It has been debated though out history whether or not nonviolence “works”. Many societies, and this without question includes the United States, have mostly relied on violent tactics. Many people believe that violence is the only way to stop wars, even though it creates war, and people tend to believe that violence is the one solution to many global and political problems. However, recent literature and research is starting to prove otherwise. Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist, recently published a book, Why Civil Resistance Works in 2011. The research highlights data that shows throughout history, nonviolent tactics are more effective than violent ones in various ways.
Chenoweth seeks to explain why “nonviolent resistance often succeeds compared to violent resistance, and under what conditions nonviolence succeeds or fails”. In recent years, organized groups conducting civil disobedience have been successful using nonviolent tactics such as, “boycotts, strikes, protests, and organized noncooperation”, in order to challenge the current power they were facing.1 Some successful examples of regimes that have been removed from power in recent years are, “Serbia (2000), Madagascar (2002), Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004-2005), Lebanon (2005), and Nepal (2006)”.1 More recently in 2011 there were major uprising in both Egypt and Tunisia that were able to remove regimes that had been in power for decades, showing that nonviolence can work even if the regime has been in power for years.1
One striking fact of violent and nonviolent campaigns is that the frequency of both has grown throughout the years. Both had been steadily increasing since the 1900s and both had a sharp decline after 2006. However, the frequency of violent campaig...
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... can take power away from regimes successfully, but there are very few ways a regime and even a violent campaign can take power away a nonviolent movement effectively and without failing in the long term.
Works Cited
Chenoweth, Erica, and Maria J. Stephan. 2011. Why Civil Resistance Works : The Strategic Logic of
Nonviolent Conflict. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost (accessed April 22, 2014).
Lawrence, Adria, Erica Chenoweth, and Affairs Belfer Center for Science and International. 2010.
Rethinking Violence: States and Non-state Actors in Conflict. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2010. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost (accessed April 22, 2014).
The success of nonviolent civil resistance: Erica Chenoweth at TEDxBoulder. Video. Directed by TED
Talks. Boulder: 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJSehRlU34w
¬¬¬Though most American people claim to seek peace, the United States remains entwined with both love and hate for violence. Regardless of background or personal beliefs, the vast majority of Americans enjoy at least one activity that promotes violence whether it be professional fighting or simply playing gory video games. Everything is all well and good until this obsession with violence causes increased frequency of real world crimes. In the article, “Is American Nonviolence Possible” Todd May proposes a less standard, more ethical, fix to the problem at hand. The majority of the arguments brought up make an appeal to the pathos of the reader with a very philosophical overall tone.
Utilizing paradox, Chavez describes the effectiveness of nonviolent protest to his audience. Recalling the achievements of MLK, Chavez claims that King “learned how to successfully fight hatred and violence with the unstoppable power of nonviolence.” This quote demonstrates
In Cesar Chavez’s article “He Showed us the Way”, Chavez talks about Martin Luther King’s practices, how he stands with his nonviolent teachings and how king believed hate cannot driven out hate. Chavez explains how being nonviolent helped many members of the Civil Rights Movement get what they wanted. Throughout the article, Chavez uses religious and historical allusion, to show how nonviolence can be the best route to achieve what they want.
King consents that negations are an impressive approach but elaborates of their current unavailability since the matter is merely ignored. Due to this, King argues that the nonviolent actions purpose “to create a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has consistently refused to negotiate is forced to confront this issues” (King). Here, King is consenting to the audience’s opinion of negotiating as well as adding the real issue’s facts so as to justify the reasons for doing it in his own manner. The audience can be made to reason and agree that his deeds are the most appropriate approach through supporting his decision by arguing that the community denies paying attention to the cause and non-violent protest has a huge
applies the principles of civil disobedience in his procedure of a nonviolent campaign. According to him, “In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and direct action” (King 262). The first step, which is “collection of the facts,” clarify whether the matter requires civil disobedience from the society (King 262). The second step, “negotiation,” is the step where civil disobedience is practiced in a formal way; to change an unjust law, both sides come to an agreement that respects each other’s demand, (King 262). Should the second step fail, comes the “self-purification,” in which the nonconformists question their willingness to endure the consequences without any retaliation that follow enactment of civil disobedience (King 262). The fourth and the last step, “direct action,” is to execute it; coordinated actions such as protests or strikes to pressure no one, but the inexpedient government to conform to them, and advocate their movement, and thus persuade others to promote the same belief (King 262). This procedure along with principles of civil disobedience is one justifiable campaign that systematically attains its objective. King not only presents, but inspires one of the most peaceful ways to void unjust
"The Role of Civil Disobedience in Democracy." Civil Liberties Monitoring Project. Web. 01 Oct. 2011. .
Political violence is action taken to achieve political goals that may include armed revolution, civil strife, terrorism, war or other such activities that could result in injury, loss of property or loss of life. Political violence often occurs as a result of groups or individuals believing that the current political systems or anti-democratic leadership, often being dictatorial in nature, will not respond to their political ambitions or demands, nor accept their political objectives or recognize their grievances. Formally organized groups, Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), businesses and collectives of individual citizens are non-state actors, that being that they are not locally, nationally or internationally recognized legitimate civilian or military authorities. The Cotonou Agreement of 2000 defines non-state actors as being those parties belonging to the private sector, economic and social partners and civil society in all its forms according to national characteristics. Historical observation shows that nation states with political institutions that are not capable of, or that are resistant to recognizing and addressing societies issues and grievances are more likely to see political violence manifest as a result of disparity amongst the population. This essay will examine why non-state political violence occurs including root and trigger causes by looking at the motivations that inspire groups and individuals to resort to non-conforming behaviors that manifest as occurrences of non-state political violence. Using terrorism and Islamic militancy on the one side, and human rights and basic freedoms on the other as examples, it will look at these two primary kinds of political violence that are most prevalent in the world ...
Andrew Calabrese, Virtual non-violence? Civil disobedience and political violence in the information age (2004) 6 Emerald Info 326 available at http://spot.colorado.edu/~calabres/Calabrese%20(civl%20dis).pdf
Our struggle is not easy, and we must not think of nonviolence as a safe way to fight oppression, the strength of nonviolence comes from your willingness to take personal risks in Kohlberg’s moral stage 5 moral rights and social contract is explained in this political analysis on governmental power and the antiapartheid and central America work when they led protest on campuses with hundreds being arrested and 130 campus withdrawals.
Despite the belief that fighting with violence is effective, civil disobedience has been tried throughout history and been successful. Fighting violence with violence leaves no oppertunity for peace to work. By refusing to fight back violently, Martin Luther King Jr. took a race of people, taught them the value of their voice, and they earned the right to vote. Henry David Thoreau presented his doctrine that no man should cooperate with laws that are unjust, but, he must be willing to accept the punishment society sets for breaking those laws, and hundreds of years later, people are still inspired by his words. Mohandas K. Gandhi lead an entire country to its freedom, using only his morals and faith to guide him, as well as those who followed him, proving that one man can make a difference. Civil disobedience is the single tool that any person can use to fight for what they want, and they will be heard. After centuries of questioning it, it appears that the pen truly is mightier than the sword.
Peaceful protests were the most prominent form of civil rights activities during the sixties, and often proved successful, given time. “Peaceful but relentless protest was more effective than violent action” (Lindop 30), the legendary civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. argued. One form of this protest manifested itself through James Farmer, who formed the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE for short), conceived the bril...
■ Past progress in history had only occured when people acted and created tensions with those in power—> civil disobedience, as opposed to violence
Cesar Chavez in an excerpt from an article published in the magazine of a religious organization asserted that nonviolence is a more effective method of resistance than violence. Chavez supports his assertion by introducing a poignant juxtaposition of violence and peaceful methods, then he employs an effectual allusion to a past peaceful civil rights leader, and finally he presents a compelling logical appeal to the audience about the consequences of violent retaliation. The author’s purpose is to persuade the audience to protest injustice through peaceful methods in order to avoid physical harm and gain public support. The author utilizes an urgent tone for all of society, specifically members of the farm worker’s movement.
The concept of state terrorism is highly debated. The main opposition to state-terrorism declares that states have legitimate monopoly over violence, therefore, state-violence cannot be considered terrorism (Lacquer). Furthermore, conceptualizing particular properties of state-terrorism has furthered complicated the debate. For instance, should state-terrorism constitute external conflict or internal conflict; also is the normative strength of non-state violence as compelling as
DuNann Winter, D., & Leighton, D. C. (2001 ). Structural Violence . Peace, conflict, and violence: Peace psychology in the 21st. New York : Prentice-Hall.