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www.olschimke.eu is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.Also check out The Politics of Nonviolent Action Part One / Part Two / Part Three.

THE METHODS OF NONVIOLENT PROTEST AND PERSUASION

Formal Statements

• Public Speeches
• Letters of opposition or support
• Declarations by organizations and institutions
• Signed public statements
• Declarations of indictment and intention
• Group or mass petitions

Communications with a Wider Audience

• Slogans, caricatures, and symbols
• Banners, posters, and displayed communications
• Leaflets, pamphlets, and books
• Newspapers and journals
• Records, radio, and television
• Skywriting and earthwriting

Group Representations

• Deputations
• Mock awards
• Group lobbying
• Picketing
• Mock elections

Symbolic Public Acts

• Displays of flags and symbolic colors
• Wearing of symbols
• Prayer and worship
• Delivering symbolic objects
• Protest disrobings
• Destruction of own property
• Symbolic lights
• Displays of portraits
• Paint as protest
• New signs and names
• Symbolic sounds
• Symbolic reclamations
• Rude gestures

Pressures on Individuals

• “Haunting” officials
• Taunting officials
• Fraternization
• Vigils

Drama and Music

• Humorous skits and pranks
• Performances of plays and music
• Singing

Processions

• Marches
• Parades
• Religious processions
• Pilgrimages
• Motorcades

Honoring the Dead

• Political mourning
• Mock funerals
• Demonstrative funerals
• Homage at burial places

Public Assemblies

• Assemblies of protest or support
• Protest meetings
• Camouflaged meetings of protest
• Teach-ins

Withdrawal and Renunciation

• Walk-outs
• Silence
• Renouncing honors
• Turning one’s back

THE METHODS OF SOCIAL NONCOOPERATION

Ostracism of Persons

• Social boycott
• Selective social boycott
• Lysistratic nonaction
• Excommunication
• Interdict

Noncooperation with Social Events, Customs, and Institutions

• Suspension of social and sports activities
• Boycott of social affairs
• Student strike
• Social disobedience
• Withdrawal from social institutions

Withdrawal from the Social System

• Stay-at-home
• Total personal noncooperation
• “Flight” of workers
• Sanctuary
• Collective disappearance
• Protest emigration (hijrat)

THE METHODS OF ECONOMIC NONCOOPERATION: (1) ECONOMIC BOYCOTTS

Actions by Consumers

• Consumers’ boycott
• Nonconsumption of boycotted goods
• Policy of austerity
• Rent withholding
• Refusal to rent
• National consumers’ boycott
• International consumers’ boycott

Action by Workers and Producers

• Workmen’s boycott
• Producers’ boycott

Action by Middlemen

• Suppliers’ and handlers’ boycott

Action by Owners and Management

• Traders’ boycott
• Refusal to let or sell property
• Lockout
• Refusal of industrial assistance
• Merchants’ “general strike”

Action by Holders of Financial Resources

• Withdrawal of bank deposits
• Refusal to pay fees, dues, and assessments
• Refusal to pay debts or interest
• Severance of funds and credit
• Revenue refusal
• Refusal of a government’s money

Action by Governments

• Domestic embargo
• Blacklisting of traders
• International sellers’ embargo
• International buyers’ embargo
• International trade embargo

THE METHODS OF ECONOMIC NONCOOPERATION: (2)THE STRIKE

Symbolic Strikes

• Protest strike
• Quickie walkout (lightning strike)

Agricultural Strikes

• Peasant strike
• Farm Workers’ strike

Strikes by Special Groups

• Refusal of impressed labor
• Prisoners’ strike
• Craft strike
• Professional strike

Ordinary Industrial Strikes

• Establishment strike
• Industry strike
• Sympathetic strike

Restricted Strikes

• Detailed strike
• Bumper strike
• Slowdown strike
• Working-to-rule strike
• Reporting “sick” (sick-in)
• Strike by resignation
• Limited strike
• Selective strike

Multi-Industry Strikes

• Generalized strike
• General strike

Combination of Strikes and Economic Closures

• Hartal
• Economic shutdown

THE METHODS OF POLITICAL NONCOOPERATION

Rejection of Authority

• Withholding or withdrawal of allegiance
• Refusal of public support
• Literature and speeches advocating resistance

Citizens’ Noncooperation with Government

• Boycott of legislative bodies
• Boycott of elections
• Boycott of government employment and positions
• Boycott of government depts., agencies, and other bodies
• Withdrawal from government educational institutions
• Boycott of government-supported organizations
• Refusal of assistance to enforcement agents
• Removal of own signs and placemarks
• Refusal to accept appointed officials
• Refusal to dissolve existing institutions

Citizens’ Alternatives to Obedience

• Reluctant and slow compliance
• Nonobedience in absence of direct supervision
• Popular nonobedience
• Disguised disobedience
• Refusal of an assemblage or meeting to disperse
• Sitdown
• Noncooperation with conscription and deportation
• Hiding, escape, and false identities
• Civil disobedience of “illegitimate” laws

Action by Government Personnel

• Selective refusal of assistance by government aides
• Blocking of lines of command and information
• Stalling and obstruction
• General administrative noncooperation
• Judicial noncooperation
• Deliberate inefficiency and selective noncooperation by enforcement agents
• Mutiny

Domestic Governmental Action

• Quasi-legal evasions and delays
• Noncooperation by constituent governmental units

International Governmental Action

• Changes in diplomatic and other representations
• Delay and cancellation of diplomatic events
• Withholding of diplomatic recognition
• Severance of diplomatic relations
• Withdrawal from international organizations
• Refusal of membership in international bodies
• Expulsion from international organizations

THE METHODS OF NONVIOLENT INTERVENTION

Psychological Intervention

• Self-exposure to the elements
• The fast: Fast of moral pressure
• The fast: Hunger strike
• The fast: Satyagrahic fast
• Reverse trial
• Nonviolent harassment

Physical Intervention

• Sit-in
• Stand-in
• Ride-in
• Wade-in
• Mill-in
• Pray-in
• Nonviolent raids
• Nonviolent air raids
• Nonviolent invasion
• Nonviolent interjection
• Nonviolent obstruction
• Nonviolent occupation

Social Intervention

• Establishing new social patterns
• Overloading of facilities
• Stall-in
• Speak-in
• Guerrilla theater
• Alternative social institutions
• Alternative communication system

Economic Intervention

• Reverse strike
• Stay-in strike
• Nonviolent land seizure
• Defiance of blockades
• Politically motivated counterfeiting
• Preclusive purchasing
• Seizure of assets
• Dumping
• Selective patronage
• Alternative markets
• Alternative transportation systems
• Alternative economic institutions

Political Intervention

• Overloading of administrative systems
• Disclosing identities of secret agents
• Seeking imprisonment
• Civil disobedience of “neutral” laws
• Work-on without collaboration
• Dual sovereignty and parallel government

These methods were compiled by Dr. Gene Sharp and first published in his 1973 book, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Vol. 2: The Methods of Nonviolent Action. (Boston: Porter Sargent Publishers, 1973). The book outlines each method and gives information about its historical use.

Also check out The Politics of Nonviolent Action Part One / Part Two / Part Three.