In a nonviolent conflict, civilian-based resistance is used to challenge the legitimacy of an oppressor, raise the cost of repression, and to undermine the opponent's sources of power, including the military and police.

There are over 198 tactics (or methods) of nonviolent action.  Various forms of protest—such as petitions, parades, displaying symbols or mass demonstrations—can weaken an opponent’s legitimacy, and also help to recruit, mobilize, and enlarge people’s participation in a nonviolent movement. Certain acts of noncooperation—including resignations, refusal to obey orders, and civil disobedience—jeopardize the status quo. Other forms of noncooperation—such as strikes, boycotts, and refusal to pay fees and taxes—cut off an opponent’s material resources. Direct intervention in the form of sit-ins, targeted acts of economic sabotage, and blockades can directly disrupt an oppressor’s system of control.

Nonviolent conflict works by reducing an opponent's power to control events and exploit his position in the society or nation.  This can typically happen when the reliability and loyalty of key groups (such as the police, military, media, bureaucracy, businesses, laborers, students, religious institutions, or other groups), on which an oppressor depends, maintain its position, deteriorate or collapse.  These groups either move towards neutrality in a conflict or actively join with the nonviolent movement to challenge the oppressor’s unjust rule.

When a society’s opposition groups are able to unite among themselves, form a nonviolent movement, develop a strategy and goals based on accurate analysis of their situation, and organize actions that effectively target and shift the loyalties and behavior of their opponent’s supporters, the oppression can no longer rule and power is shifted to the people.

VIDEO - Dr. Peter Ackerman talks about key elements of civil resistance

"Nonviolence" is usually a moral choice. Nonviolent conflict is usually a pragmatic choice.  Nonviolent conflict is about power—organizing and applying it to fight for and win rights or other political, economic, or social goals. Many people that have used nonviolent action in the past wanted to advance their rights or interests but chose nonviolent methods either because they saw that violence had been ineffective in the past or because they had no violent weapons at their disposal.

VIDEO - Hardy Merriman talks about the difference between nonviolence and nonviolent conflict

VIDEO - Rev. James Lawson talks about Gandhian nonviolence

Some of the 20th century’s harshest oppressors were removed through nonviolent conflicts.

In Chile, General Augusto Pinochet tortured and killed thousands of dissidents, but a nonviolent movement developed a way to topple him.

The apartheid regime in South Africa made public assemblies in black townships illegal and threatened or even assassinated nonviolent organizers, but the indigenous nonviolent resistance was still able to shatter the regime’s internal and international support.

In the Philippines, over 70 opposition workers were killed before the 1986 election, but people still successfully organized and nonviolently dislodged dictator Ferdinand Marcos from power soon afterwards.

And the Solidarity movement in Poland opened up oppositional space where little had previously existed, both before and after the communist regime imposed martial law.

Currently, groups are using civil resistance to obtain rights in nations such as Azerbaijan, Belarus, Burma, Colombia, China, Cuba, Egypt, Honduras, Iran, The Gambia, Vietnam, Zimbabwe, and other places. In places such as Tibet, West Papua, Western Sahara and the Palestinian Territories, groups are fighting nonviolently for self-determination.

To find out more about active nonviolent conflicts in the world, visit our "Movements and Campaigns" page.

Nonviolent conflict has happened in history more frequently than is commonly realized.

The British gave up their occupation of India after a decades-long nonviolent struggle led by Gandhi.

The Danes and people's in Europe used civil resistance against Nazi occupation during World War II, raising the costs to Germany of its occupation of these nations, helping to strengthen the spirit and cohesion of their people, and saving the lives of thousands of Jews in Berlin, Denmark, Bulgaria and elsewhere.

African Americans used nonviolent action in their struggle to dissolve segregation in the United States in the 1960s. 

Polish workers used strikes in 1980 to win the right to organize a free trade union, a major victory in a communist country at a time when a million Soviet soldiers were stationed there.

Governments do not often or consistently take into account the potential of nonviolent conflicts in their policies.

In the early- and mid-1990s, for example, the United States relied on diplomacy to end Slobodan Milosevic’s aggression in Bosnia, but it declined to provide much support to his democratic opponents inside Serbia when they were using nonviolent action to oppose him. When Milosevic later began ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, NATO`bombed Serbia until he stopped, but he remained in power. Finally in 1999, U.S. and European agencies gave modest but well-targeted support to nonviolent pro-democracy groups in Serbia, and they brought Milosevic down.

Governments that value and support human rights and international organizations should develop a comprehensive, transparent approach to assist (but not control or interfere with) civilian-based nonviolent movements.  A key part of this approach should be to promote:

• The transfer of generic knowledge to oppressed people about how civil resistance works and how it can be strategically planned.  This could be done by funding independent efforts to provide tools, equipment and training about nonviolent struggle to groups in conflict.
• International pressure on oppressive rulers should be enhanced and intelligent media coverage should be increased.  This would help to promote and protect the rights of those who are engaged in nonviolent resistance and who face persecution.

VIDEO - Jack DuVall talks about civil resistance and the international community

Most people are taught that power comes from the decisions of leaders of governments, corporations, or organizations or that it comes from the threat or use of violence.  Therefore, many people fail to see that when the civilians of a city, region, or country organize themselves, that they are capable of producing power and propelling change.

Nonviolent movements do not necessarily require charismatic leaders like Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr.

While charismatic leadership can be important, it is the ability of a movement or its leaders to use clear strategic thinking and to make wise decisions in the course of a conflict that is far more important in determining the movement’s success or failure.  For example, the Chinese students who led the protest in Tiananmen Square had sensational personalities, but their movement collapsed when it had not strategy about what to do when the Chinese government refused to meet their demands.

In some situations, having charismatic or identifiable leadership can even be detrimental to a movement’s success—because the leader may be arrested, corrupted, intimidated, or make poor decisions.  Movements that have had to hide or decentralize their leadership have still fared well.  For example, the leaders of the Danish underground resistance to the Germans in World War II were entirely anonymous. The Serbian movement to oust Slobodan Milosevic in 2000 was largely decentralized and lacked a single identifiable leader.