Synopses & Reviews
The U.S. civil rights movement, anti-apartheid protestors in South Africa, and Gandhis struggle for Indian freedom are all powerful illustrations of nonviolent action that effectively brought about change. In
A Theory of Nonviolent Action, Stellan Vinthagen draws on these examples as well as a rich collection of other historical social events that represent nonviolence movements that combined resistance and constructive change.
With this groundbreaking book, Vinthagen provides the first major systematic attempt to develop a theory of nonviolent action in decades, making this essential reading for anyone involved in the study of nonviolence movements.
Synopsis
Pinpoints reasons for successes and failures of nonviolent protest movements
In the last two decades of the twentieth century, a wave of "people power" movements erupted throughout the nondemocratic world. In South Africa, the Philippines, Nepal, Thailand, Burma (Myanmar), China, and elsewhere, mass protest demonstrations, strikes, boycotts, civil disobedience, and other nonviolent actions were brought to bear on a rigid political status quo.
Kurt Schock compares the successes of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, the people power movement in the Philippines, the pro-democracy movement in Nepal, and the antimilitary movement in Thailand with the failures of the pro-democracy movement in China and the anti-regime challenge in Burma. Schock develops a synthetic framework that allows him to identify which characteristics increase the resilience of a challenge to state repression, and which aspects of a state's relations can be exploited by such a challenge.
By looking at how these methods of protest promoted regime change in some countries but not in others, this book provides rare insight into the often overlooked and little understood power of nonviolent action.
Synopsis
In this ground-breaking and much-needed book, Stellan Vinthagen provides the first major systematic attempt to develop a theory of nonviolent action since Gene Sharp's seminal The Politics of Nonviolent Action in 1973.
Employing a rich collection of historical and contemporary social movements from various parts of the world as examples - from the civil rights movement in America to anti-Apartheid protestors in South Africa to Gandhi and his followers in India - and addressing core theoretical issues concerning nonviolent action in an innovative, penetrating way, Vinthagen argues for a repertoire of nonviolence that combines resistance and construction. Contrary to earlier research, this repertoire - consisting of dialogue facilitation, normative regulation, power breaking and utopian enactment - is shown to be both multidimensional and contradictory, creating difficult contradictions within nonviolence, while simultaneously providing its creative and transformative force.
An important contribution in the field, The Sociology of Nonviolent Action is essential for anyone involved with nonviolent action who wants to think about what they are doing
About the Author
Stellan Vinthagen is associate professor in sociology and senior lecturer in peace and development studies at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
Table of Contents
PART 1:
Chapter 1: 'Nonviolent Action'
Chapter 2: Nonviolent Action Studies - Morality vs. Strategy
Chapter 3: The History of Nonviolent Action - A Geneaology of a Concept and its Practice
Chapter 4: Defining Nonviolent Action
PART 2:
Chapter 5: The Social Rationality of Nonviolent Action
Chapter 6: Communicative Rationality of Nonviolent Action - Nonviolent Dialogue Facilitation
Chapter 7: Goal Rationality of Nonviolent Action - Nonviolent Power Breaking
Chapter 8: Expressive Rationality of Nonviolent Action - Nonviolent Utopian Enactment
Chapter 9: Normative Rationality of Nonviolent Action - Nonviolent Normative Regulation
Chapter 10: The Creative and Dialectic Force of Nonviolent Action
Afterword
References
Appendix