A new conflict pattern has appeared in Myanmar. Amidst a spiraling economic, social and health crisis, armed fighting is no longer confined to ethnic minority areas but has cropped up in cities and regions where the ethnic Bamar are in majority. They see themselves as pursuing a nation-wide resistance. Preventive diplomacy is needed to stop… Read more »
Tag: Non-Violence
Oppression and Regime Survival: Will Trump’s reactions to the Black Lives Matter movement bring about his exit?
Since George Floyd’s brutal killing by the police in May, demonstrations have spread to more than 2,000 major cities and villages in the United States. Black Lives Matter (“BLM”) is probably the most widespread movement in the country’s history. In addition, we have seen huge global support, with demonstrations in more than 50 countries. This… Read more »
PRIO Has the Leading Experts on Protests
How does a country’s security apparatus react to a protest movement? And what happens in the aftermath of successful protests? PRIO is conducting three major research projects about protest movements, securing its position as an international leader in this field. In 2019, the world experienced a surge of non-violent protest movements. Such movements have spearheaded… Read more »
The Rise and Fall of the Twitter Revolution
The year 2019 ended with a new wave of non-violent protests. In every corner of the world there have been huge movements gathering. This marks the end of a decade that opened with the Arab Spring; a decade that might go down in history as the decade of mass protests.
From Wales to Catalonia and Beyond: Gene Sharp and Non-Violent Nationalism
Gene Sharp – a pioneer in the study of non-violent action – died peacefully at the age of 90 on 28 January 2018. Obituaries in many newspapers have highlighted his contributions to the study of non-violent resistance against dictatorial regimes, pointing to how his work inspired the Arab Spring and his reputation as a “dictator’s… Read more »
Gene Sharp Has Died and the World Has Lost a Global Educator
Just a week after his 90th birthday, Gene Sharp passed away 28 January. The magazine New Statesman once described Gene Sharp as the “Machiavelli of Nonviolence” and Thomas Weber labelled him “the Clausewitz of Nonviolent Action.” Who was this man, and what did he contribute to our understanding of the use of nonviolent tactics in… Read more »
Rudy Rummel – a Many-Faceted Scholar
From mathematics to democide Rudolph J Rummel always published just as RJ Rummel but was well known in the profession as Rudy. He was a man of many talents, and to some of his readers he may also have seemed to present many different faces. He came from a broken home, yet became a devoted… Read more »
Seeing Flight as a Non-violent Option: One Way to Change the Discourse about the World’s 60 Million Refugees
Today, one in every 122 humans living on the planet is a refugee, an internally displaced person, or an asylum-seeker. In 2014, conflict and persecution forced a staggering 42,500 persons per day to leave their homes and seek protection elsewhere, resulting in 59.5 million total refugees worldwide. According to the UN refugee agency’s 2014 Global… Read more »
Unarmed Protests Force Leaders from Power Twice as Often as Violent Uprisings
Research lends support to the Nobel Committee’s rationale for its award of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2015; the revolution in Tunisia shows how non-violent protest can assist in democratization. The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet came as a surprise to most observers. But the committee’s rationale –… Read more »
Non-violent Resistance and Double Repression
January 12, 2013: Israeli armed forces dismantle a peaceful Palestinian sit-in in the West Bank, arresting several of the organizers. July 6, 2012: the Palestinian Authority’s security forces violently attack a peaceful demonstration against normalization with Israel in Ramallah, the West Bank. These episodes illustrate the predicament of Palestinian non-violent activists. These activists experience what… Read more »