Suchergebnisse

Dignity and just treatment of workers -- Peace, nonviolence, and disarmament -- Equality for women and Catholic feminism -- Liberation theology and the Central America solidarity movement -- Compassion for immigrants and the sanctuary movements -- Earth ethics and American Catholic environmentalism.

Nonviolent Struggle provides a comprehensive introduction to civil resistance studies. Through a wide array of historical examples, Sharon Nepstad explains key concepts and debates, illustrates different categories of nonviolent action, describes the strategies and dynamics of nonviolent struggles, and summarizes the most recent empirical research in the field. This book offers a succinct coverage of the philosophy and strategy of nonviolent resistance.

Many U.S. Christians were profoundly moved by the liberation struggles in Central America in the 1980s. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 50 activists in eight separate solidarity organizations around the country, Nepstad offers an analysis of the experiences of religious leaders and church members in the solidarity movement

AbstractThere is a significant amount of research that analyzes the consequences of repression on social movement mobilization. Yet most studies do not examine the strategic agency of protesters, who can avoid, minimize, or transform punitive sanctions. In this article, I call for an agency‐centered approach that highlights the iterative dynamics between protesters and agents of repression, emphasizing that the consequences of repression are largely shaped by activists' responses. Reviewing the literature on this topic, I summarize common methods of repression used by both the state and private citizens—such as information gathering, planting provocateurs, legal harassment, and direct violence. I also discuss movement counter‐methods for muting the impact of repression, which include tactical shifts, decentralized organizational structures, and obstructing surveillance technologies, among others. While researchers have documented typical methods of social control, we must also capture protesters' tool kit of strategic responses that enable movements to persist during periods of repression.

To introduce this special issue, I provide a brief overview of nonviolence or civil resistance research. I explain the origins and development of the field starting with its Gandhian roots, through the pragmatic Sharpian period, to the current state of empirical testing and development of nonviolence theories. I also summarize the field's main findings to date, particularly in the areas of campaign outcomes, long-term consequences of nonviolent revolutionary movements, and tactical shifts from nonviolence to violence and vice versa. Pointing out the civil resistance research questions and findings that complement social movement studies, I call for greater dialogue between these two fields that have largely developed in parallel with few points of crossover. I conclude by overviewing the articles in this special issue, noting how they extend our knowledge, make new contributions, and offer a timely reflection on this burgeoning field—particularly its theoretical blind spots and omissions.

AbstractResearch on non‐violent civil resistance has burgeoned in recent years. This field has much in common with the study of social movements, and yet there has been little cross‐fertilization between these literatures. In this article, I review the historical development of non‐violence studies from its Gandhian roots, through an emphasis on strategic non‐violence, to current empirical research that has generated new insights into the strategic interactions between non‐violent movements and their opponents, the effects of repression, the factors shaping movement outcomes, and cross‐national tactical diffusion. I summarize key findings and implications for the field of social movements. I conclude by charting out new areas of inquiry that future researchers ought to explore.

Recent studies of civil resistance indicate that security force defections can heavily influence the outcome of nonviolent uprisings against authoritarian regimes. Yet we know little about why, when, and how mutiny occurs. In this article, I ask: what factors influence the likelihood of military defections during a nonviolent conflict? In reviewing various literatures, I identify ten factors that facilitate or obstruct mutiny. I propose that two of these are particularly influential: (1) whether troops receive economic or political benefits from the regime; and (2) whether troops perceive the regime as fragile, based on the international community's response to the conflict. Specifically, I argue that troops who receive benefits from a regime are more likely to remain loyal while those who receive no such benefits are more likely to defect. However, even the most underprivileged troops are unlikely to defect if they believe that the state is strong enough to withstand a major civilian uprising. Soldiers' perception of regime strength is partly shaped by whether outside nations support the opposition, thereby weakening the state, or send troops to reinforce the regime's control. Using a qualitative comparative method, I illustrate these dynamics through an examination of several Arab Spring uprisings: Egypt, where the military sided with civil resisters; Bahrain, where troops remained loyal to the state; and Syria, where the military split. Then, to encourage more research on this topic, I use these three cases to generate additional hypotheses about defections that others can test against a wider set of cases. I conclude with a discussion of the questions that future researchers should explore and the types of methodological approaches that are needed in this field of study.

Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement. By Wendy Pearlman. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 304p. $99.00.In recent years, social scientific research on nonviolent resistance has burgeoned. Yet many studies focus on the factors associated with nonviolent movements' success or failure. In her book, Wendy Pearlman poses different questions. Instead of asking when and how nonviolence works, she asks why some activists choose nonviolent tactics while others choose violent ones. Additionally, she asks why movements may, over time, shift between armed and unarmed strategies.

The study of nonviolent civil resistance is now in vogue. The American Political Science Association gave its best book award this year to Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, authors of Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. Additionally, in the last few years, there have been an unprecedented number of academic books, edited volumes, and journal special issues published on this topic, largely due to interest generated by the Arab Spring uprisings and the "color revolutions" in post-communist regions.