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'''Civil resistance''' is political action that relies on the use of [[nonviolent resistance]] by civil groups to challenge a particular power, force, policy or [[regime]].<ref>Examples of the use of the term "civil resistance" include [[Erica Chenoweth]] and [[Maria Stephan|Maria J. Stephan]], [http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-15682-0/why-civil-resistance-works ''Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict''], Columbia University Press, New York, 2011; Howard Clark, [https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Civil+Resistance+in+Kosovo ''Civil Resistance in Kosovo''], Pluto Press, London, 2000; Sharon Erickson Nepstad, [http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Sociology/SocialMovementSocialChange/?view=usa&ci=9780199778218 ''Nonviolent Revolution: Civil Resistance in the Late 20th Century''], Oxford University Press, New York, 2011; [[Michael Randle]], [http://www.civilresistance.info/randle1994 ''Civil Resistance''], Fontana, London, 1994; [[Adam Roberts (scholar)|Adam Roberts]], [http://www.aeinstein.org/english/ ''Civil Resistance in the East European and Soviet Revolutions''], Albert Einstein Institution, Massachusetts, 1991.</ref> Civil resistance operates through appeals to the adversary, pressure and coercion: it can involve systematic attempts to undermine the adversary's sources of power, both domestic and international. Forms of action have included demonstrations, vigils and petitions; strikes, go-slows, boycotts and emigration movements; and sit-ins, occupations, and the creation of parallel institutions of government. Civil resistance movements' motivations for avoiding violence are generally related to context, including a society's values and its experience of war and violence, rather than to any absolute ethical principle. Cases of civil resistance can be found throughout history and in many modern struggles, against both tyrannical rulers and democratically elected governments.<ref name="Roberts">This is abstracted from the longer definition of "civil resistance" in Adam Roberts, Introduction, in Adam Roberts and Timothy Garton Ash (eds.), [https://books.google.com/books?id=BxOQKrCe7UUC&dq=Civil+resistance+and+power+politics&source=gbs_navlinks_s ''Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Non-violent Action from Gandhi to the Present''], Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 2–3. See also the short definition in Gene Sharp, [http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Reference/Subjectareareference/SocialSciences/?view=usa&ci=9780199829897 ''Sharp's Dictionary of Power and Struggle: Language of Civil Resistance in Conflicts''], Oxford University Press, New York, 2011, p. 87.</ref> The phenomenon of civil resistance is often associated with the advancement of democracy.<ref>See e.g. the report by Peter Ackerman, Adrian Karatnycky and others, ''How Freedom is Won. From Civil Resistance to Durable Democracy'', Freedom House, New York, 2005 [http://www.freedomhouse.org/uploads/special_report/29.pdf]</ref>
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* [[Mohandas K. Gandhi]]'s role in the [[Indian independence movement]] in 1917–47
* [[Martin Luther King Jr.]]'s role in the [[Civil Rights Movement]] in 1955–68
* the Sudanese Revolution against military regime (leader Ibrahim
* Aspects of the [[Northern Ireland civil rights movement]] in 1967–72
* a variety of raids on [[Selective Service System|U. S. draft boards]] to protest the [[Vietnam War|war in Vietnam]], 1967-1971
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* the [[Carnation Revolution|Revolution of the Carnations]] in [[Portugal]] in 1974–5, supporting the military coup of 25 April 1974
* the [[Iranian Revolution]] in 1977–79, before [[Ruhollah Khomeini|Khomeini's]] advent to power in February 1979
* the Polish [[Solidarity (Polish trade union)
* the [[People Power Revolution]] in the [[Philippines]] in the 1980s that ousted President [[Ferdinand Marcos|Marcos]]
* the campaigns against [[South Africa under apartheid|apartheid in South Africa]], especially before 1961, and during the period of 1983–94.
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* the demonstrations, mainly led by students and monks, in the [[Saffron Revolution]] in [[Myanmar|Burma]] in 2007
* the [[2009 Iranian presidential election protests]] following evidence of electoral manipulation in the elections of June 2009
[[File:Day of Anger marchers with out signs.jpg|thumb|'''Egypt, 25 January 2011:''' marchers in Cairo with
* the [[Arab Spring]] uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, starting in [[Tunisia]] in December 2010, and resulting, in 2011, in the fall of rulers in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. In some countries the movements were followed by war (e.g. [[Syrian Civil War]] and [[Yemeni Civil War (2015–present)|War in Yemen]]) or by a return to military rule, as in [[Egypt]] in 2013 following the [[Egyptian Revolution of 2011]]
* the [[Anti-austerity movement in Spain|15-M or ''Indignados'' movement]], which included the peaceful occupation of squares all over Spain in May–June 2011, and a mosaic of other forms of civil disobedience by many of the groups that were created, or strengthened, after the squares occupations. In particular the [[Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca|Platform for People Affected by Mortgages, or PAH]].
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It is not easy to devise a method of proving the relative success of different methods of struggle. Often there are problems in identifying a given campaign as successful or otherwise. In 2008 Maria J. Stephan and [[Erica Chenoweth]] produced a widely noted article on "Why Civil Resistance Works", the most thorough and detailed analysis (to that date) of the rate of success of civil resistance campaigns, as compared to violent resistance campaigns. After looking at over 300 cases of both types of campaign, from 1900 to 2006, they concluded that "nonviolent resistance methods are likely to be more successful than violent methods in achieving strategic objectives". Their article (later developed into a book) noted particularly that "resistance campaigns that compel loyalty shifts among security forces and civilian bureaucrats are likely to succeed".<ref>Maria J. Stephan and Erica Chenoweth, "Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict", ''International Security'', vol. 33, no. 1 (Summer 2008), p. 42. {{ISSN|0162-2889}}[http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18407/why_civil_resistance_works.html]. (See also their 2011 book, ''Why Civil Resistance Works'', listed below in the bibliography.)</ref>
On the other hand, the evidence of several of the 2011 uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa appears to provide contrasting pathways by which this logic may fail to materialise, with splits in the armed forces contributing towards civil war in Libya and Syria, and a shift in armed forces loyalty in Egypt failing to contribute towards enduring democratic reform.<ref>T. R. Davies, "The failure of strategic nonviolent action in Bahrain, Egypt, Libya and Syria:
# Forming judgements about whether a campaign is a success or failure is inherently difficult: the answer may depend on the time-frame used, and on necessarily subjective judgments about what constitutes success. Some of the authors' decisions on this are debatable. Similar difficulties arise in deciding whether a campaign is violent or non-violent, when on the ground both strategies may co-exist in several ways.<ref>Juan Masullo Jimenez, review of ''Why Civil Resistance Works'' on ''Global Policy'' website, 29 November 2013. [http://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/29/11/2013/book-review-why-civil-resistance-works-strategic-logic-nonviolent-conflict-erica-che] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171023191014/http://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/29/11/2013/book-review-why-civil-resistance-works-strategic-logic-nonviolent-conflict-erica-che |date=23 October 2017 }}.</ref>
# Regimes transitioning from autocracy to democracy tend to be highly unstable, so an initial success for a movement may be followed by a more general failure.<ref>David Cortright, review on E-International Relations website, 17 January 2013. [http://www.e-ir.info/2013/01/17/review-why-civil-resistance-works/]</ref>
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There can be some more plausible connections between civil resistance and other forms of power. Although civil resistance can sometimes be a substitute for other forms of power, it can also operate in conjunction with them. Such conjunction is never problem-free. Michael Randle has identified a core difficulty regarding strategies that seek to combine the use of violent and non-violent methods in the same campaign: "The obvious problem about employing a mixed strategy ''in the course of an actual struggle'' is that the dynamics of military and civil resistance are at some levels diametrically opposed to each other."<ref>Randle, ''Civil Resistance'', p. 168.</ref> However, the connections between civil resistance and other forms of power are not limited to the idea of a "mixed strategy". They can assume many forms.<ref>A pioneering exploration of certain examples of connections between non-violent resistance and other forms of power is in Kurt Schock, [https://www.amazon.com/Unarmed-Insurrections-Movements-Nondemocracies-Contention/dp/0816641935 ''Unarmed Insurrections: People Power Movements in Nondemocracies''], Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005, especially at pp. 153–62. A more general discussion of this question is in Adam Roberts, "Introduction", in Roberts and Garton Ash, [https://books.google.com/books?id=BxOQKrCe7UUC&dq=Civil+resistance+and+power+politics&source=gbs_navlinks_s ''Civil Resistance and Power Politics''], especially at pp. 13–20.</ref> Eight ways in which civil resistance can in practice relate to other forms of power are identified here, with examples in each case:
#Civil resistance is often a response to changes in constellations of power. Leaders of civil resistance campaigns have often been acutely aware of power-political developments, both domestic and international.<ref>Schock, ''Unarmed Insurrections'', pp. 154–56.</ref> In some countries there has been a growth of civil opposition after, and perhaps in part because of, an occupying or colonial state's internal political turmoil or setbacks in war: for example, this was a key factor in the Finnish struggle of 1898–1905 against Russian control.<ref>Steven Duncan Huxley, ''Constitutional Insurgency in Finland: Finnish "Passive Resistance" against Russification as a Case of Nonmilitary Struggle in the European Resistance Tradition'', SHS, Helsinki, 1990, p. 225, where Jonas Castrén, a key figure in the constitutional insurgency, is cited as emphasizing the central importance of understanding current events in Russia and their importance for the Finnish struggle. "He exclaimed that now was the time for Finns to rise up in mass struggle."</ref> In other countries the problems faced by their own armed forces, whether against conventional armies or guerrillas, played some part in the development of civil resistance: for example, in the [[People Power Revolution]] in the Philippines in 1983–86.<ref>Amado Mendoza, "
#Civil resistance campaigns frequently lead to a situation of partial stalemate, in which negotiation between civil resisters and those in positions of governmental power is perceived as essential. Hence, "round table talks" were critically important in the Indian independence struggle up to 1947, in [[Polish Round Table Talks|Solidarity's campaign in Poland up to 1989]], and in Ukraine in 2004.<ref>These three cases of round table talks are outlined by Judith Brown, Alexander Smolar and Andrew Wilson respectively in Roberts and Garton Ash, [https://books.google.com/books?id=BxOQKrCe7UUC&dq=Civil+resistance+and+power+politics&source=gbs_navlinks_s ''Civil Resistance and Power Politics''], pp. 47, 55 (India), 136–43 (Poland), and 350–53 (Ukraine).</ref>
#The relation between civil resistance and the military [[coup d'état]] can be especially multi-faceted. In some cases a civil resistance campaign has been an effective response to a military coup.<ref>{{cite journal |authorlink=Adam Roberts (scholar) |first=Adam |last=Roberts |title=Civil Resistance to Military Coups |journal=Journal of Peace Research |volume=12 |issue=1 |year=1975 |pages=19–36 |doi= 10.1177/002234337501200102|jstor=422898 }}</ref> In other cases a campaign could succeed in its final objective—e.g. the removal of a hated regime—only when there was the reality or the threat of a military coup to bring about the desired change. Thus, the 1963 [[Buddhist crisis]] in South Vietnam a long civil resistance campaign against the government resulted in change only when the [[1963 South Vietnamese coup|South Vietnamese army coup]] of 1–2 November 1963 toppled President [[Ngo Dinh Diem]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Robert |last=Shaplen |title=The Lost Revolution: Vietnam 1945–1965 |publisher=Andre Deutsch |location=London |year=1966 |pages=188–212
#Some non-violent campaigns can be seen as reluctant or unwitting harbingers of violence. They may be followed by the emergence of groups using armed force and/or by military intervention from outside the territory concerned. This can happen if, for example, they (a) are perceived as failures, or (b) are repressed with extreme violence, or (c) succeed in removing a regime but then leave a power vacuum in its place. Processes of the first two of these kinds happened, for example, in [[Northern Ireland]] in 1967–72 and in [[Kosovo]] in the 1990s.<ref>Cases of perceived failure of civil resistance being followed by armed campaigns and military intervention are outlined by Richard English and Howard Clark in Roberts and Garton Ash, [https://books.google.com/books?id=BxOQKrCe7UUC&dq=Civil+resistance+and+power+politics&source=gbs_navlinks_s ''Civil Resistance and Power Politics''], pp. 75–90 (Northern Ireland) and 277–94 (Kosovo).</ref> Processes of the third kind, involving some forms of power vacuum, included [[Libya]] from 2011 onwards, and [[Yemen]] from 2012 onwards.<ref>Cases of armed interventions in areas where there had been an absence of governance in at least parts of a country are outlined by George Joffé and Helen Lackner in Roberts, Willis, McCarthy and Garton Ash, ''Civil Resistance in the Arab Spring: Triumphs and Disasters'', pp. 134–40 (Libya) and 160–68 (Yemen).</ref> The possibility of such developments can be an inducement to a government to bargain with a non-violent movement before things get out of hand. However, in several countries in the Middle East and North Africa in 2011 and after, campaigns by civil resistance movements were followed by violent internal conflict and civil war, often with the involvement of external forces: Syria is the most tragic case.<ref>[[International Institute for Strategic Studies]], ''Strategic Survey 2013'', London, 2013, pp. 179–84.</ref> [[File:Vaclav Havel IMF.jpg|thumb|[[Václav Havel]], impresario of civil resistance in the years leading up to the 1989 [[Velvet Revolution]]. In April 1991, as President of post-Communist Czechoslovakia, he praised the NATO military alliance; and on 12 March 1999 the Czech Republic (with Havel still as
#There have also been some cases of certain uses of force by civil resistance movements, whether against their adversaries, or to maintain internal discipline. For example, on 2 February 2011, in the generally peaceful [[2011 Egyptian Revolution|Egyptian struggle against President Mubarak]], some groups among the crowds in [[Tahrir Square]] in Cairo did use certain forms of force for a defensive purpose when they were attacked by pro-regime thugs, some of whom were riding on horses and camels.<ref>Mustafa Khalili,
#Some civil resistance movements have sought, or welcomed, a measure of armed protection for their activities. Thus in the American civil rights movement of the 1960s, the [[Freedom Rides|Freedom Ride]] of May 1961, having been opposed violently, received armed protection for part of its hazardous journey;<ref>[[James Peck (pacifist)|James Peck]], ''Freedom Ride'', Grove Press, New York, 1962, p. 107.</ref> and the [[Selma to Montgomery March]] of March 1965 only succeeded in reaching Montgomery, Alabama, at the third attempt, when it was protected by troops and federal agents.<ref>Juan Williams, ''Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954–1965'', Viking Press, New York, 1987, p. 279.</ref>
#Some campaigns of civil resistance may depend up the existence of militarily defended space. A life-saving example of an effective civil resistance enabling threatened people to reach a defended space occurred with the [[Rescue of the Danish Jews]] in 1943 when thousands of Jews were spirited out of German-occupied Denmark and across a narrow stretch of sea (the Sound) to Sweden.<ref>Jacques Semelin, ''Unarmed Against Hitler: Civilian Resistance in Europe, 1939–1943'', Praeger, Westport, Connecticut, 1993, pp. 151–54.</ref>
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==The term "civil resistance": merits and concerns==
[[File:Gandhi suit.jpg|thumb|[[Mohandas K. Gandhi|Gandhi]] in South Africa in about 1906–1909. Referring to his years there, he later wrote: "... I found that even civil disobedience failed to convey the full meaning of the struggle. I therefore adopted the phrase civil resistance."]]The term is not new. [[Mohandas K. Gandhi|Gandhi]] used it in many of his writings.<ref>[[Mohandas K. Gandhi]], "The Momentous Issue", ''Young India'', 10 November 1921; in ''Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi'', electronic edition, vol. 25, pp. 76–78. [http://www.gandhiserve.org/cwmg/VOL025.PDF]</ref> In 1935 he wrote: "... I found that even civil disobedience failed to convey the full meaning of the struggle. I therefore adopted the phrase civil resistance."<ref>[[Mohandas K. Gandhi]], letter to P. Kodanda Rao, 10 September 1935; in ''Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi'', electronic edition, vol. 67, p. 400.[http://www.gandhiserve.org/cwmg/VOL067.PDF]</ref> It is a near-synonym for [[nonviolent resistance]], [[civil disobedience]], [[People Power Revolution|people power]] and [[satyagraha]]. While each of these terms has its uses and connotations, "civil resistance" is one appropriate term to use in cases where the resistance has a civic quality, relating to a society as a whole; where the action involved is not necessarily disobedience, but instead involves supporting the norms of a society against usurpers; where the decision not to use violent methods is not based on a general philosophy of [[nonviolence]], but on a wide range of prudential, ethical and legal considerations; and where the technical and communications infrastructure of modern civil societies provides a means of organizing resistance.<ref>Fabien Miard, ''Mobile Phones as a Tool for Civil Resistance: Case Studies from Serbia and Belarus'', DigiActive Research Series, June 2009.
[http://www.digiactive.org/wp-content/uploads/research3_miard.pdf] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120227032718/http://www.digiactive.org/wp-content/uploads/research3_miard.pdf |date=27 February 2012 }}</ref>
What exactly are the advantages of the term "civil resistance", as distinct from its near-synonyms "non-violent action" and "[[non-violent resistance]]"? All these terms have merits, and refer to largely the same phenomena. Indeed, there is a long history, in many languages, of using a wide variety of terms to describe these phenomena. The term "civil resistance" has been used increasingly for two main reasons:
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*King, Mary E., ''A Quiet Revolution: The First Palestinian Intifada and Nonviolent Resistance'', Nation Books, New York, 2007. {{ISBN|1560258020}}.
*Nepstad, Sharon, ''Nonviolent Struggle: Theories, Strategies, and Dynamics'', Oxford University Press, New York, 2015. {{ISBN|9780199976041}}.
*Pearlman, Wendy, ''Violence, Nonviolence and the Palestinian National Movement'', Cambridge University Press,
*[[Adam Roberts (scholar)|Roberts, Adam]], ed., ''The Strategy of Civilian Defence: Non-violent Resistance to Aggression'', Faber, London, 1967. (Also published as ''Civilian Resistance as a National Defense'', Stackpole Books, Harrisburg, USA, 1968; and, with a new Introduction on "Czechoslovakia and Civilian Defence", as ''Civilian Resistance as a National Defence'', Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, UK, and Baltimore, US, 1969. {{ISBN|0-14-021080-6}}.)
*Schock, Kurt, [https://www.amazon.com/Unarmed-Insurrections-Movements-Nondemocracies-Contention/dp/0816641935 ''Unarmed Insurrections: People Power Movements in Nondemocracies''], University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2005. {{ISBN|978-0-8166-4193-2}}.
*Semelin, Jacques, ''Unarmed Against Hitler: Civilian Resistance in Europe, 1939–1943'', Praeger,
*Semelin, Jacques, ''La Liberté au Bout des Ondes: Du Coup de Prague à la Chute du Mur de Berlin'', Nouveau Monde, Paris, 2009. {{ISBN|978-2-84736-466-8}}.
*Semelin, Jacques, [http://www.andreversailleediteur.com/?livreid=787 ''Face au Totalitarisme: La Résistance Civile''], André Versaille,
*[[Gene Sharp|Sharp, Gene]], ''[[The Politics of Nonviolent Action]]'', Porter Sargent, Boston, 1973. {{ISBN|0-87558-068-8}}. Also in [https://web.archive.org/web/20110803152811/http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations3e7d.html a 3-volume edition.] {{ISBN|0-87558-070-X}}.
*[[Gene Sharp|Sharp, Gene]] and others, ''Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20th Century Practice and 21st Century Potential'', Porter Sargent, Boston, 2005. {{ISBN|978-0-87558-161-3}}.
*Stephan, Maria J. (ed.), [https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Civilian+Jihad&x=8&y=18 ''Civilian Jihad: Nonviolent Struggle, Democratization, and Governance in the Middle East''], Palgrave Macmillan,
*[[Stellan Vinthagen|Vinthagen, Stellan]], [http://www.zedbooks.co.uk/paperback/a-theory-of-nonviolent-action ''A Theory of Nonviolent Action: How Civil Resistance Works''], Zed Books, London, 2015. {{ISBN|9781780325156}} (paperback).
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*Stellan Vinthagen, [http://www.opendemocracy.net/stellan-vinthagen/people-power-and-new-global-ferment People power and the new global ferment], 15 November 2010 at [[openDemocracy.net]]
*[https://wagingnonviolence.org Waging Nonviolence], an independent non-profit media platform.
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