s use of force in maintaining control over its colonies. Activists in a wide range of movements have engaged in nonviolent strategies of repression management that can raise the likelihood that repression will cost those who use it. The Paradox of Repression and Nonviolent Movements brings scholars and activists together to address multiple dimensions and significant cases of this phenomenon, including the relational nature of nonviolent struggle and the cultural terrain on which it takes place, the psychological costs for agents of repression, and the importance of participation, creativity, and overcoming fear, whether in the streets or online.