Nonviolent Action and Its Misconceptions:Insights for Social Scientists

Kurt Schock, Rutgers University

IntroductionPrior to the wave of people power

movements that erupted across the globein the late twentieth century, scholars ofsocial movements and revolution rarelyaddressed nonviolent action as a strategyfor political change in non-democraticcontexts. By the beginning of thetwenty-first century this changed, as in-creasingly more social scientists beganturning their attention to a topic onceaddressed primarily by peace studiesscholars.1 The analysis of nonviolent ac-tion by social scientists other than peacestudies scholars should be welcomed.Yet, since popular and scholarly miscon-ceptions about nonviolence abound, itwould be useful to examine some ofthese in the hope that biases in the social scientific analysis of nonviolentaction can be attenuated.2

Nonviolent Action and itsMisconceptions

What is nonviolent action? As thename implies, nonviolent action is active—it involves activity in the collec-tive pursuit of social or political objectives—and it is non-violent—it doesnot involve physical force or the threatof physical force against human beings.More specifically, nonviolent action in-volves an active process of bringing po-litical, economic, social, emotional, ormoral pressure to bear in the wieldingof power in contentious interactions be-tween collective actors (McCarthy 1990;1998; Sharp 1973, 1999). Nonviolent ac-tion is non-institutional, i.e., it operatesoutside the bounds of institutionalized

political channels, and it is indetermi-nate, i.e., the procedures for determiningthe outcome of the conflict are notspecified in advance (Bond 1994). Non-violent action occurs through: (1) actsof omission, whereby people refuse toperform acts expected by norms, cus-tom, law, or decree; (2) acts of commis-sion, whereby people perform actswhich they do not usually perform, arenot expected by norms or customs toperform, or are forbidden by law, regu-lation, or decree to perform; or (3) acombination of acts of omission andcommission (Sharp 1973, 1999). Ratherthan viewing nonviolent action as one-half of a rigid violent-nonviolent di-chotomy, nonviolent action may be bet-ter understood as a set of methods withspecial features that are different fromboth violent resistance and institutionalpolitics (McCarthy 1990). That said, letus look at some common misconcep-tions about nonviolent action.

1. Nonviolent action is not inaction (although it may involve the refusal tocarry out an action that is expected, i.e.,an act of omission), it is not submissive-ness, it is not the avoidance of conflict,and it is not passive resistance. In fact,nonviolent action is a direct means forprosecuting conflicts with opponents andan explicit rejection of inaction, submis-sion, and passivity.

2. Anything that is not violent is not con-sidered to be nonviolent action. Nonviolentaction refers to specific actions that involverisk and that invoke non-physical pressureor nonviolent coercion in contentious inter-actions between opposing groups.

3. Nonviolent action is not limited tostate sanctioned political activities. Nonvi-olent action may be legal or illegal. Civildisobedience, i.e., the open and deliberateviolation of the law for a collective socialor political purpose, is a fundamental typeof nonviolent action.

4. Nonviolent action is not composedof regular or institutionalized techniquesof political action such as litigation, letterwriting, lobbying, voting, or the passage

of laws. Although institutional methods ofpolitical action often accompany nonvio-lent struggles, nonviolent action occursoutside the bounds of institutional politi-cal channels. Contrary to regular and in-stitutionalized political activity, there isalways an element of risk involved forthose implementing nonviolent actionsince it presents a direct challenge to authorities. Thus, nonviolent action iscontext-specific. Displaying anti-regimeposters in democracies would be consid-ered a low risk and regular form of polit-ical action, whereas the same activity innon-democracies would be considered irregular and would involve a substantialamount of risk. It would therefore beconsidered a method of nonviolent actionin a non-democratic context. Similarly,strikes in democracies that occur withinthe bounds of institutionalized labor rela-tions cannot be considered nonviolent ac-tion, since they are not non-institutionalor indeterminate. However, a wildcatstrike in a democracy and most strikes in non-democracies would be instances of nonviolent action given their non-institutionalized, indeterminate, and high-risk features.

5. Nonviolent action is not a form ofnegotiation or compromise. Negotiationand compromise may or may not accom-pany conflicts prosecuted through nonvio-lent action, just as they may or may notaccompany conflicts prosecuted throughviolent action. In other words, nonviolentaction is a means for prosecuting a con-flict and it should be distinguished frommeans of conflict resolution (Ackermanand Kruegler 1994, 5).

6. Participation in nonviolent actiondoes not require that activists hold anysort of ideological, religious, or metaphys-ical beliefs. Contrary to popular andscholarly assumptions, those who engagein nonviolent action are rarely pacifists.Those who engage in nonviolent actionhold a variety of different beliefs, one ofwhich may be pacifism, but pacifism isnot prevalent among those engaged innonviolent action. As noted by GeorgeLakey, “most pacifists do not practice

FEATURES

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Kurt Schock is associate professor of soci-ology and a member of the graduate faculty inglobal affairs at Rutgers University, Newark.His research interests include comparative po-litical sociology and social movements. Hisbook, Unarmed Insurrections: The Power ofNonviolent Action in Non-Democracies, willbe published by the University of MinnesotaPress. He can be reached at kschock@andromeda.rutgers.edu.

nonviolent resistance, and most peoplewho do practice nonviolent resistance arenot pacifists” (Lakey 1973, 57).

7. There are also significant misconcep-tions concerning the role of activists’ per-ceptions about the methods used in strug-gles. Those who implement methods ofnonviolent action may not recognize themas ‘methods of nonviolent action,’ andthey certainly do not have to adhere to atheory of nonviolence or a moral code tosuccessfully implement them.

8. Nonviolent action does not dependon moral authority, the ‘mobilization ofshame,’ or the conversion of the views ofopponents in order to succeed. Conversionof the oppressor’s views, whereby thechallenge effectively alters the view of theoppressors thereby resulting in the accept-ance of the challenger’s aims and an alter-ation in the oppressor’s policies, is com-monly assumed to be the only mechanismby which nonviolent action promotes po-litical change.3 In fact, conversion is onlyone of four mechanisms through whichnonviolent action can promote change andit is the least likely of the four to promotechange. The other more common mecha-nisms are accommodation, nonviolent co-ercion, and disintegration. Through accom-modation, the challenge effectivelyproduces changes in the oppressor’s poli-cies even though the oppressor’s viewshave not changed. Through nonviolent co-ercion, change is achieved against the op-pressor’s will as a result of successfullyundermining its resources, legitimacy, andability to control the situation. Throughdisintegration, the oppressor’s ruling appa-ratus falls apart in the face of mass nonvi-olent action (Sharp 1973; 1990). Thus,while conversion of the opponent’s viewsmay occur, more often than not, nonvio-lent action succeeds through nonviolentcoercion, i.e., it forces the opponent tomake changes by undermining its power.Of course, moral pressure may be mobi-lized, but in the absence of political andeconomic pressure, it is unlikely to pro-duce change.

9. Those who implement nonviolent ac-tion do not assume that the state will notreact with violence. Violence is to be ex-pected from governments, especially non-democratic governments. The violent reac-tion of governments is not an indicationof the failure of nonviolent action. In fact,governments respond with violence pre-cisely because nonviolent action presents aserious threat to their power. To dismissthe use of nonviolent action because peo-ple are killed is no more logical than dis-missing armed resistance for the same rea-sons (Zunes 1999b, 130).

10. That said, suffering is not an essen-tial part of nonviolent resistance. The viewthat suffering is central to nonviolent re-

sistance is based on misguided assump-tions that nonviolent action is ‘passive resistance’ and that nonviolent action produces change through the conversion of the oppressor’s views (Martin 1997).While nonviolent challenges should expecta violent response by the government,they should also prepare to mute the im-pact of the opponent’s violence. That is,they should, as stated by Peter Ackermanand Christopher Kruegler, “get out ofharms way, take the sting out of theagents of violence, disable the weapons,prepare people for the worst effects of violence, and reduce the strategic impor-tance of what may be lost to violence”(Ackerman and Kruegler 1994, 38). Non-violent resistance is much more sophisti-cated than the widespread conception ofactivists meekly accepting physical attacks.

11. Nonviolent action is not a method ofcontention that is used only as a last re-sort, when the means of violence are un-available. Although nonviolent action maybe used when no weapons are available, itmay also be used instead of violence.

12. Nonviolent action is not a method ofthe ‘middle class’ or a ‘bourgeois’ approachto political contention. Nonviolent actioncan and has been implemented by groupsfrom all classes and castes, from slaves tomembers of the upper-class (McCarthy andKruegler 1993). For obvious reasons, it isused more frequently by the less-powerful,i.e., those without regular access to power-holders, than by the powerful.

13. The use of nonviolent action is notlimited to the pursuit of ‘moderate’ or ‘re-formist’ goals. It is just as appropriate forthe pursuit of ‘radical’ goals. Anders Corr,for example, has documented the extensiveuse of nonviolent action in land and hous-ing struggles across the developed andless-developed worlds (Corr 1999). Chal-lenges to private property relations canhardly be considered ‘reformist,’ ‘moder-ate,’ or ‘bourgeois.’ Similarly, the feministmovement has radically challenged patriar-chal gender relations—almost entirelythrough methods that do not involve vio-lence. Challenging groups can be militant,radical, and nonviolent.

14. The mass mobilization of people intocampaigns of nonviolent action in non-democracies does not depend on coercion.While some campaigns of nonviolent actionin non-democracies have involved coercionto promote mass mobilization, it is not anecessary feature.

15. While nonviolent action by its verynature requires patience, it is not inher-ently slow compared to violent action inproducing political change (Shepard 2001).Armed insurgencies that served as modelsfor a generation of revolutionaries tookdecades to succeed: the Communists inChina were engaged in armed combat for

over 20 years before they assumed powerin 1949, and the Vietnamese were engagedin armed combat against French, Japanese,and American imperialists for over threedecades before national liberation. Simi-larly, numerous campaigns of terror, suchas the Basque ETA in Spain and the IRAin Northern Ireland, have been operatingfor decades without meeting their objec-tives. By contrast, the nonviolent Solidar-ity movement in Poland took office abouta decade after its emergence, and it took amere 30 months, following the assassina-tion of Benigno Aquino in August, 1983,for the people power movement in thePhilippines to topple Ferdinand Marcos—something the Filipino Communists hadbeen trying to do through armed methodssince 1969.

16. The occurrence of nonviolent actionis not structurally determined. While thereare empirical relationships in geographi-cally and temporally bound places andtime periods between political contextsand the use of a given strategy for re-sponding to grievances, the method usedto challenge unjust or oppressive politicalrelations is not determined by politicalcontext. Processes of learning, diffusion,and social change may result in the imple-mentation of nonviolent action in contextsor situations historically characterized byviolent contention. Conflicts involvingland, separatism, autonomy, or self-determination, for example, are generallyassumed to be—and have historicallybeen—violent. However, nonviolent strate-gies are increasingly being used in suchconflicts (e.g., see Cooper 1999). Certainlythe context of the struggle and the issues at stake influence the strategiesused by challengers, but not in a deter-ministic manner.

17. The effectiveness of nonviolent ac-tion is not a function of the ideology ofthe oppressors. It is often claimed thatnonviolent action can only succeed indemocracies or when it is used against be-nign or ‘universalist’ oppressors. Certainlythe beliefs of the oppressors influences thedynamics of nonviolent struggles, but it isnot the sole determinant of their outcomes.

18. The effectiveness of nonviolent ac-tion is not a function of the repressivenessof the oppressors. In fact, nonviolent ac-tion has been effective in brutally repres-sive contexts, and it has been ineffectivein open democratic polities. Repression, ofcourse, constrains the ability of chal-lengers to organize, communicate, mobi-lize, and engage in collective action, andmagnifies the risk of participation in col-lective action. Nevertheless, repression isonly one of many factors that influencethe trajectories of campaigns of nonviolentaction, not the sole determinant of theirtrajectories.

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Blurred Lines?To illustrate how some of these mis-

conceptions may influence the work ofsocial scientists, I will briefly examineGay Seidman’s essay “Blurred Lines:Nonviolence in South Africa” (PS: Polit-ical Science and Politics, June 2000).This is not meant to be a personal at-tack on the work of Seidman. She is arespected scholar who has publishedpath-breaking work on social movementunionism in Brazil and South Africa(Seidman 1994). Moreover, we agree onmany points in her essay. We agree thatthe anti-apartheid struggle in SouthAfrica stands as a monument to thepower of nonviolent action in challeng-ing systems of injustice, exploitation,and oppression. We agree that social sci-entists must not glorify the use of nonvi-olent action in the anti-apartheid move-ment, or in any other predominantlynonviolent struggle. We agree that socialscientists should develop historically nu-anced and empirically accurate analysesof predominantly nonviolent struggles.Nevertheless, since more and more so-cial scientists are beginning to studynonviolence, and since Seidman’s essaymay be representative of some of thegeneral biases that social scientists bringto the table when turning their attentionto the study of nonviolence, it is hopedthat by offering a constructive criticismof these misconceptions, biases in thesocial scientific analysis of nonviolencecan be attenuated.

Passive ResistanceSeidman uses the term “passive resist-

ance” to describe nonviolent action (Sei-dman 2000, 161). This is a misnomer.There is nothing passive or evasive aboutnonviolent resistance, as it is an activeand overt means for prosecuting conflictswith opponents. While Mohandas Gandhiat first used the term ‘passive resistance,’he subsequently rejected the term due toits inaccurate connotations. Similarly,Martin Luther King rejected the term‘passive resistance’ and used words suchas ‘aggressive,’ ‘militant,’ ‘confronta-tional,’ and ‘coercive’ to describe hiscampaigns of nonviolent action. The term‘passive resistance’ has not been used byactivists or scholars of nonviolent actionfor decades, yet social scientists continueto use the term when addressing nonvio-lent action. Like Gandhi and King, socialscientists should abandon the term ‘pas-sive resistance’ and use the more accu-rate and precise term ‘nonviolent action.’This is not a mere semantic distinction,but rather is critical to the understandingof nonviolent resistance.

Of course, there is a class of actionsthat do not involve violence and tend tobe passive: everyday forms of resist-ance. These actions are informal, unde-clared, disguised forms of resistance byoppressed individuals that do not requireformal coordination or organization(Scott 1985; 1987). In empirical in-stances of contention, there is likely tobe transgression across everyday formsof resistance and methods of nonviolentaction. But clearly, everyday forms ofresistance should be distinguished fromnonviolent action, and ‘passive resist-ance’ should not be confused with non-violent action.

Coercive MobilizationSeidman suggests that mass cam-

paigns of non-cooperation that occur innon-democratic contexts may involve an‘inherent sociological logic of coercion’(Seidman 2000, 166). To support thisassertion, Seidman correctly notes thattownship activists sometimes created asituation of fear in which people knewthat they could not ignore calls formass mobilization without risking physi-cal harm or perhaps death. But is coer-cive behavior embedded in the sociolog-ical logic of campaigns of massmobilization and disruption in non-democracies, or is it something thatvaries across campaigns and contexts?

First, there are numerous examplesof mass mobilization into campaigns ofnonviolent action in non-democraciesthat did not involve coercive behavior,which suggests that mass mobilizationdoes not involve an ‘inherent sociologi-cal logic of coercion.’ The ‘peoplepower’ movement in the Philippinesand the challenges to communist rulein Eastern Europe come to mind as examples where mass mobilization oc-curred without coercion. Second, evi-dence from the very case examined bySeidman suggests that coercion was notinherent to mass mobilization, butrather it was something that varied, de-pending on the consensus within thecommunity and the extent to whichthere was knowledge about the cam-paign throughout the community. Withregard to consumer boycotts, for exam-ple, when the political loyalties of acommunity were sharply divided orwhen the campaigns were not ade-quately publicized, coercion was morelikely to be used to enforce the con-sumer boycotts. However, when therewas solidarity within the communityand people were well aware that a con-sumer boycott was to be implementedand how long it was supposed to last,then coercion was less likely to occur.

Third, the use of coercion to promoteparticipation in mass campaigns inSouth Africa varied across the type ofnon-cooperation that was implemented.While consumer boycotts sometimesinvolved coercion in order to promotemass mobilization, mass participationin rent boycotts in South Africa didnot involve coercive mobilization(Seekings 2000, 179). Thus social sci-entists should attempt to identify thecontextual factors that influencewhether or not coercive mass mobiliza-tion occurs, such as the tactic beingimplemented, the solidarity of the community, and whether or not mem-bers of the community know that amass campaign has been called for,rather than assuming that coercion isan inherent component of mass mobi-lization into nonviolent campaigns innon-democratic contexts.

‘Universalist’ Oppressors and MoralConversion

Seidman maintains that, “. . . at-tempts to use passive resistance [i.e.,nonviolent action] in South Africademonstrate how deeply such strategiesrely on the oppressor’s response—andillustrate the limits of such a strategywhen the oppressor rejects universalistprinciples” (Seidman 2000, 161). Fur-thermore, quoting Leo Kuper (1971),Seidman suggests that for nonviolent ac-tion to succeed, it must convert theviews of the oppressors through extremesuffering (Seidman 2000, 162). A prob-lem with these assumptions is that theylead to post hoc explanations of theoutcomes of nonviolent struggles as afunction of whether or not the oppressorheld ‘universalist’ views or whether ornot the oppressors were morally con-verted to the views of their opponents.From this perspective, the characteristicsof the challenge and the dynamics ofthe interactions between challengers andthe state become superfluous to explana-tions of the outcome of the strugglesince the outcome is assumed to dependon the views of the oppressors. But, isit possible, for example, that the nonvi-olent campaign in South Africa in the1950s failed and that the nonviolentcampaign in South Africa in the 1980sand 1990s succeeded in contributing topolitical change due, at least in part, tothe characteristics of the challenges?The trajectories and outcomes of chal-lenges are determined by a variety offactors, some within and some outsideof the movement’s control. But giventhe assumption that the outcomes ofnonviolent challenges depend on theviews of the oppressors and whether or

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not the oppressors are morally convertedto the views of the challengers, there isno reason to examine movement charac-teristics such as organization and strat-egy or even the broader political contextsuch as international support for thechallenge or international pressure onthe regime.

Regardless, South Africa was ruledby P. W. Botha and the ‘securocrat’segment of the political elite for mostof the 1980s—not exactly exemplars ofuniversalist principles. Botha and thesecurocrats implemented a ‘total strat-egy’ against perceived enemies of theapartheid regime, and imposed twobrutal states of emergency within SouthAfrica, the first from July 1985 toMarch 1986, and a second, more com-prehensive one beginning in June 1986(Price 1991). Botha was subsequentlyreplaced by F. W. De Klerk in 1989,but what was the likelihood that thesecurocrat segment of the elite wouldhave been dislodged at the end of the1980s by the ‘internationalist-reformers’were it not for sustained campaigns ofnonviolent action? While elite divisionscan ultimately be traced back to long-term economic and political trends, theproximate mechanism that exacerbatedelite divisions and led to the displace-ment of the securocrats was the anti-apartheid challenge. The dismantling ofthe apartheid state did not occur be-cause proponents of apartheid wereconverted to universalist principles, itoccurred because the anti-apartheidmovement undermined the power ofthe state (directly through strikes andnoncooperation, and indirectly by pro-moting capital flight and internationalsanctions), diminished the government’scapacity to control the political situa-tion, and made it clear that those whoheld racist (i.e., non-universalist) prin-ciples would not be able to hold office.

That is not to say that moral pres-sure was not operating in the anti-apartheid challenge, but it was not theonly or the main type of pressure; farmore important than moral pressurewas economic and political pressure.Did white middle-class business peopledesegregate their stores and pressurethe state for political change due totheir sudden moral conversion to racialequality, or because boycotts were driv-ing them out of business? Did whitecapitalists urge the government to re-form because they were moved by theextreme suffering of blacks engaged innonviolent action, or because they realized that endemic strikes and civildisobedience, along with capital flightand international isolation, made economic growth impossible?

Seidman also refers to the strugglefor national liberation in India as a casewhere nonviolent action succeeded be-cause of the views of the oppressors(Seidman 2000, 161). In the case of theIndian independence struggle, the attri-bution of ‘universalist’ views to theBritish is questionable. British rulershardly believed that Indians were theirequal. They viewed non-whites in aracist and exclusionary, rather than inan universalist, manner. Seidman alsosuggests that Britain’s commitment tothe Atlantic Charter contributed to thesuccess of the national liberation move-ment in India.4 But, if Britain was com-mitted to the Atlantic Charter, then whyweren’t they compelled to grant inde-pendence to their other colonies in the1940s as well?

A closer examination of the Indianstruggle for national liberation suggeststhat it worked because it made Indiaungovernable for the British and it ren-dered Britain’s military might useless.The Indian struggle for national libera-tion succeeded, not because of the hu-manitarian views of the British, but be-cause the force of nonviolent actionundermined the power of British rule,showed that Great Britain’s rule in Indiawas based on force rather than legiti-macy, reduced the justification for vio-lent repression, influenced referencepublics in Great Britain, and illuminatedthe futility of trying to violently repressa nationwide movement of nonviolentaction with military force (Dalton 1993;Sharp 1973). Claims that the nonviolentstruggle in India contributed to politicalchange because the British were soft,humanitarian, or universalist are simplyinaccurate.

Even if the British were less brutalor more universalist than the ‘typical’oppressor, there are a number of histori-cal cases where nonviolent challengesworked against ruthless oppressors.Moreover, nonviolent action worked notbecause the oppressor’s views were con-verted as a result of extreme suffering,but because it undermined the oppres-sor’s ability to rule and rendered theirrepressive capacities ineffective. Nonvio-lent action, for example, worked whenit was implemented against the Nazis,undoubtedly one of the most brutalregimes in recent history. Nonviolentprotest demonstrations by German wives against the imprisonment of theirJewish husbands in Berlin led to theirrelease. Nonviolent resistance to Nazisin Norway, Finland, Denmark, theNetherlands, Bulgaria, and Romaniasaved the lives of countless Jews. Non-violent resistance to Nazi occupation inNorway prevented the implementation of

a corporatist system. Non-cooperation inDenmark through tactics such as workslowdowns and strikes severely hinderedthe German effort to extract resourcesand exert control over the country.5

Generally, the Nazi military machinewas dumbfounded in the face of widespread nonviolent resistance. B. H.Liddell Hart, a British military strategistwho interrogated Nazi generals after thewar, found that “they were experts inviolence, and had been trained to dealwith opponents who used that method.But other forms of resistance baffledthem . . . It was a relief to them whenresistance became violent, and whennon-violent forms were mixed withguerrilla action, thus making it easier tocombine drastic suppressive actionagainst both at the same time” (LiddellHart 1968, 205).

More recently, of course, nonviolentaction worked with unprecedented ef-fectiveness against communistregimes—regimes that although were nolonger Stalinist, could not be character-ized as soft or embracing of universal-ist principles. The nonviolent Solidaritymovement in Poland seriously chal-lenged the communist regime well be-fore Gorbachev implemented reforms.In fact, the Solidarity movement madeit clear to the more enlightened seg-ments of the Soviet political elite, likeGorbachev, that reforms had to be im-plemented. The success of the Solidar-ity movement subsequently set the stagefor successful nonviolent challengesthroughout the Soviet sphere, from EastGermany to Mongolia. The SovietUnion itself disintegrated in the face ofpredominantly nonviolent secessionistmovements from the Baltic states toCentral Asia.6

Moreover, in instances where violentaction failed against brutal oppressorslacking universalist views, nonviolentaction succeeded. The Shah of Iran didnot hold ‘universalist’ beliefs and hisregime was supported by a ruthless mil-itary and internal security apparatus,SAVAK. Iran’s two underground armedguerrilla movements, the Fedayeen andthe Mujahhadin, were small and ineffec-tive in challenging the state. Theirmembership did not surpass 300 at theirpeak, and they were infiltrated by theSAVAK. While there were armed battlesbetween military forces loyal to theShah and soldiers who deserted theregime immediately prior to the transferof power, the Shah was not toppled byan armed insurgency, but rather by anunarmed insurrection whereby ordinarycitizens engaged in nonviolent action,such as protests demonstrations, strikes,boycotts, and civil disobedience.7

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Moral Logic

No assumptions that “nonviolent ac-tivists hold a higher moral ground” orhave the “sole proprietorship of themoral high ground” (Seidman 2000,164) are necessary for nonviolent actionto work. The operation of nonviolentaction does not have to be based on anymoral logic, hidden or otherwise. Whilesome major proponents of nonviolentaction have been morally committed tononviolence, nonviolent action per sedoes not require proponents or activiststo be morally committed to nonviolence,or hold any sort of ideological, reli-gious, or metaphysical beliefs.

Morality aside, there may be prag-matic reasons for proponents of nonvio-lent action to encourage non-violent discipline, i.e., thestrict adherence to nonviolentmethods. While responding tostate violence with violenceseems appropriate and justifiedto most people, it permits thestate, not the challenginggroup to choose the means bywhich the conflict will beprosecuted. This takes thecomparative advantage awayfrom the challengers and givesit to the state, as the ability ofgovernments to use violencealmost always exceeds theability of challengers. In fact,violent rebellion by chal-lengers often strengthens regimes sinceit justifies the government’s use of vio-lence in the name of ‘law and order,’‘political stability,’ or a ‘stable businessclimate.’

Thus, nonviolent discipline is usefulfor very pragmatic reasons, such askeeping the movement and referencepublics focused on the issues ratherthan on acts of violence, and attenuatingfears that reference publics may haveabout the challengers. The exposure ofstate violence in contrast to the un-armed methods of the challengers re-veals that the state’s rule is based onforce, not legitimacy, and this may leadto shifts in public and internationalopinion that ultimately reshape the bal-ance of power (Galtung 1989; Lakey1973; Sharp 1973; Summy 1994). Whatis the likelihood that the United StatesCongress, during the Cold War, wouldhave passed sanctions against SouthAfrica if the challenge to apartheid oc-curred primarily through an armed in-surgency? What is the likelihood thatAmerican churches and universitieswould have imposed sanctions and di-vested if the challenge to apartheid wasprimarily armed and violent?

Sustained nonviolent resistance in theface of violent repression may invoke adynamic whereby the suppression of un-armed protesters merely fuels the deter-mination of the activists, catalyzes thesupport of reference publics, and re-duces the effectiveness of further violentrepression. This dynamic has been vari-ously referred to as “political jiu-jitsu,”the “paradox of repression,” and the“critical dynamic.”8 In South Africa, thesustained campaign of nonviolent actionin the face of repression had the effectof “eroding the state’s capacity and willto govern through repression. . . . In themeantime, the capacity and will ofblack South Africans to reject their con-tinued domination grew more quickly”(Marx 1992, 162). Significantly, this dy-

namic has absolutely nothing to do withwhat assumptions the proponents ofnonviolent action hold about the ‘moralpurity’ of nonviolence. The dynamicmay operate even when the proponentsof nonviolent action are as Machiavel-lian as the targets of their dissent.

In South Africa, for example, numer-ous UDF-affiliated street and area com-mittees attempted to make a clear dis-tinction between the nonviolence andaccountability of ‘people power’ and theundisciplined violent action of ‘ultra-militant’ youth, and promoted highly or-ganized forms of contention that wouldnot lead to unnecessary violence. ‘Peo-ple’s courts’ were organized to maintainorder and justice within the townshipsand to promote nonviolent discipline, asviolence threatened the support that hadbeen cultivated among South Africa’schurches, whites, and the internationalcommunity (Marx 1992; Price 1991;Seekings 2000). The calls for nonviolentdiscipline were not based on principlednonviolent action; i.e., those calling fornonviolent action were not concernedthat violence would ‘sully’ their strug-gle. The calls were based on pragmaticnonviolent action; i.e., the realization

that they could generate greater pressureagainst the state through methods ofnonviolent action than through methodsof violence.

I suspect that some of the misconcep-tions that social scientists have aboutnonviolent action are that nonviolent ac-tion is principled nonviolence, or thatthose promoting nonviolent struggle ad-here to principled nonviolence. Scholarsof nonviolent action, however, have tra-ditionally made clear distinctions be-tween principled and pragmatic nonvio-lent action. Those who practiceprincipled nonviolent action view nonvi-olence as a way of life and assume thatviolence is inherently wrong. Thosewho practice pragmatic nonviolent ac-tion view nonviolent action as effica-

cious or convenient for attain-ing their goal in a givencontext, and do not reject thepossibility that violent actionmay be a practical means foralleviating oppression undersome conditions. Thus, meth-ods of nonviolent action areused without any objection toviolence in principle. Mostcampaigns of nonviolent action(including the struggle inSouth Africa) are pragmaticrather than principled. Yetwhen mainstream social scien-tists turn their attention tononviolent action they fail todistinguish between principled

and pragmatic nonviolence, or make(hidden?) assumptions that it is princi-pled nonviolent action. A more nuancedunderstanding of struggles implementingnonviolent action must recognize thedifference between pragmatic and prin-cipled nonviolent action.

Blurred Vision?Are the lines between violence and

nonviolence blurred—in the case of theanti-apartheid movement in SouthAfrica—or in any other challenge thatinvolves nonviolent action? We can lookat this from two points of view: that ofobservers and that of parties to the con-flict. With regard to observers, Seidmanwrites “. . . a careful observer of SouthAfrica’s anti-apartheid resistance willfind it difficult to draw bright lines be-tween violent and nonviolent strategiesduring the uprisings of the 1980s” (Sei-dman 2000, 165). I disagree. In fact, acareful observer of the anti-apartheidmovement—or any other challenge—should be able to do just that: providenominal and operational definitions ofviolent and nonviolent action, applythem to empirical cases, and differentiate

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I suspect that some of themisconceptions that social sci-entists have about nonviolentaction are that nonviolent ac-tion is principled nonviolence,or that those promoting nonviolent struggle adhere toprincipled nonviolence.

between various forms of contentiousactivities. There is a long and distin-guished tradition in the social sciencesthat does exactly this (e.g., Ackermanand Kruegler 1994; Gurr 1993;McAdam 1999; Taylor and Jodice 1983;Tilly 1978). Clearly distinguishing be-tween various forms of contention is nota simplification of history, it is a clarifi-cation of history. Of course, empiricalinstances of political contention arerarely pure; i.e., they rarely involve oneand only one strategy of resistance. In-stead they transgress between institu-tional politics and non-institutional poli-tics, and they transgress betweeneveryday forms of resistance, nonviolentaction, and violence. Nevertheless, con-ceptually it is necessary for the carefulobserver to clearly distinguish differenttypes of resistance in order to better un-derstand the dynamics of contention.

From the point of view of the partiesto the conflict Seidman writes, “ . . . itmust also be recognized that, just as se-curity police insisted on blurring theline between different kinds of anti-apartheid resistance, most activists overthe years viewed violent and nonviolentstrategies as more intertwined and com-plementary than contradictory” (Seidman2000, 165). Did security forces respondto nonviolent challenges with force be-cause their vision was blurred, or be-cause those giving the orders clearly re-alized that nonviolent action representeda serious threat to the interests of theregime? Referring to the intensified re-pression imposed during a state ofemergency, American theologian WalterWink, who was in South Africa in1986, states “in an eloquent tribute tothe power of nonviolence, the govern-ment has decided, in effect, to treatnonviolence as the equivalent of vio-lence” (Wink 1987, 79).

Does this ‘blurred vision’ on the partof activists influence the dynamics ofnonviolent action? The literature on non-violent action suggests that nonviolentstruggles can succeed regardless of theviews of the activists. Those who imple-ment nonviolent action may not even beaware that they are implementing a par-ticular class of methods. Wink inter-viewed participants in the anti-apartheidmovement in South Africa in 1986. Hewrites, “What we found most surprisingis that a great many of the people sim-ply do not know how to name their ac-tual experiences with nonviolence”(Wink 1987, 4). When asked aboutmethods of nonviolent action, a commonresponse of participants was “‘We triedthat [nonviolent action] for fifty yearsand it didn’t work. Sharpeville in 1960proved to us that violence is the only

way left’” (Wink 1987, 4). Yet, whenWink pressed them to identify the tacticsthat were most effective in challengingthe state over the past two years,

they produced a remarkably long list ofnonviolent actions: labor strikes, slow-downs, sit-downs, stoppages, and stay-aways; bus boycotts, consumer boycotts,and school boycotts; funeral demonstra-tions; noncooperation with governmentappointed functionaries; non-payment ofrent; violation of government bans onpeaceful meetings; defiance of segrega-tion orders on beaches and restaurants,theaters, and hotels; and the shunningof black police and soldiers. Thisamounts to what is probably the largestgrassroots eruption of diverse nonvio-lent strategies in a single struggle inhuman history! Yet these students, andmany others we interviewed, both blackand white, failed to identify these tac-tics as nonviolent and even bridled atthe word (Wink 1987, 4).

The point being that those who imple-ment methods of nonviolent action maynot recognize them as ‘methods of non-violent action’ or they may believe thatviolent methods and nonviolent methodsare intertwined and complementary. Non-violent methods can work regardless ofwhether or not activists make the sharpdistinctions between violent and nonvio-lent action that careful observers can.9

As another example of the allegedlyblurred lines between violence and non-violence, Seidman notes that the ANChelped to coordinate mass protests inthe 1980s and funneled resources totrade unions, student groups, and civicassociations (Seidman 2000, 165). Butis this a reflection of the ANC’s blurredvision concerning violence and nonvio-lence, or is it an indication that by the1980s the ANC clearly perceived thatnonviolent tactics were more effectivethan violent ones in undermining statepower and that their time, energy, andresources would be better spent on nonviolent action rather than guerrillawarfare?

As noted by Seidman, anti-apartheidactivists drew on the songs, symbols,and slogans of the ANC’s armed strug-gle to construct identities and promotesolidarity and mobilization (Seidman2000, 165). This included, for example,the toyi-toyi, a dance imitating the phys-ical training of guerrilla insurgents, andthe carrying of mock wooden AK-47s.However, as suggested above, those whoorganize or participate in nonviolentcampaigns are not required to make anymoral pledges or renounce all things re-lated to violence, and adhering to therhetoric of armed rebellion must not be

confused with implementing violent ac-tion. A toyi-toyi dancing, mock AK-47toting thug who marches in protestdemonstrations and participates in boy-cotts is engaging in acts of nonviolentaction.10 An avowed pacifist who getscaught up in the heat of the momentand participates in the ‘necklacing’ ofan alleged apartheid collaborator is en-gaging in violent action. Rhetoric mustbe distinguished from action.11 In anychallenge, activists draw on existing cul-tures of resistance. The use of nonvio-lent action does not require the creationof an entirely new culture of resist-ance—if it were possible to do so—nordoes it require activists to reject allforms of violence. Whether or not ‘non-violence’ is identified by name as amethod of struggle by activists, socialscientists should be able to differentiatenonviolent action from violent action.Certainly social scientists are capable ofdistinguishing between violent rhetoricand nonviolent action.

ConclusionLet me reiterate that the purpose of

this essay is not to attack Seidman’swork, but to raise issues that social sci-entists should be aware of when study-ing struggles that implement nonviolentaction, particularly in non-democraticcontexts. Seidman is correct in suggest-ing that proponents of nonviolent ac-tion—as well as those who have tradi-tionally studied nonviolent action (e.g.,see Sørenson 1992)—need to be awareof their ‘hidden assumptions.’ But socialscientists need to be aware of the ‘hid-den assumptions’ and misconceptionsabout nonviolent action that may biastheir analyses as well.

Nor do I mean to marginalize or be-little the role of violence in the anti-apartheid struggle, but rather to helpclarify thinking about the role of nonvi-olent action. The anti-apartheid move-ment certainly had its share of violence,including the necklacing of allegedregime collaborators, instances of coer-cive mass mobilization, gun battles withsecurity forces, and the acts of sabotageby the ANC (not to mention the brutalstate violence and terrorism). Scholarswill continue to study and uncover in-formation about the anti-apartheidmovement. While we are aware of theimportant symbolic role that the armedstruggle played in the mobilization ofthe challenge to apartheid, we stillknow little about the underground net-works, the roles of guerrillas, how theANC funneled resources to the unarmedurban insurrection, and how the threatof violence influenced the calculations

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on both sides of the struggle (but seethe insightful work of Seekings 2000and Seidman 2001). Nevertheless, thosewho label as ‘revisionist’ studies of theanti-apartheid movement that emphasizethe role of nonviolent action most likelydo so from a position that has miscon-ceptions about nonviolent action.

Empirically, political contention istransgressive and there are rarely casesof purely nonviolent struggle, especiallyin non-democratic contexts. Yet, this

Notes1. E.g., see the symposium in PS: Political

Science and Politics (June 2000) where a num-ber of prominent social scientists address thestrategy of nonviolence.

2. Also see “Correcting Common Misconcep-tions About Nonviolent Action,” by the AlbertEinstein Institution (n.d.), Mahatma Gandhi andHis Myths, by Mark Shepard (2001), and theworks of Ackerman and Kruegler 1994; Acker-man and DuVall 2000; Martin 1997; Sharp1973; and Zunes 1999a; 1999b; Zunes et al.,1999.

3. Part of the confusion results from the factthat Gandhi believed that conversion was themechanism through which nonviolent actionworked. See Shepard 2001.

4. Since Gandhi’s campaign of nonviolent ac-tion in India emerged in the 1920s and 1930sand the Atlantic Charter was declared in 1941,it could be argued that the national liberationmovement in India was one of the factors con-tributing to the declaration of the Atlantic Char-ter, which contained a statement on the right ofpeople to choose their own form of govern-ment. By assuming that the Atlantic Charterprovided the opportunity for the Indian struggleto succeed, without considering that the strug-gle in India and in other colonies may havecontributed to the formulation of the Charter re-flects a structural bias in the social movementliterature. That is, the study of how socialmovements alter the political context and createopportunities is woefully under-examined com-

should not prevent social scientists fromattempting to disentangle and under-stand the impact of different strategiesand tactics of contention. Social scien-tists do not have to idealize nonvio-lence or make the (faulty) assumptionthat the anti-apartheid movement inSouth Africa followed a similar logic tothe America civil rights movement inorder to analyze the crucial role ofnonviolent action in the toppling ofapartheid. But they do have to under-

pared to the study of how social movements re-spond to the political context. See Goodwinand Jasper 1999.

5. For discussions of nonviolent struggles inand against Nazi Germany, see Ackerman andDuVall 2000; Ackerman and Kruegler 1994;Semelin 1993; Sharp 1973; and Summy 1994.

6. Violent exceptions, of course, include therevolution in Romania and the separatist move-ment in Chechnya.

7. See Shivers 1980; 1997. Also see Zunes1994. Nonviolent action contributed to a revolu-tionary outcome in Iran, which is defined as a“transfer of state power from those who held itbefore the start of multiple sovereignty to a newruling coalition” (Tilly 1993: 14). Of course, theconsolidation of the rule of the Ayatollahs in-volved substantial violence and coercion.

8. According to Sharp (1973), political jiu-jitsu refers to the dynamic by which a sustainednonviolent challenge in the face of repressionhighlights the stark brutality of the regime, pro-duces dissension within the government, andmobilizes support for the challengers among thegeneral population, the regime’s usual support-ers, and third parties that would not have oc-curred during the course of a violent challenge.In effect, the use of violent repression againstpersistent nonviolent challenges reboundsagainst the states’ sources of strength. This dy-namic has been observed in a variety of empiri-cal contexts. According to Smithey and Kurtz(1999), the paradox of repression refers to the

stand what nonviolent action is andhow it operates.

In the end, the goals of Gay Seidmanand myself are the same: the dispassion-ate social scientific analysis of nonvio-lence. Seidman is correct in pointing outthat social scientists must clearly under-stand the limits of nonviolent resistance.But social scientists must clearly under-stand its potential as well. In doing so,the power of nonviolence will not beglorified. Nor will it be underestimated.

dynamic by which efforts to violently repressnonviolent challenges backfires and leads to in-creased support for the challengers, as occurredin the Soviet Bloc between 1988 and 1991. Ac-cording to McAdam (1999), the critical dy-namic of the civil rights movement in theAmerican South in the 1950s and 1960s wasthat the challengers broadened the conflict byinducing local and state authorities to disruptpublic order by violently repressing the nonvio-lent challenge. The result was third party inter-vention by the federal government, the sustain-ing of activist commitment, the generation ofpublic sympathy, and the mobilization of finan-cial support.

9. While nonviolent action can be effectivewithout this knowledge, theorists of nonviolentaction suggest that campaigns of nonviolent ac-tion are likely to be more effective if peopleunderstand what the methods are and how theyoperate (e.g., Ackerman and Kruegler 1994;Burrowes 1996; Lakey 1973; McCarthy 1990;and Sharp 1973; 1990).

10. Smuts and Westcott (1991) correctly listtoyi-toyi dancing as one of the methods of non-violent action implemented by anti-apartheid ac-tivists in their book, The Purple Shall Govern:A South African A to Z of Nonviolent Action.

11. When George W. Bush announced airstrikes against Afghanistan on October 7,2001, he proclaimed “We’re a peaceful na-tion.” Does his peaceful rhetoric make his ac-tions less violent?

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