The Fletcher Summer Institute for the Advanced Study of Nonviolent Conflict is the only executive education program in the advanced, interdisciplinary study of nonviolent conflict, taught by leading scholars and practitioners of strategic nonviolent action and authorities from related fields.

As the oldest exclusively graduate school of international affairs in the United States, The Fletcher School is pleased to offer a certificate in the Advanced Study of Nonviolent Conflict that draws upon its multi-disciplinary approach to global affairs.

WATCH presentations from FSI 2010

Around the world, in places as diverse as Egypt, Vietnam, Iran, and Western Sahara, nonviolent movements and campaigns are enabling people to resist oppression and injustice. Such civilian-based struggle involves the use of diverse tactics including strikes, sit-ins, boycotts, protests and other disruptive actions. In recent years, newly creative tactics using digital technology, humor, and cultural resistance have also been used to undermine authoritarian control. Ultimately, nonviolent action that is strategically planned and implemented raises the cost of repression and saps the legitimacy of undemocratic rulers.

Civil resistance also generates popular, grassroots participation. It embodies the idea of “local ownership” of society. Bottom-up civic movements have driven a vast majority of the transitions from unjust rule over the past 35 years. Whether the goals are democracy, indigenous rights, social justice, or ending corruption, they can be achieved through cumulative, persistent “people power.”

As cases of civil resistance multiply, it is essential that NGOs, journalists, scholars, and policy makers understand how this form of struggle works, the strategies that make it effective, and the skills involved in its execution.

The institutes address these and other critical questions: What are the most important strategic factors in civil resistance? What roles do communications and new technology play in nonviolent struggles? How do the actions of the international community affect indigenous nonviolent movements? Historical and contemporary cases of civilian-based struggles will be examined, including issue-based movements as well as popular struggles against foreign occupations, and authoritarian governments.

Over 200 individuals have participated in these Institutes since 2006, including the Pacific region governance director of a UN agency, an Argentine television reporter, the head of a Mongolian NGO, a technical advisor for the World Health Organization, a Nigerian human rights lawyer, a BBC producer, an editor with a UK-based internet forum on democracy, a leader of youth activists in Egypt, the founder of an NGO fighting child executions, a member of the UN Mission in Sudan, a human rights lawyer in Tunisia, the head of a human rights defenders project in Sri Lanka, and the head of a Romanian youth organization for the environment.

To learn more about the previous summer institute, click here

< Prev		Next >