Nonviolent resistance

Nonviolent resistance, or nonviolent action, sometimes called civil resistance, is the practice of achieving goals such as social change through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, satyagraha, constructive program, or other methods, while refraining from violence and the threat of violence. This type of action highlights the desires of an individual or group that feels that something needs to change to improve the current condition of the resisting person or group.

Mahatma Gandhi is the most popular figure related to this type of protest; United Nations celebrates Gandhi's birthday, October 2, as the International Day of Non-Violence. Other prominent advocates include Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Henry David Thoreau, Etienne de la Boétie, Charles Stewart Parnell, Te Whiti o Rongomai, Tohu Kākahi, Leo Tolstoy, Alice Paul, Martin Luther King Jr., Daniel Berrigan, Philip Berrigan, James Bevel, Václav Havel, Andrei Sakharov, Lech Wałęsa, Gene Sharp, Nelson Mandela, Jose Rizal, and many others. From 1966 to 1999, nonviolent civic resistance played a critical role in fifty of sixty-seven transitions from authoritarianism.

The "Singing revolution" (1989–1991) in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, led to the three Baltic countries' restoration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Recently, nonviolent resistance has led to the Rose Revolution in Georgia. Research shows that nonviolent campaigns diffuse spatially. Information on nonviolent resistance in one country could significantly affect nonviolent activism in other countries.

Many movements which promote philosophies of nonviolence or pacifism have pragmatically adopted the methods of nonviolent action as an effective way to achieve social or political goals. They employ nonviolent resistance tactics such as: information warfare, picketing, marches, vigils, leafletting, samizdat, magnitizdat, satyagraha, protest art, protest music and poetry, community education and consciousness raising, lobbying, tax resistance, civil disobedience, boycotts or sanctions, legal/diplomatic wrestling, Underground Railroads, principled refusal of awards/honors, and general strikes. Current nonviolent resistance movements include: the Jeans Revolution in Belarus, the fight of the Cuban dissidents, and internationally the Extinction Rebellion and School Strike for Climate.

Although nonviolent movements can maintain broader public legitimacy by refraining from violence, some segments of society may perceive protest movements as being more violent than they really are when they disagree with the social goals of the movement. A great deal of work has addressed the factors that lead to violent mobilization, but less attention has been paid to understanding why disputes become violent or nonviolent, comparing these two as strategic choices relative to conventional politics.

Comparison with civil disobedience
Nonviolent resistance is often but wrongly taken as synonymous with civil disobedience. Each of these terms—nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience—has different connotations and commitments. Berel Lang argues against the conflation of nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience on the grounds that the necessary conditions for an act instancing civil disobedience are: (1) that the act violates the law, (2) that the act is performed intentionally, and (3) that the actor anticipates and willingly accepts punitive measures made on the part of the state against him in retaliation for the act. Since acts of nonviolent political resistance need not satisfy any of these criteria, Lang argues that the two categories of action cannot be identified with one another. Furthermore, civil disobedience is a form of political action which necessarily aims at reform, rather than revolution. Its efforts are typically directed at the disputing of particular laws or groups of laws while conceding the authority of the government responsible for them. In contrast, political acts of nonviolent resistance can have revolutionary ends. According to Lang, civil disobedience need not be nonviolent, although the extent and intensity of the violence is limited by the non-revolutionary intentions of the persons engaging in civil disobedience. Lang argues the violent resistance by citizens being forcibly relocated to detentions, short of the use of lethal violence against representatives of the state, could plausibly count as civil disobedience but could not count as nonviolent resistance.

Documentaries

 * A Force More Powerful, directed by Steve York
 * How to Start a Revolution, directed by Ruaridh Arrow

Organizations and people

 * List of peace activists
 * List of anti-war organizations
 * Category:Nonviolence organizations
 * Category:Nonviolent resistance movements
 * Category:Anti-war activists by nationality
 * Category:Human rights activists by nationality
 * Category:Democracy activists by nationality

Concepts

 * Christian nonviolence
 * Civilian-based defense
 * Civil disobedience
 * Civil resistance
 * Direct action
 * Flower power
 * Industrial action
 * Internet resistance
 * Interpassivity
 * Islamic nonviolence
 * Non-aggression principle
 * Nonresistance
 * Nonviolence
 * Nonviolent revolution
 * Pacifism
 * Passive obedience
 * "Pen is mightier than the sword"
 * Rebellion
 * Sex strike
 * Sit-in
 * Social defence
 * Tax resistance
 * Teach-in
 * Third Party Non-violent Intervention
 * Transarmament

From the 20th century

 * Case, Clarence Marsh (1923). Non-violent Coercion: A Study in Methods of Social Pressure. Century. ISBN 978-0-598-49467-2.
 * Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall, A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict. New York: Palgrave, 2000.  ISBN 978-0-312-24050-9.
 * Clayborne Carson, In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s. (SNCC is the acronym for Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.) Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981.  ISBN 978-0674447257.
 * M K Gandhi, Non-Violent Resistance (Satyagraha). Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2001, orig. 1961.  ISBN 978-0-486-41606-9.
 * Gene Sharp, Making Europe Unconquerable: The Potential of Civilian-Based Deterrence and Defence. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis, 1985.  ISBN 978-0-85066-336-5/
 * Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action. Boston: Porter Sargent, 1973.  ISBN 978-0-87558-068-5.

From the 21st century

 * Michael Beer, "Civil Resistance Tactics in the 21st Century". ICNC Press. ISBN 978-1-943271-40-5
 * Michael Bröning, The Politics of Change in Palestine. State-Building and Non-Violent Resistance. London: Pluto Press, 2011, Part 5.  ISBN 978-0-7453-3093-8.
 * Judith Hand, A Future Without War: The Strategy of a Warfare Transition. San Diego, CA: Questpath Publishing, 2006.  ISBN 978-0-9700031-3-3.
 * Daniel Jakopovich, Revolutionary Peacemaking: Writings for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence. Zagreb, Croatia: Democratic Thought, 2019, pp. 527. ISBN 978-953-55134-2-1
 * Michael King, The Penguin History of New Zealand. London: Penguin Books, 2003, pp 219–20, 222, 247–8, and 386.  ISBN 978-0-14-301867-4.
 * Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea. New York: Modern Library / Random House, 2006.  ISBN 978-0-8129-7447-8.
 * David McReynolds, A Philosophy of Nonviolence.  Originally New York: A.J. Muste Memorial Institute, 2001.  No ISBN.  Retrieved 22 December 2012.
 * Adam Roberts and Timothy Garton Ash, eds., Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Non-violent Action from Gandhi to the Present . Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2009.  ISBN 978-0-19-955201-6.  Retrieved 22 December 2012.
 * Adam Roberts, Michael J. Willis, Rory McCarthy and Timothy Garton Ash, eds., Civil Resistance in the Arab Spring: Triumphs and Disasters. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2016. ISBN 978-0-19-874902-8.
 * Jonathan Schell, The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People. New York: Metropolitan Books / Henry Holt and Company, 2003.  ISBN 9780805044560.
 * Kurt Schock, Unarmed Insurrections: People Power Movements in Nondemocracies. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2004.  ISBN 978-0-8166-4193-2.
 * Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation. East Boston, MA: The Albert Einstein Institution, 4th ed. 2010, orig. 2002.  ISBN 978-1-880813-09-6.  Retrieved 22 December 2012.
 * Mike Staresinic, Activism: People, Power, Plan. Pittsburgh, PA: Breakthrough, 2011. ISBN 978-0-6154-1790-5.
 * Walter Wink, Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003.  ISBN 978-0-8006-3609-8.
 * Srdja Popovic, Andrej Milivojevic, Slobodan Djinovic, "Nonviolent Struggle: 50 Crucial Points". Belgrade, Serbia: DMD, 2006