Why Civil Resistance Works

Why Civil Resistance Works

Author: Erica Chenoweth

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2011-08-09

Total Pages: 451

ISBN-13: 0231527489

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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.


Civil Resistance and Power Politics

Civil Resistance and Power Politics

Author: Sir Adam Roberts

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2011-09-29

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 0191619175

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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.


Nonviolent Action

Nonviolent Action

Author: Ronald M. McCarthy

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-07-04

Total Pages: 762

ISBN-13: 1135067538

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This comprehensive guide to research, sources, and theories about nonviolent action as a technique of struggle in social and political conficts discusses the methods and techniques used by groups in various encounters. Although violence and its causes have received a great deal of attention, nonviolent action has not received its due as an international phenomenon with a long history. An introduction that explains the theories and research used in the study provides a practical guide to this essential bibliography of English-language sources. The first part of the book covers case-study materials divided by region and subdivided by country. Within each country, materials are arranged chronologically and topically. The second major part examines the methods and theory of nonviolent action, principled nonviolence, and several closely related areas in social science, such as conflict analysis and social movements. The book is indexed by author and subject.


Countering Hate: Leadership Cases of Non-Violent Action

Countering Hate: Leadership Cases of Non-Violent Action

Author: Hoover

Publisher: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company

Published: 2022-01-30

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781792494901

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Countering Hate explores how ordinary people have accomplished extraordinary things to counter hate groups in communities across the United States. The book is relevant to college and university students and community members alike, providing examples from across the United States for people to draw from as fertile grounds for inspiring civic engagement and citizenship for healthy democracies in today's turbulent times. Those interested in leadership, applied ethics, political science, sociology, psychology, communications and many other disciplinary fields will find benefit from the study of these cases. The ten case studies presented in the text start with the rise of the hate group, the Aryan Nations, in Hayden, ID and include community responses to hate in Washington, Oregon, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. Each case recognizes that communities have a range of response strategies and delivers multiple examples of non-violent outcomes, persistence, and resiliency on the part of those who stand for the rights of justice, freedom and equality. In many ways, the book tells the story of local heroes and inspiring lessons from ordinary people who unified their towns and provided leadership that can inform actions of today and the future. The closing chapter offers resources for communities to consider as they identify responses that are unique and contextualized for their specific needs. There is no one size fits all strategy, but rather a commitment to sharing options so that every town and city can build a culture of inclusion and act with solidarity. A 2012 report titled "A Crucible Moment: College Learning and Democracy's Future," prepared by the National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement makes the case for colleges and universities to become more intentional about teaching civic engagement and preparing students to be active participants in democracy. This learning paradigm encourages connecting teaching and learning with outside the classroom, real-life experiences. Classrooms and communities choosing to read this text are leveraging the cases with a diverse range of learning outcomes. The timing of the release coincides with the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Aryan Nations compound as well as the 40th anniversary of the creation of the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations. The electronic classroom version includes quizzes and discussion questions, while the hard copy version includes the case studies with discussion points for community reads.


A Force More Powerful

A Force More Powerful

Author: Peter Ackerman

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Published: 2015-12-01

Total Pages: 561

ISBN-13: 125010520X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This nationally-acclaimed book shows how popular movements used nonviolent action to overthrow dictators, obstruct military invaders and secure human rights in country after country, over the past century. Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall depict how nonviolent sanctions--such as protests, strikes and boycotts--separate brutal regimes from their means of control. They tell inside stories--how Danes outmaneuvered the Nazis, Solidarity defeated Polish communism, and mass action removed a Chilean dictator--and also how nonviolent power is changing the world today, from Burma to Serbia.


Sharp's Dictionary of Power and Struggle

Sharp's Dictionary of Power and Struggle

Author: Gene Sharp

Publisher:

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 0199829896

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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.


A Theory of Nonviolent Action

A Theory of Nonviolent Action

Author: Stellan Vinthagen

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2015-11-15

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 1780320531

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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.


On Strategic Nonviolent Conflict

On Strategic Nonviolent Conflict

Author: Robert L. Helvey

Publisher:

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 178

ISBN-13: 9781880813140

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

On Strategic Nonviolent Conflict delves into the question of how to build a strategy for nonviolent struggle. Covering a variety of topics--such as ways to identify a movement's objectives, preparing a strategic estimate for a nonviolent struggle, and operational planning considerations--this publication contains insights on the similarities between military and nonviolent strategy. It represents a major new contribution to this field of study. Additional topics covered in the book include psychological operations and propaganda, contaminants that may affect the efficiency of a nonviolent movement, and providing consultations and training for members of movements and organizations.


Nonviolent Action

Nonviolent Action

Author: Ronald J. Sider

Publisher: Brazos Press

Published: 2015-02-10

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 1441221719

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

There are numerous examples throughout history of effective nonviolent action. Nonviolent protesters defied the Soviet Empire's communist rulers, Gandhi's nonviolent revolution defeated the British Empire, and Martin Luther King Jr.'s peaceful civil-rights crusade changed American history. Recent scholarship shows that nonviolent revolutions against injustice and dictatorship are actually more successful than violent campaigns. In this book, noted theologian and bestselling author Ron Sider argues that the search for peaceful alternatives to violence is not only a practical necessity in the wake of the twentieth century--the most bloody in human history--but also a moral demand of the Christian faith. He presents compelling examples of how nonviolent action has been practiced in history and in current social-political situations to promote peace and oppose injustice, showing that this path is a successful and viable alternative to violence.


Protest, Power, and Change

Protest, Power, and Change

Author: Roger S. Powers

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 1997-01-01

Total Pages: 638

ISBN-13: 1136764828

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Covers tactics, leaders, and famous actions From Solidarity's passive/aggressive faceoff with communism to the courageous sit-ins and marches of the Civil Rights Movement, here is the first systematic survey of peaceful confrontations between the forces for the status quo and the forces for change. All the important events, tactics, and leaders are covered: Women's suffrage, blockades, IRA hunger strikes, monkey wrenching, Charter 77, the Clamshell Alliance, Rosa Parks, Leo Tolstoy, Martin Luther King, Lech Walesa, and many more. Focuses on critical issues Clear, comprehensive, and authoritative, the Encyclopedia examines such critical contemporary issues as violence, the nature of power, conflict resolution, the mechanisms of social movements, the application of moral authority, and defines and surveys the underlying assumptions and prevailing thinking of all activists for change. A practical blueprint for peaceful protest-the first and only work of its kind For this first systematic treatment of the subject, expert contributors from around the world have written essays on key persons, events, ideas, works, institutions , groups, and methods. The result is a primer and practical guide on all aspects of nonviolent action. There is an introduction, a listing of the entries by category, and a comprehensive index. Special features: First and only encyclopedia on the subject * Spotlights the most important peaceful struggles of the 20th century * Examines l04 nonviolent movements, campaigns, and events * Profiles 70 activists and scholars, including a dozen Nobel Peace Prize laureates * Surveys 42 organizations that have led nonviolent movements * Details 40 methods of peaceful protest