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NONVIOLENT ACTION DICTIONARY

GLOSSARY OF IMPORTANT TERMS IN NONVIOLENT STRUGGLE

Accommodation: A mechanism of change in nonviolent action in which the opponents resolve, while they still have a choice, to agree to a compromise and grant certain demands of the nonviolent resisters. Accommodation occurs when the opponents have neither changed their views nor been nonviolently coerced, but have concluded that a compromise settlement is desirable. The accommodation may result from influences that, if continued, might have led to the conversion, nonviolent coercion, or disintegration of the opponents' system or regime.

Authority: The quality that leads the judgments, decisions, recommendations, and orders of certain individuals and institutions to be accepted voluntarily as right and therefore to be implemented by others through obedience or cooperation. Authority is a main source of political power, but is not identical with it.

Boycott: Non-cooperation, either socially, economically, or politically.

Campaign: represents a series of activities (tactics) designed to achieve medium and long-term goals. Campaigns are more likely to be successful if your entire group has an opportunity to be involved in the planning process. To share ownership in the planning process, we must adopt some common terminology when talking about our campaign organizing.

Civic abstention: A synonym for acts of political non cooperation.

Civic action: A synonym for nonviolent action conducted for political purposes.

Civic defiance: Assertive acts of nonviolent protest, resistance or intervention conducted for political purposes.

Civic resistance: A synonym for nonviolent resistance with a political objective.

Civic strike: An economic shut-down conducted for political reasons. Not only workers may go on strike, but importantly students, professionals, shopkeepers, white-collar workers (including government employees), and members of upper classes may participate.

Civil disobedience: A deliberate peaceful violation of particular laws, decrees, regulations, ordinances, military or police orders, and the like. These are usually laws that are regarded as inherently immoral, unjust, or tyrannical. Sometimes, however, laws of a largely regulatory or morally neutral character may be disobeyed as a symbol of opposition to wider policies of the government.

Conversion: A change of viewpoint by the opponents against whom nonviolent action has been waged, such that they come to believe it is right to accept the objectives of the nonviolent group. This is one of four mechanisms of change in nonviolent action.

Disintegration: The fourth mechanism of change in nonviolent action, in which the opponents are not simply coerced, but their system or government is disintegrated and falls apart as a result of massive non cooperation and defiance. The sources of power are restricted or severed by the non cooperation to such an extreme degree that the opponents' system or government simply dissolves.

Economic shut-down: A suspension of the economic activities of a city, area, or country on a sufficient scale to produce economic paralysis. The motives are usually political. This may be achieved with a general strike by workers while management, business, commercial institutions, and small shopkeepers close their establishments and halt their economic activities.

Freedom (political): A political condition that permits freedom of choice and action for individuals and also for individuals and groups to participate in the decisions and operation of the society and the political system.

Goal: Final target (mission) that should be achieved. (Example: Getting at least 1,000 people to sign a petition). Short-term goals are things which you can do within short period of time - for instance within a month - like obtaining the petition signatures. Long-term goals are those that should be achieved within couple years, or even decades. These goals are often linked, or may depend on achieving one or more (sometimes even a series) of short-term goals. Long-term goals are, by the rule, more complicate to achieve and therefore require more time. They are considered more important than short-term goals, as their general value is higher compared to short-term goals. Therefore, if sometimes a short-term goal makes an obstacle for achieving a long-term goal it is advised to sacrifice the short-term goal (see tactic for more info).

Grand strategy: The broadest conception of how an objective is to be attained in a conflict by a chosen course of action. The grand strategy serves to coordinate and direct all appropriate and available resources (human, political, economic, moral, etc.) of the group to attain its objectives in a conflict. Several more limited strategies may be applied within a grand strategy to achieve particular objectives in subordinate phases of the overall struggle.

Grievance group: The general population group whose grievances are issues in the conflict, and are being championed by the nonviolent resisters.

Human resources: A term that is used here to indicate the number of persons and groups who obey "the ruler" (meaning the ruling group in command of the state), cooperate with, or assist the ruling group in implementing their will. This includes the proportion of such persons and groups in the general population, and the extent, forms, and independence of their organizations. A ruler's power is affected by the availability of these human resources, which constitute one of the sources of political power.

Material resources: This is another source of political power. The term refers to property, natural resources, financial resources, the economic system, means of communication, and modes of transportation. The degree to which the ruler controls, or does not control, these helps to determine the extent or limits of the ruler's power.

Mechanisms of change: The processes by which change is achieved in successful cases of nonviolent struggle. The four mechanisms are conversion, accommodation, nonviolent coercion, and disintegration.

Methods: The specific means of action within the technique of nonviolent action. Nearly two hundred specific methods have thus far been identified. They are classed under three main classes: nonviolent protest and persuasion, non cooperation (social, economic, and political), and nonviolent intervention.

Non cooperation: A large class of methods of nonviolent action that involve deliberate restriction, discontinuance, or withholding of social, economic, or political cooperation (or a combination of these) with a disapproved person, activity, institution, or regime. The methods of non cooperation are classified in the subcategories of social non cooperation, economic non cooperation (economic boycotts and labour strikes), and political non cooperation

Nonviolence (religious or ethical): Beliefs and behaviour of several types in which violent acts are prohibited on religious or ethical grounds. In some belief systems, not only physical violence is barred but also hostile thoughts and words. Certain belief systems additionally enjoin positive attitudes and behaviour toward opponents, or even a rejection of the concept of opponents. Such believers often may participate in nonviolent struggles with people practicing nonviolent struggle for pragmatic reasons, or may choose not to do so.

Nonviolent action (NVA): A general technique of conducting protest, resistance, and intervention without physical violence. Such action may be conducted by (a) acts of omission - that is, the participants refuse to perform acts that they usually perform, are expected by custom to perform, or are required by law or regulation to perform; or (b) acts of commission - that is, the participants perform acts that they usually do not perform, are not expected by custom to perform, or are forbidden by law or regulation from performing; or (c) a combination of both. The technique includes a multitude of specific methods that are grouped into three main classes: nonviolent protest and persuasion, non cooperation, and nonviolent intervention.

Nonviolent coercion: A mechanism of change in nonviolent action in which demands are achieved against the will of the opponents because effective control of the situation has been taken away from them by widespread non cooperation and defiance. However, the opponents still remain in their official positions and the system has not yet disintegrated.

Nonviolent insurrection: A popular political uprising against an established regime regarded as oppressive by use of massive non cooperation and defiance.

Nonviolent intervention: A large class of methods of nonviolent action that in a conflict situation directly interfere by nonviolent means with the opponents' activities and operation of their system. These methods are distinguished from both symbolic protests and non cooperation The disruptive intervention is most often physical (as in a sit-in) but may be psychological, social, economic, or political.

Nonviolent protest and persuasion: A large class of methods of nonviolent action that are symbolic acts expressing opposition opinions or attempting persuasion (as vigils, marches or picketing). These acts extend beyond verbal expressions of opinion but stop short of non cooperation (as a strike) and nonviolent intervention (as a sitting).

Nonviolent struggle: The waging of determined conflict by strong forms of nonviolent action, especially against determined and resourceful opponents who may respond with repression.

Nonviolent weapons: The specific methods of nonviolent action.

Pillars of support: The institutions and sections of the society that supply the existing regime with the needed sources of power to maintain and expand its power capacity. Examples are the police, prisons, and military forces supplying sanctions, moral and religious leaders supplying authority (legitimacy), labour groups and business and investment groups supplying economic resources, and similarly with the other identified sources of political power. (See more details on Pillars of Support page.)

Political defiance: The strategic application of nonviolent struggle in order to disintegrate a dictatorship and to replace it with a democratic system. This resistance by non cooperation and defiance mobilizes the power of the oppressed population in order to restrict and cut off the sources of the dictatorship's power. Those sources are provided by groups and institutions called "pillars of support". When political defiance is used successfully, it can make a nation ungovernable by the current or any future dictatorship and therefore able to preserve a democratic system against possible new threats.

Political jiu-jitsu: A special process that may operate during a nonviolent struggle to change power relationships. In political jiujutsu negative reactions to the opponents' violent repression against nonviolent resisters is turned to operate politically against the opponents, weakening their power position and strengthening that of the nonviolent resisters. This can operate only when violent repression is met with continued nonviolent defiance, not violence or surrender. The opponents' repression is then seen in the worst possible light. Resulting shifts of opinion are likely to occur among third parties, the general grievance group, and even the opponents' usual supporters. Those shifts may produce both withdrawal of support for the opponents and increased support for the nonviolent resisters. The result may be widespread condemnation of the opponents, internal opposition among the opponents, and increased resistance. These changes can at times produce major shifts in power relationships in favour of the nonviolent struggle group. Political jiujutsu does not operate in all cases of nonviolent struggle. When it is absent the shift of power relationships depends highly on the extent of non cooperation

Political power: The totality of influences and pressures available for use to determine and implement official policies for a society. Political power may be wielded by the institutions of government, or in opposition to the government by dissident groups and organizations. Political power may be directly applied in a conflict, or it may be held as a reserve capacity for possible later use.

Sanctions (Embargo): Punishments or reprisals, violent or nonviolent, imposed either because people have failed to act in the expected or desired manner or because people have acted in an unexpected or prohibited manner. Nonviolent sanctions are less likely than violent ones to be simple reprisals for disobedience and are more likely to be intended to achieve a given objective. Sanctions are a source of political power.

Self-reliance: The capacity to manage one's own affairs, make one's own judgments, and provide for oneself, one's group or organization, independence, self-determination, and self-sufficiency.

Skills and knowledge: A source of political power. The ruler's power is supported by the skills, knowledge and abilities that are provided by persons and groups in the society (human resources) and the relation of those available skills, knowledge and abilities to the ruler's needs for them.

Sources of power: These are origins of political power. They include: authority, human resources, skills and knowledge, intangible factors, material resources and sanctions. These derive from the society. Each of these sources is closely associated with and dependent upon the acceptance, cooperation, and obedience of the population and the society's institutions. With a strong supply of these sources the ruler will be powerful. As the supply is weakened or severed, the ruler's power will weaken or collapse.

Strategic nonviolent struggle: Nonviolent struggle that is applied according to a strategic plan that has been prepared on the basis of analysis of the conflict situation, the strengths and weaknesses of the contending groups, the nature, capacities, and requirements of the technique of nonviolent action, and especially strategic principles of that type of struggle. See also: grand strategy, strategy, tactics, and methods.

Strategy: A plan for the conduct of a major phase, or campaign, within a grand strategy for the overall conflict. A strategy is the basic idea of how the struggle of a specific campaign shall develop, and how its separate components shall be fitted together to contribute most advantageously to achieve its objectives. Strategy operates within the scope of the grand strategy. Tactics and specific methods of action are used in smaller scale operations to implement the strategy for a specific campaign.

Strike: A deliberate restriction or suspension of work, usually temporarily, to put pressure on employers to achieve an economic objective or sometimes on the government in order to win a political objective.

Tactic: A limited plan of action based on a conception of how, in a restricted phase of a conflict, to use effectively the available means of action to achieve a specific limited objective. Tactics are intended for use in implementing a wider strategy in a phase of the overall conflict. Tactic represent the tools you use to meet your goals. Tactics can be very small things too, like postering, leafleting, showing a movie, or sending a letter to the school paper. The distinction between goals and tactics can be confusing because you may need to achieve small goals in order to employ certain tactics.

Violence: Physical violence against other human beings that inflicts injury or death, or threatens to inflict such violence, or any act dependent on such infliction or threat. Some types of religious or ethical nonviolence conceive of violence much more broadly. This narrower definition permits adherents to those beliefs to cooperate with persons and groups that are prepared on pragmatic grounds to practice nonviolent struggle.