198 Methods of Nonviolent Action (PDF version)

198 METHODS OF NONVIOLENT ACTION

Practitioners of nonviolent struggle have an entire arsenal of “nonviolent weapons” at their disposal. Listed below are 198 of them, classified into three broad categories: nonviolent protest and persuasion, noncooperation (social, economic, and political), and nonviolent intervention. A description and historical examples of each can be found in volume two ofThe Politics of Nonviolent Action, by Gene Sharp.

THE METHODS OF NONVIOLENT PROTEST AND PERSUASION
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, and 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

THE METHODS OF SOCIAL NONCOOPERATION

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)

THE METHODS OF ECONOMIC NONCOOPERATION: ECONOMIC BOYCOTTS

 
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

THE METHODS OF ECONOMIC NONCOOPERATION:THE STRIKE

 
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

THE METHODS OF POLITICAL NONCOOPERATION

 
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

Citizens’ Alternatives to Obedience
                    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. Sitdown
                    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

THE METHODS OF NONVIOLENT INTERVENTION

 
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 system

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

Without doubt, a large number of additional methods have already been used but have not been classified, and a multitude of additional methods will be invented in the future that have the characteristics of the three classes of methods: nonviolent protest and persuasion, noncooperation and nonviolent intervention.

It must be clearly understood that the greatest effectiveness is possible when individual methods to be used are selected to implement the previously adopted strategy. It is necessary to know what kind of pressures are to be used before o­ne chooses the precise forms of action that will best apply those pressures.

How to Topple a Dictator (Peacefully)

Several years ago, before their protest movement was co-opted by violence, a group of young Syrians looking for a way to topple President Bashar al-Assad traveled to an isolated beach resort outside Syria to take a weeklong class in revolution.

The teachers were Srdja Popovic and Slobodan Djinovic — leaders of Otpor, a student movement in Serbia that had been instrumental in the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. After then helping the successful democracy movements in Georgia and Ukraine, the two founded theCenter for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies(Canvas), and have traveled the world, training democracy activists from 46 countries in Otpor’s methods.

These two Serbs start with the concepts of the American academic Gene Sharp, the Clausewitz of the nonviolent movement. But they have refined and added to those ideas. In a new book, “Blueprint for Revolution,” Popovic recounts Canvas’s strategies and how people use them.

Photo

“Blueprint” strains a bit too hard to be funny, but the title is no exaggeration. Otpor’s methods and signature — a stylized graphic clenched fist — have been adopted by democracy movements around the world. The Egyptian opposition used them to topple Hosni Mubarak. In Lebanon, the Serbs helped the Cedar Revolution extricate the country from Syrian control. In Maldives, their methods were the key to overthrowing a dictator who had held power for 30 years. In many other countries, people have used what Canvas teaches to accomplish other political goals, such as fighting corruption or protecting the environment.

I met Popovic and Djinovic in Belgrade five years ago, wrote about Otpor in abookand later met them in an Asian city towatch them train democracy activistsfrom Burma.

I have lived in two dictatorships and seen dozens of democracy movements in action. But what the Serbs did was new. Popovic cheerfully blows up just about every idea most people hold about nonviolent struggle. Here are some:

Myth: Nonviolence is synonymous with passivity.

No, nonviolent struggle is a strategic campaign to force a dictator to cede power by depriving him of his pillars of support.

In the first hours of the Syrians’ workshop, some participants announced that violence was the o­nly way to topple Assad. Every workshop begins this way, in part because some people think the Serbs are going to teach them to look beatific and meditate. Popovic said out loud what many were thinking: “So you just ask Assad to go away? Please, Mr. Assad, please can you not be a murderer anymore?” Popovic whined. “It’s not nice.”

Just the opposite, said Djinovic: “We’re here to plan a war.” Nonviolent struggle, Djinovic explained, is a war — just o­ne fought with means other than weapons. It must be as carefully planned as a military campaign.

Over the next few days, the Serbs taught the young Syrians the techniques they had developed for taking power: How do you grow a movement from a vanload of people to hundreds of thousands? How do you win to your side the groups whose support is propping up the dictator? How do you wage this war safely when any kind of gathering can mean long prison terms, torture or death? How do you break through people’s fear to get them out into the street?

Myth: The most successful nonviolent movements arise and progress spontaneously.

No general would leave a military campaign to chance. A nonviolent war is no different.

Myth: Nonviolent struggle’s major tactic is amassing large concentrations of people.

This idea is widespread because the big protests are like the tip of an iceberg: the o­nly thing visible from a distance. Did it look like the ousting of Mubarak started with a spontaneous mass gathering in Tahrir Square? Actually, the occupation of Tahrir Square was carefully planned, and followed two years of work. The Egyptian opposition waited until it knew it had the numbers. Mass concentrations of people aren’t the beginning of a movement, Popovic writes. They’re a victory lap.

In very harsh dictatorships, concentrating people in marches, rallies or protests is dangerous; your people will get arrested or shot. It’s risky for other reasons. A sparsely attended march is a disaster. Or the protest can go perfectly, but someone — perhaps hired by the enemy — decides to throw rocks at the police. And that’s what will lead the evening news. o­ne failed protest can destroy a movement.

So what do you do instead? You can start with tactics of dispersal, such as coordinated pot-banging, or traffic slowdowns in which everyone drives at half speed. These tactics show that you have widespread support, they grow people’s confidence, and they’re safe. Otpor, which went from 11 people to 70,000 in two years, initially grew like this: three or four activists staged a humorous piece of anti-Milosevic street theater. People watched, smiled — and then joined.

Myth: Nonviolence might be morally superior, but it’s useless against a brutal dictator.

Nonviolence is not just the moral choice; it is almost always the strategic choice. “My biggest objection to violence is the fact that it simply doesn’t work,” Popovic writes. Violence is what every dictator does best. If you’re going to compete with David Beckham, Popovic says, why choose the soccer field? Better to choose the chessboard.

The Syrians who came to the workshop, needless to say, had little influence over the strategies that were later chosen by other groups opposed to Assad. Violence eventually prevailed — with devastating results.

But that is Popovic’s point: violence often brings devastating results. The scholars Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan analyzed campaigns of violent and nonviolent revolution in the last century (their book, “Why Civil Resistance Works,” uses Otpor’s fist as its cover image) and found that nonviolence has double the success rate of violence — and its gains have been more likely to last.

Only a handful of people will join a violent movement. Using violence throws away the support of millions — support you could have won through nonviolence.

Milosevic’s base of support was Serbia’s senior citizens. Otpor won them over by provoking the regime into using violence. o­nce Otpor’s leaders realized that its members who were arrested were usually released after being held for a few hours, it staged actions for the purpose of getting large numbers of members detained. Grandparents didn’t like having their 16-year-old grandchildren arrested, or the regime’s hysterical accusations that these high school students were terrorists and spies. Old people switched sides, becoming a key pillar of the Otpor movement. If there had been any truth to the accusations that Otpor used violence, the grandparents would have stayed with Milosevic.

Myth: Politics is serious business.

According to the Pixar philosopherJames P. Sullivan, laughter is 10 times more powerful than scream. Nothing breaks people’s fear and punctures a dictator’s aura of invincibility like mockery — Popovic calls it “laughtivism.” Otpor’s guiding spirit was Monty Python’s Flying Circus, a television show its members had grown up watching, and its actions were usually pranks.

Popovic writes about a protest in Ankara after the Turkish government reacted with alarm to a couple kissing in the subway. Protesters could have chosen to march. Instead, they kissed – 100 people gathered in the subway station in pairs, kissing with great slobber and noise. You are a policeman. You have training in how to deal with an anti-government protest. But what do you do now?

Myth: You motivate people by exposing human rights violations.

Most people don’t care about human rights. They care about having electricity that works, teachers in every school and affordable home loans. They will support an opposition with a vision of the future that promises to make their lives better.

Focusing o­n these mundane, important things is not o­nly more effective; it’s safer. In their Canvas workshop, the Burmese knew it was too risky to organize for political goals — but decided they could organize to get the Yangon city government to collect garbage. Gandhi wisely began his campaign of mass civil disobedience by focusing o­n Britain’s prohibition o­n collecting or selling salt. Harvey Milk failed in several campaigns for the San Francisco City Council. He won when he campaigned not o­n gay rights, but to rid the city’s parks of dog poop. A benefit of such campaigns is that their goals are achievable. Movements grow with small victory after small victory.

Talking about the miseries of life under a dictator is also a bad strategy for mobilizing activists. People already know — and they react by becoming cynical, fearful, atomized and passive. They might be angry, but they’re not going to act o­n it. Anger is not a motivator.

This was Otpor’s biggest obstacle. Most Serbs wanted Milosevic out. But the vast majority believed that was impossible to accomplish, and too perilous to attempt.

Otpor got people into the streets by making the movement about their own identity. Young people flocked to Otpor because it made them feel cool and important. They had great music and great T-shirts, adorned with the fist. Boys competed to rack up the most arrests. Young Serbs stopped feeling like passive victims and started feeling like daring heroes.

Myth: Nonviolent movements require charismatic leaders who give inspiring speeches.

Otpor had no speeches, ever. And while its strategies were meticulously planned, the people who did the planning were behind the scenes. Its spokesperson changed every two weeks, but it was usually a 17-year-old girl. (“Terrorists? Us?”)

In a traditional party, even parties in opposition to the dictator, the leaders’ job is to make speeches, and their followers listen and applaud. Not Otpor. Its messages were tested in focus groups, and its strategies carefully planned. It was not at all anarchic o­n the strategic level. But o­n a tactical level, decentralization was critical. Otpor had o­nly two rules: You had to be anti-Milosevic and absolutely nonviolent. Follow those rules, and you could do anything and call yourself Otpor. This kept activists feeling busy, useful and important.

Myth: Police, security forces and the pro-government business community are the enemy.

Maybe, but it’s smarter to treat them like allies-in-waiting. Otpor never taunted or threw stones at the police. Its members cheered them and brought flowers and homemade cookies to the police station. Even the interrogations after arrest were an opportunity to fraternize and demonstrate Otpor’s commitment to nonviolence.

It paid off. The police knew that if the opposition won, Otpor would make sure they were treated fairly. During the last battle, police officers walked away from the barricades when the opposition asked them to. A dictator who can’t be sure his repressive orders will be obeyed is finished.

I lived in Chile when the opposition to Augusto Pinochet made mistake after mistake; advice from Otpor might have shortened the dictatorship by years. Had the Occupy movement in the United States adopted these tactics, it might still be a relevant force.

But nothing is more tragic than contemplating what Syria could have been now, had the nonviolent activists in the opposition movement prevailed — and followed Popovic’s blueprint..

JoinFixes o­n Facebookand follow updates o­ntwitter.com/nytimesfixes. To receive e-mail alerts for Fixes columns, sign uphere.

Tina Rosenberg won a Pulitzer Prize for her book “The Haunted Land: Facing Europe’s Ghosts After Communism.” She is a former editorial writer for The Times and the author, most recently, of “Join the Club: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World” and the World War II spy story e-book “D for Deception.” She is a co-founder of theSolutions Journalism Network, which supports rigorous reporting about responses to social problems.

The Power of Nonviolent Action

01 March 2009

People-power movements, such as this o­ne in 1989 in Czechoslovakia, have helped bring down scores of authoritarian regimes.

By Stephen Zunes

Armed insurgencies impose great human costs. Nonviolent “people power” movements succeed by calling attention to official repression and winning support from the undecided.

Stephen Zunes is a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco. He is the principal co-editor ofNonviolent Social Movements(Blackwell, 1999) and chairs the committee of academic advisers for the International Center o­n Nonviolent Conflict.

This article appears in the March 2009 issue ofeJournal USA,Nonviolent Paths to Social Change(PDF, 783 KB).

Nonviolent action campaigns have been a part of political life for millennia, challenging abuses by authorities, spearheading social reforms, demanding an end to colonial rule, and protesting militarism and discrimination.

India’s Mohandas Gandhi and the United States’ Martin Luther King Jr., who were both brilliant strategic thinkers as well as great moral leaders, are perhaps the best-known leaders of such movements. Not o­nly were they committed to nonviolent action as the most effective means of waging their respective struggles; they also held to a deep faith-based commitment to nonviolence as a personal ethic. In many respects, however, Gandhi and King were unusual in their personal commitment to principled nonviolence, as the vast majority of nonviolent movements and their leaders have not been pacifists but embraced nonviolent action as the best strategic means to advance their struggles.

Indeed, primarily nonviolent struggles in recent decades have not o­nly led to significant political and social reforms advancing the cause of human rights, but have also even toppled repressive regimes from power and forced leaders to change the very nature of their governance. As a result, nonviolent resistance has been evolving from an ad hoc strategy associated with religious or ethical principles into a reflective, even institutionalized, method of struggle.

Indeed, the past 30 years have witnessed a remarkable upsurge in nonviolent insurrections against autocratic rulers. Primarily nonviolent “people power” movements have been responsible for advancing democratic change in nearly 60 countries during this period, forcing substantial reforms in many countries. Other struggles, while eventually suppressed, have nevertheless posed serious challenges to other despots.

In contrast to armed struggles, these nonviolent insurrections are movements of organized popular resistance to government authority that, either consciously or by necessity, eschew the use of weapons of modern warfare.

Unlike conventional political movements, nonviolent campaigns usually employ tactics outside the mainstream political processes of electioneering and lobbying. Tactics may include strikes, boycotts, mass demonstrations, the popular contestation of public space, refusal to pay taxes, destruction of symbols of government authority (such as official identification cards), refusal to obey official orders (such as curfew restrictions), and the creation of alternative institutions for political legitimacy and social organization.

Why Nonviolence Works

For many years there was an assumption that autocratic regimes could be overthrown o­nly through popular armed struggle or foreign military intervention. Yet there is an increasing awareness that nonviolent action can actually be more powerful than violence. A recent academic study of 323 major insurrections in support of self-determination and freedom from autocratic rule over the past century revealed that major nonviolent campaigns were successful 53 percent of the time, whereas primarily violent resistance campaigns were successful o­nly 26 percent of the time. (Maria J. Stephan and Eric Chenoweth. “Why Civil Resistance Works: The Logic of Nonviolent Conflict.”International Security,vol. 33, no. 1, Summer 2008.)

There are several reasons why insurgents have turned away from armed struggle to embrace nonviolent action. o­ne reason is a growing awareness of the increasing costs of insurgency warfare. Technology has given status quo powers an increasing advantage in recent years in defeating or at least neutralizing armed insurgencies. Even when an armed revolutionary movement is victorious, large segments of the population are displaced, farms and villages are destroyed, cities and much of the country’s infrastructure are severely damaged, the economy is wrecked, and there is widespread environmental devastation. The net result is an increasing realization that the benefits of waging an armed insurrection may not be worth the costs.

Another factor endorsing nonviolence is the tendency, o­nce in power, for victorious armed movements against dictatorships to fail in establishing pluralistic, democratic, and independent political systems capable of supporting social and economic development and promoting human rights. These shortcomings often result in part from counterrevolution, natural disasters, foreign intervention, trade embargoes, and other circumstances beyond a victorious popular movement’s control.

However, the choice of armed struggle as a means of securing power tends to exacerbate these problems and creates troubles of its own. For o­ne, armed struggle often promotes the ethos of a secret elite vanguard, downplaying democracy and showing less tolerance for pluralism. Often, disagreements that could be resolved peaceably in non-militarized institutions lead to bloody factional fighting. Some countries experienced military coups or civil wars not long after armed revolutionary movements ousted colonialists or indigenous dictators. Others became overly dependent o­n foreign powers for weapons to keep them in power.

There is also an increasing awareness that armed resistance tends to upset undecided elements of the population, who then seek security in the government. When facing a violent insurgency, a government can easily justify its repression. But force used against unarmed resistance movements usually creates greater sympathy for the government’s opponents. Some have compared this phenomenon with the martial art of aikido, in that the opposition movement leverages the power of state repression to advance the movement’s ends.

In addition, unarmed campaigns involve far more participants beyond the young able-bodied men normally found in the ranks of armed guerrillas, taking advantage of a popular movement’s majority support. Unarmed resistance also encourages the creation of alternative institutions, which further undermine the repressive status quo and form the basis for a new independent and democratic order.

King and Gandhi embraced nonviolence both in principle and as strategy.

Armed resistance often backfires by legitimizing the use of repressive tactics. Violence from the opposition is often welcomed by authoritarian governments and even encouraged through the use of agents provocateurs, because it then justifies state repression. But state violence unleashed o­n unarmed dissidents often triggers a turning point in nonviolent struggles. A government attack against peaceful demonstrators can be the spark that transforms periodic protests into a full-scale insurrection.

Sowing Division

Unarmed resistance movements also tend to sow divisions within pro-government circles. There are often disagreements regarding how to deal effectively with the resistance, since few governments are as prepared to deal with unarmed revolts as they are to quash armed o­nes. Violent repression of a peaceful movement can often alter popular and elite perceptions of the legitimacy of power, which is why state officials usually use less repression against nonviolent movements. In addition, some pro-government elements become less concerned about the consequences of a compromise with insurgents if their resistance is nonviolent.

Unarmed movements also increase the likelihood of defections and noncooperation by unmotivated police and military personnel, whereas armed revolts legitimize the role of the government’s coercive apparatus, enhancing its self-perception as the protector of civil society. The moral power of nonviolence is crucial in the ability of an opposition movement to reframe the perceptions of key parties: the public, political elites, and the military, most of whom have no difficulty supporting the use of violence against violent insurrections.

The efficacy of nonviolent resistance in dividing supporters of the status quo is apparent not o­nly in rendering government troops less effective, but also in challenging the attitudes of an entire nation and even foreign actors, as in the South African struggle against apartheid. Pictures of peaceful protesters — including whites, members of the clergy, and other “upstanding citizens” — broadcast o­n television worldwide lent legitimacy to antiapartheid forces and undermined the South African government in a way that the armed rebellion was unable to do. As nonviolent resistance within the country escalated, external pressure in the form of economic sanctions and other solidarity tactics by the international community raised the costs of maintaining the apartheid system.

Due to increased global interdependence, the nonlocal audience for a conflict may be just as important as the immediate community. Just as Gandhi played to British citizens in Manchester and London, organizers of the civil rights movement in the U.S. South were communicating to the entire nation, and especially to the administration of President John Kennedy.

Insurgency within the Soviet bloc was disseminated by television broadcasts that spread the news from country to country, legitimating local protests that no longer seemed like isolated events organized by unstable dissidents. The prominent role of the global media during the anti-Marcos people power movement in 1986 was instrumental in forcing the U.S. government to scale back its support of the Philippine dictator. Israeli repression of nonviolent protests by Palestinians during the first intifada of the late 1980s brought unprecedented international sympathy to their struggle against foreign military occupation. As Palestinian-American scholar Rashid Khalidi observed, the Palestinians had “succeeded at last in conveying the reality of their victimization to world public opinion.”

As a proactive ingredient in nonviolent resistance, the creation of alternative structures provides both a moral and a practical underpinning for efforts aimed at bringing about fundamental social change. Parallel structures in civil society may render state control increasingly impotent, as they did throughout Eastern Europe leading up to the events of 1989.

In the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos lost power in 1986 not through the defeat of his troops and the storming of the Malacañang Palace, but from the withdrawal of sufficient support for his authority, so that the palace became the o­nly part of the country he could effectively control. o­n the same day that Marcos was officially sworn in for another term as president in a state ceremony, his opponent — Corazon Aquino, widow of an assassinated Marcos critic — was symbolically sworn in as the people’s president. Given that most Filipinos saw Marcos’s election as fraudulent, the vast majority offered its allegiance to President Aquino rather than to President Marcos. The transfer of allegiance from o­ne source of authority and legitimacy to another is a key element of a successful nonviolent uprising.

In the course of a successful nonviolent revolution, and with adequate popular participation, political authority may be wrested from the state and invested in institutions of civil society as these parallel institutions grow in effectiveness and legitimacy. The state may become increasingly impotent and irrelevant as parallel nongovernmental institutions take over an increasing portion of the tasks of governing a society, providing services to the populace, and creating functional equivalents to the institutions of the state.

Indigenous Roots

Citing the financial support provided by some outside foundations funded by Western governments to some opposition groups that later took part in the so-called color revolutions among nations of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet UNI0N, some authoritarian regimes have denied the popular legitimacy of these pro-democracy movements by claiming they were simply “soft coups” plotted by the United States or other Western powers. Such outside funding cannot cause a nonviolent liberal democratic revolution to take place, however, any more than Soviet financial and material support for leftist movements in previous decades could cause an armed socialist revolution to take place. o­ne Burmese human rights activist, referring to his country’s centuries-old tradition of popular resistance, noted how the very idea of an outsider having to orchestrate the Burmese people to engage in a nonviolent action campaign is like “teaching a grandma to peel o­nions.”

Successful revolutions, whatever their ideological orientation, are the result of certain objective conditions. Indeed, no amount of money could force hundreds of thousands of people to leave their jobs, homes, schools, and families to face down heavily armed police and tanks and put their bodies o­n the line unless they had a sincere motivation to do so.

Foreign powers have historically promoted regime change through military invasions, coup d’etats, and other kinds of violent seizures of power that install an undemocratic minority. Nonviolent people power movements, by contrast, make regime change possible through empowering pro-democratic majorities.

There is no standardized formula for success that a foreign government or a foreign nongovernmental organization could put together, because the history, culture, and political alignments of each country are unique. No foreign government or NGO can recruit or mobilize the large numbers of ordinary civilians necessary to build a movement capable of effectively challenging the established political leadership, much less of toppling a government.

As a result, the best hope for advancing freedom and democracy among oppressed nations of the world comes not from armed struggle and not from the intervention of foreign powers, but from democratic civil society organizations engaged in strategic nonviolent action.

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