Military might has little success against violent terror organizations. If nonviolent strategies seem impractical, it is an even greater naiveté to think armed solutions can be the answer.
The western response to Russian hybrid war in Crimea and eastern Ukraine has been predicated on a show of military force. Nonviolent civilian defence promises us another path.
Maciej Bartkowski, senior director of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, remembers Howard Clark as an effective collaborator and a scholar-practitioner with a distinct and nuanced approach to the field of nonviolent conflict.
“Three years ago diverse groups of Ukrainian ultras did not have good relations, to put it mildly. Now we have reached a nationwide truce. This was the first time in the Ukrainian fan movement. In many other countries, this has never happened!"
What can we learn from comparing the 1989 revolutions in Poland and in China?
The time has come – unfortunately in the midst of another political and human crisis – for the international community to develop a rapid assistance framework for nonviolent activists and dissidents who risk their lives to preserve their right to self-rule. Yesterday it was Ukraine. Today it is Cr
Dramatic words or violent acts were not how the Ukrainian people ousted an authoritarian leader and his cronies. Civil resistance shredded the legitimacy of a repressive and corrupt government. The nonviolent movement dissolved the consent of the people and the loyalty of regime defenders on which
Probabilities are always shredded by violent conflict, except the probability that freedom and justice will be postponed. See Part One here.
In Syria, mixing violent and nonviolent resistance jeopardized people power, particularly when violence became the main driver of resistance from early 2012 onward. See Part Two.
We need the international community to favour the worldwide groundswell of civil resistance over armed violence. This could be facilitated by a more dynamic and comprehensive interpretation of existing international law in the light of a broader understanding of those rights of which civil resista
A comparison of the Polish Round Table and the Tiananmen Tragedy show that non-violent resistance movements need to be clear-headed in the moment of negotiation and transition. The next moves by the democratic movement in Egypt will determine the political shape of the country for a long time to c
