Moscow, 19 August 1991: Boris Yeltsin, President of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, standing on top of a tank in front of the building of the RSFSR’s Council of Ministers and reading a statement urging people to resist the attempted coup d’état. Two days later, following extensive civil resistance, the coup, which had been aimed at restoring the old-style communist system, collapsed. The Soviet Union itself dissolved in December 1991. Photo: www.kremlin.ru

The term civil resistance, alongside the term nonviolent resistance, is used to describe political action that relies on the use of non-violent methods by civil groups to challenge a particular power, force, policy or regime.^[1] Civil resistance operates through appeals to the adversary, pressure and coercion: it can involve systematic attempts to undermine the adversary's sources of power. 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.^[2] The phenomenon of civil resistance is often associated with the advancement of democracy.^[3]

Historical examples[link]

Civil resistance is a long-standing and widespread phenomenon in human history. Adam Roberts and Timothy Garton Ash in their book Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Non-violent Action from Gandhi to the Present include accounts of many significant historical examples they label civil resistance.^[4] These case-studies, both successful and unsuccessful, include:

• Mohandas K. Gandhi’s role in the Indian independence movement in 1917-47
• the US civil rights struggle in the 1960s, led by Martin Luther King Jr.
• aspects of the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland in 1967-72
• the Revolution of the Carnations in Portugal in 1974-5, supporting the military coup of 25 April 1974
• the Iranian Revolution in 1977–79, before Khomeini’s advent to power in February 1979
• the People Power Revolution in the Philippines in the 1980s that ousted President Marcos
• the campaigns against apartheid in South Africa, especially in 1983-94
• the mass mobilization against authoritarian rule in Pinochet's Chile, 1983–88
• the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 in China
• the various movements contributing to the revolutions of 1989 in central and eastern Europe, and to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991
  

  

  Egypt, 25 January 2011: marchers in Cairo with ‘OUT’ signs on the 'Day of Anger' against President Mubarak. On 11 February he left office.
• the campaign against Serbian domination in Kosovo, 1990–98, that was followed by war
• the revolutions in Serbia in 2000, Georgia in 2003, and Ukraine in 2004, all of which involved successful resistance against an incumbent government that had refused to acknowledge its defeat in an election and had sought to falsify the election results
• the demonstrations, mainly led by students and monks, in Burma in 2007.

Numerous other campaigns, both successful and unsuccessful, could be included in a longer listing. In 1967 Gene Sharp produced a list of 84 cases.^[5] He has followed this with further surveys.^[6]

Effectiveness of civil resistance[link]

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: the answer may depend on the time-frame used, and on necessarily subjective judgments about what constitutes success. In 2008 Maria J. Stephan and Erica Chenoweth produced the most thorough and detailed analysis 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 noted particularly that "resistance campaigns that compel loyalty shifts among security forces and civilian bureaucrats are likely to succeed."^[7]

Reasons for choosing to use civil resistance[link]

Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese pro-democracy leader, greeting supporters from Bago State, Burma, 14 August 2011. She has stated that she was attracted to non-violent civil resistance, not on moral grounds, but "on practical political grounds". Photo: Htoo Tay Zar

Some leaders of civil resistance struggles have urged the use of non-violent methods for primarily ethical reasons, while others have emphasized practical considerations. Some have indicated that both of these types of factor have to be taken into account – and that they necessarily overlap.

In his chapter on "Pilgrimage to Nonviolence" Martin Luther King gave a notably multi-faceted account of the various considerations, experiences and influences that constituted his "intellectual odyssey to nonviolence". By 1954 this had led to the intellectual conviction that "nonviolent resistance was one of the most potent weapons available to oppressed people in their quest for social justice."^[8]

In one of her BBC Reith Lectures, first broadcast in July 2011, Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese pro-democracy campaigner, stated: "Gandhi’s teachings on non-violent civil resistance and the way in which he had put his theories into practice have become part of the working manual of those who would change authoritarian administrations through peaceful means. I was attracted to the way of non-violence, but not on moral grounds, as some believe. Only on practical political grounds."^[9]

Relationship to other forms of power[link]

The experience of civil resistance suggests that it can at least partially replace other forms of power. Some have seen civil resistance as offering, potentially, a complete alternative to power politics. The core vision is of non-violent methods replacing armed force in many or all of its forms.^[10]

Several writers, while sharing the vision of civil resistance as progressively overcoming the use of force, have warned against a narrowly instrumental view of non-violent action. For example, Joan V. Bondurant, a specialist on the Gandhian philosophy of conflict, indicated concern about "the symbolic violence of those who engage in conflict with techniques which they, at least, perceive to be nonviolent." She saw Gandhian satyagraha as a form of "creative conflict" and as "contrasted both to violence and to methods not violent or just short of violence".^[11]

It is generally difficult in practice to separate out entirely the use of civil resistance and power-political considerations of various kinds. One frequently-encountered aspect of this problem is that regimes facing opposition taking the form of civil resistance often launch verbal attacks on the opposition in terms designed to suggest that civil resistance is simply a front for more sinister forces. It has sometimes been attacked as being planned and directed from abroad, and as intimately connected to terrorism, imperialism, communism etc. A classic case was the Soviet accusation that the 1968 Prague Spring, and the civil resistance after the Soviet-led invasion of August 1968, were the result of Western machinations.^[12] Such accusations of sinister power-political involvement are often presented without convincing evidence.

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."^[13] 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.^[14] Eight ways in which civil resistance can in practice relate to other forms of power are identified here, with examples in each case:

1. 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.^[15] 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.^[16] 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.^[17]
   

   

   Warsaw, February–April 1989: Partial stalemate between a civil resistance movement and its adversaries sometimes leads to round table talks. Here, participants included representatives of the Polish government and ruling communist party, the Solidarity opposition movement, and the Catholic Church. The talks (often in smaller groups at other tables) resulted in the semi-free election in Poland on 4 June 1989, followed by the appointment of a non-communist prime minister.
2. 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 Solidarity’s campaign in Poland up to 1989, and in Ukraine in 2004.^[18]
3. 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.^[19] 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 in the Buddhist crisis in South Vietnam in 1963 a long civil resistance campaign against the government resulted in change only when the South Vietnamese army coup of 1–2 November 1963 toppled President Ngo Dinh Diem.^[20] At least one non-violent campaign, the Revolution of the Carnations in Portugal in 1974-5, was in support of a military coup that had already occurred: this campaign helped to steer Portugal in a democratic direction.^[21]
4. Some non-violent campaigns can be seen as reluctant or unwitting harbingers of violence. For example, if they are perceived as failures, or are repressed with extreme violence, they may be followed by the emergence of groups using armed force and/or by military intervention from outside the territory concerned. This was the case, for example, in Northern Ireland in 1967-72, and in Kosovo in the 1990s.^[22] 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.
   

   

   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 President) joined the alliance. He is seen here on 26 September 2000. Photo: IMF
5. 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 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.^[23] In the subsequent days the crowds in Tahrir Square reverted to using non-violent methods.
6. Some civil resistance movements have sought, or welcomed, a measure of armed protection for their activities. Thus in the US civil rights movement of the 1960s, the Freedom Ride of May 1961, having been opposed violently, received armed protection for part of its hazardous journey;^[24] 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.^[25]
7. 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.^[26]
8. When leaders of even the most determinedly non-violent movements have come to power in their countries, they have generally accepted the continued existence of armed forces and other more or less conventional security arrangements. For example, in 1991 Václav Havel who had been a leading figure in civil resistance in communist Czechoslovakia from the founding of Charter 77 to the Velvet Revolution of 1989, in his new capacity as President of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic paid tribute to the NATO alliance.^[27] On 12 March 1999 the Czech Republic, along with Poland and Hungary, became a member of NATO.

Proposals for defence by civil resistance[link]

The promise of civil resistance as a means of opposing oppressive rule has led to many proposals that countries might rely, in whole or in part, on civil resistance as a means of defence against external attack (for example, invasion) and internal usurpation (for example, coup d'état). Preparations for such resistance are sometimes seen as potentially helping to deter such threats in the first place. Various terms have been used to describe either the policy of relying on such non-military action by a society or social group, or the general phenomenon of sustained country-wide campaigns against outside attack or dictatorial rule. These terms - all near-synonyms - include "defence by civil resistance", "non-violent defence", "civilian defence", "civilian-based defence", and "social defence". For further information and references to some relevant literature, see social defence.

The term "civil resistance": merits and concerns[link]

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. Gandhi used it in many of his writings.^[28] 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."^[29] It is a near-synonym for nonviolent resistance, civil disobedience, 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.^[30] Because of such considerations, the term has been used in this century in many analyses in academic journals.^[31]

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:

1. It emphasises the positive (civic goals; widespread civil society involvement; and civil as distinct from uncivil conduct) rather than the negative (avoidance of the use of violence).
2. It conveys, more effectively perhaps than such terms as "nonviolent resistance", that a movement’s avoidance of violence in pursuit of a particular cause is not necessarily tied to a general belief in "nonviolence" in all circumstances, nor to a philosophy of "Gandhism", but rather arises from the particular values and circumstances of the society concerned.

There have been concerns that the term “civil resistance” might on occasion be misused, or at least stretched in a highly controversial way, to encompass acts of violence. Thus, arising from experience within the anti-globalization movement, one participant-observer has seen “new forms of civil resistance” as being associated with a problematic departure from a previously more widely shared commitment to maintaining non-violent discipline.^[32] Because of these concerns, those who have used the term "civil resistance" have tended to emphasise its non-violent character, and to use it in addition to – and not in substitution of – such terms as "non-violent resistance".

See also[link]

• Civil disobedience
• Colour revolutions
• Dissolution of the Soviet Union
• Nonviolence
• Nonviolent resistance
• People Power Revolution
• Resistance movements
• Revolutions of 1989
• Social defence
• 2010–2011 Middle East and North Africa protests
• 2010–2011 Tunisian Revolution
• 2011 Egyptian Revolution

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Chenoweth, Erica and Maria J. Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict, New York: Columbia University Press, 2011. ISBN 978-0-231-15682-0 (hardback).
• Clark, Howard, Civil Resistance in Kosovo, London: Pluto Press, 2000. ISBN 0-7453-1574-7 (hardback).
• Nepstad, Sharon Erickson, Nonviolent Revolution: Civil Resistance in the Late 20th Century, Oxford University Press, New York, 2011. ISBN 978-0-19-977821-8.
• Randle, Michael, Civil Resistance, London: Fontana, 1994. ISBN 0-586-09291-9.
• Roberts, Adam, Civil Resistance in the East European and Soviet Revolutions (PDF available), Cambridge, Mass.: Albert Einstein Institution, 1991. ISBN 1-880813-04-1.
• Roberts, Adam and Timothy Garton Ash (eds.), Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Non-violent Action from Gandhi to the Present, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-19-955201-6 (hardback); ISBN 978-0-19-969145-6 (paperback, 2011, with new Foreword on the Arab Spring). US edition. On Google. Reviews available at Oxford University Research Project on Civil Resistance and Power Politics.
• Sharp, Gene, Sharp’s Dictionary of Power and Struggle: Language of Civil Resistance in Conflicts, Oxford University Press, New York, 2011. ISBN 978-0-19-982989-7 (hardback); ISBN 978-0-19-982988-0 (paperback).
• Stephan, Maria J. (ed.), Civilian Jihad: Nonviolent Struggle, Democratization, and Governance in the Middle East, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. ISBN 978-0-230-62141-1 (paperback).

Other works related to the topic

• Ackerman, Peter and Jack DuVall, A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict, New York: Palgrave, 2000. ISBN 0-312-24050-3 (paperback).
• Ackerman, Peter and Christopher Kruegler, Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: The Dynamics of People Power in the Twentieth Century, Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1994. ISBN 0-275-93916-2 (paperback).
• Carter, April, Howard Clark and Michael Randle, People Power and Protest Since 1945: A Bibliography of Nonviolent Action, London, Housmans Bookshop, 2006; supplement 2007, online at [7] with updates.
• Carter, April, People Power and Political Change: Key Issues and Concepts, Routledge, London, 2012. ISBN 978-0-415-58049-6.
• Tim Gee, Counterpower: Making Change Happen, New Internationalist, Oxford, 2011. ISBN-13: 978-1-78026-032-7
• 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, USA, 1969. ISBN 0-14-021080-6.)
• Schock, Kurt, Unarmed Insurrections: People Power Movements in Nondemocracies, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0-8166-4193-2.
• Semelin, Jacques, Unarmed Against Hitler: Civilian Resistance in Europe, 1939-1943, Westport: Praeger, 1993. ISBN 0-275-93961-8.
• Semelin, Jacques, Face au Totalitarisme: La Résistance Civile, Brussels: André Versaille, 2011. ISBN 978-2-87495-127-5.
• Sharp, Gene, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Boston: Porter Sargent, 1973. ISBN 0-87558-068-8. Also in a 3-volume edition. ISBN 0-87558-070-X.
• Sharp, Gene and others, Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20th Century Practice and 21st Century Potential, Porter Sargent, Boston, 2005. ISBN 978-0-87558-161-3.

External links[link]

• Albert Einstein Institution, East Boston, Massachusetts
• Howard Clark civil resistance website
• International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), Washington DC
• ICNC’s Online Learning Platform for the Study & Teaching of Civil Resistance, Washington DC
• Jack DuVall, "Civil resistance and the language of power", 19 November 2010 at openDemocracy.net
• Hardy Merriman, The trifecta of civil resistance: unity, planning, discipline, 19 November 2010 at openDemocracy.net
• Oxford University Research Project on Civil Resistance and Power Politics
• Stellan Vinthagen, People power and the new global ferment, 15 November 2010 at openDemocracy.net

Peter Ackerman (born November 6, 1946) is the founding chair of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict ^[1] and the managing director of Rockport Capital Incorporated. He chaired the board of trustees of Freedom House from September 2005 until January 2009.^[2][3] He is a member of the Board of the Council on Foreign Relations.^[1]

He was born in New York City, New York. As an undergraduate he attended Colgate University. After he graduated from Colgate, he attended the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy where in he earned a Ph.D. in 1976 in International Relations, studying under Gene Sharp and Robert Pfaltzgraff.^[4] Dr. Ackerman's thesis, Strategic Aspects of Nonviolent Resistance Movements, examined the nonviolent strategy and tactics used by people who are living under oppression and have no viable military option to free themselves.

From 1978 to 1990, Ackerman was Director of International Capital Markets at investment bank Drexel Burnham Lambert.^[5] While at Drexel, Ackerman made more than $300 million working alongside 'Junk Bond King' Michael Milken, raising billions of dollars for junk-bond-fueled takeovers.^[6] While criminal charges were never brought against Ackerman in Drexel's insider trading scandal, he paid a $73 million settlement in a civil case brought against him by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Resolution Trust Corporation alleging misappropriation and diversion of investments.^[7]

Ackerman's financial dealings have brought him into public conflict with state and Federal tax authorities on several occasions. In 2003 Ackerman sued the California Franchise Tax Board to recover $5 million in taxes previously paid. He lost the case on appeal.^[7] In 2005 a bill was introduced in the California legislature (with the aid of Ackerman's attorney) which a Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee analysis noted appeared to solely benefit Ackerman, at a potential cost of $5 million to the state.^[7] In 2005 the United States Tax Court ruled that Ackerman was involved in an illegal $1.7 billion tax shelter which, according to the Court, "had no economic substance, its only purpose being to transfer built-in tax losses....passed through for the primary benefit of Mr. Ackerman.”^[7] The IRS determined that Ackerman owed $150 million in taxes. He resolved this dispute in June, 2011 in an undisclosed settlement.^[7] Another tax court ruling in 2009 found that he owed an additional $2.6 million and that his testimony in that case was not credible.^[7]

In 1990 Dr. Ackerman moved to London where he was a visiting scholar at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. During this time he co-authored with Christopher Kruegler the book Strategic Nonviolent Conflict.^[8] Dr. Ackerman was also a content advisor in the television version of Steve York's 1999 film A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict and co-authored with Jack DuVall a book of the same title. In 2002 Dr. Ackerman also helped produce the documentary Bringing Down A Dictator, the sequel to A Force More Powerful, which chronicled the fall of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic by nonviolent means. In 2005 he became a director of the Institute for Strategic Studies' IISS-US office.^[9]

Dr. Ackerman contributed the initial $5 million seed money to Americans Elect,^[10], and serves as Chairman of its Board of Directors.^[11] Ackerman's son, Elliot, serves as Chief Operating Officer of Americans Elect.^[11] On May 17, 2012 Americans Elect, unable to mount a successful primary ballot, announced that "The primary process for the Americans Elect nomination has come to an end."^[12]

External links[link]

• A Force More Powerful

References[link]

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Jack DuVall has a background in universities, television, federal United States administration and politics, and the United States Air Force.^[1][2] He was Executive Producer of Steve York's 1999 film A Force More Powerful ^[3] together with Dalton Delan, and developed it into a television series and a book. He is the founding director of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, together with founding chair Peter Ackerman.^[1]

Education, business, political, military career[link]

DuVall holds a B.A. degree (cum laude) from Colgate University.^[4] He spent 16 years as a television executive and author, he was Director of Corporate Relations at the University of Chicago, Director of Industry Compliance, Cost of Living Council, Executive Office of the President of the United States, and wrote speeches for candidates for the Presidency of the United States in four election campaigns.^[1] DuVall is an officer of the United States Air Force.^[1] In 2003, DuVall was a member of the Board of Directors of the Arlington Institute, a non-profit futures studies think tank founded by former naval officer and military expert John L. Petersen.^[2]

Nonviolence activities[link]

DuVall is best known for his role in media production and institutional actions related to strategic nonviolence used as a tool against governments perceived to be authoritarian. Together with Dalton Delan, Jack DuVall was one of the Executive Producers^[3] of Steve York's 1999 film A Force More Powerful about the theory and practice of nonviolence as a sociopolitical strategy, which was developed into a television series for the United States television network Public Broadcasting Service the following year, and then into a book that DuVall co-authored with Peter Ackerman. In 2001, together with Peter Ackerman, DuVall created a non-profit institute called the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC).^[1] DuVall is founding director of the ICNC and Ackerman is its founding chairman.^[1] In 2007, DuVall was a facilitator at the Global Conference on the Prevention of Genocide, held in Montreal, Canada.^[4]

References[link]

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f} "International Center on Nonviolent Conflict - Who We Are". International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. 2005. Archived from the original on 2005-08-06. http://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/whoWeAre.shtml. Retrieved 2010-10-12. 
2. ^ ^{a b} "Limits and Opportunities of Nonviolent Resistance: Lessons from History and Current Conflicts". Students for Peace and Humanity, Stony Brook University. 2003-05. Archived from the original on 2010-10-14. http://www.sinc.sunysb.edu/Clubs/sbdoves/announce.html. Retrieved 2010-10-14. 
3. ^ ^{a b} Koehler, Robert (1999-11-11). "A Force More Powerful (Documentary)". Reed Elsevier Inc.. Archived from the original on 2010-11-03. http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117757523.html?categoryid=31&cs=1&p=0. Retrieved 2010-11-03. 
4. ^ ^{a b} "Global Conference on the Prevention of Genocide - Facilitators". Echenberg Family Conference on Human Rights. 2007-10-11. Archived from the original on 2010-10-26. http://efchr.mcgill.ca/Facilitators_en.php. Retrieved 2010-10-26. 

External links[link]

• A Force More Powerful

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Stephen Zunes (born 1956) is an American international relations scholar specializing in the Middle East specializing in Middle Eastern politics, U.S. foreign policy, and strategic nonviolent action. He is known internationally as a leading critic of United States policy in the Middle East, particularly under the George W. Bush Administration, and an analyst of nonviolent civil insurrections against autocratic regimes.

Current position and education[link]

Stephen Zunes is a professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco teaching courses on the politics of Middle East and other regions, U.S. foreign policy, nonviolence, conflict resolution, and globalization. He currently chairs USF’s Middle Eastern Studies Program. He serves as a senior policy analyst for the Foreign Policy in Focus project of the Institute for Policy Studies, an associate editor of Peace Review, a contributing editor of Tikkun, and chair of the academic advisory committee for the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. He received his B.A. from Oberlin College in 1979, his M.A. from Temple University in 1983, and his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1990. Zunes also serves as an advisory board member for Foreign Policy In Focus, a project of the Institute for Policy Studies. He is a supporter of the Consistent Life Ethic, an organization which opposes abortion, euthanasia, the death penalty and unjust war.

Previous career[link]

A native of North Carolina, Zunes previously served on the faculty of Ithaca College, the University of Puget Sound, and Whitman College. He was a recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship on Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies at Dartmouth College and a Joseph J. Malone Fellowship in Arab and Islamic Studies. He also served as founding director of the Institute for a New Middle East Policy and as a research fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, the Institute for Global Security Studies and the United States Institute of Peace. In 2002, he won recognition from the Peace and Justice Studies Association as Peace Scholar of the Year.

Doubts over Iraq[link]

Zunes publicly doubted prior to the March 2003 invasion that Iraq still had operational weapons of mass destruction and predicted that, "sooner or later, the American public will realize that a U.S. invasion of Iraq has been a disaster" since "such efforts at hegemony inevitably spawn their own resistance." He also predicted that a U.S. invasion and occupation could stir up ethnic and sectarian conflict would make it "difficult to establish a widely accepted and stable regime" and that rather than transform the Middle East to be more stable and democratic, he warned that a U.S. invasion and occupation would increase terrorism and Islamic extremism and that it would "spawn more bitterness, hatred, and violence and will greatly retard economic development, political reform, and reconciliation in the resulting chaos and backlash that will likely follow."

Views on the Middle East[link]

Zunes has also been an outspoken opponent of U.S. backing of both Arab dictatorships and the Israeli occupation. He has called for an Israeli-Palestinian peace based upon international law which recognizes both Israeli security and Palestinian rights, including a withdrawal of Israeli forces from Palestinian and Syrian territories, an end to terrorism, and security guarantees for Israel and its neighbors.

Zunes has stated that the Israel's government "engages in a pattern of gross and systematic human rights violations and blatantly violates a series of UN Security Council resolutions and other international legal principles."^[1] Zunes has written that "support for Israel's ongoing occupation and repression is not unlike U.S. support for Indonesia's 24-year occupation of and repression in East Timor or Morocco's ongoing occupation of and repression in Western Sahara." He has also written that "widespread racism toward Arabs and Muslims [is] so prevalent in American society" and that many Americans identify with Zionism because it is "a reflection of our own historic experience as pioneers in North America, building a nation based upon noble, idealistic values while simultaneously suppressing and expelling the indigenous population." Regarding the views of the "far left" on Israel, Zunes has written that that many far left organizations have taken "a stridently anti-Israel position that did not just challenge Israeli policies but also questioned Israel's very right to exist" and that this "severely damag[ed] their credibility." ^[2]

Publications[link]

Zunes is the author of scores of articles for scholarly and general readership on Middle Eastern politics, U.S. foreign policy, international terrorism, nonviolent action, international law, and human rights. More than 450 articles by Stephen Zunes are available on his personal website.

Zunes is the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003). He is the principal editor of Nonviolent Social Movements (Blackwell Publishers, 1999). With Jacob Mundy, he wrote Western Sahara: War, Nationalism and Conflict Irresolution (Syracuse University Press, 2010). Zunes' books are largely self-publlished.

Zunes is a regular contributor to the Common Dreams, Truthout, and Alternet websites. He has written for The Nation, Tikkun, The Progressive, In These Times, Yes!, and other magazines, and his op-ed columns have appeared in major daily newspapers throughout North America and Europe. He is also a frequent guest on National Public Radio, Pacifica Radio, PBS, BBC, MSNBC and other media outlets for analysis on breaking world events.

Travels[link]

Zunes frequently visits the Middle East and other conflict regions, where he has met with top government officials, academics, journalists and opposition leaders. He has traveled to more than sixty countries and has accepted invitations to speak at venues in more than twenty.

In September 2007, Zunes was among a group of American religious leaders and scholars who met with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In a subsequent article, Zunes stated that:

[Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] was quite unimpressive. Indeed, with his ramblings and the superficiality of his analysis, he came across as more pathetic than evil... The Iranian president impressed me as someone sincerely devout in his religious faith, yet rather superficial in his understanding and inclined to twist his faith tradition in ways to correspond with his pre-conceived ideological positions.^[3]

Non-violence work[link]

A scholar and advocate of nonviolent people power movements, he has also served as a trainer and workshop leader for pro-democracy activists and community organizers in the United States, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. During his twenties, he worked with Movement for a New Society and other groups advocating nonviolent direct action in opposition to nuclear power, the nuclear arms race, U.S. intervention in Central America, and foreign investment in apartheid South Africa.

Family life[link]

Zunes lives in a cohousing community in Santa Cruz, California with his spouse Nanlouise Wolfe (b. 1957), who serves on the staff of the Resource Center for Nonviolence, and their children Shanti (b. 1988), Kalila (b. 1990) and Tobin (b. 1993). Zunes is a folk musician and enjoys the outdoors.

Zunes was born in Salisbury, North Carolina, the only child of Helen Karnes Zunes and the Rev. John Zunes, an Episcopal priest. Both parents were active in civil rights, nuclear disarmament, anti-Vietnam War and pro-Palestinian causes. He grew up in the university town of Chapel Hill, attending public and Quaker schools, and spent most summers as well as his early adolescence in the Celo community in the mountains of western North Carolina. After attending Oberlin College and living in Philadelphia, Washington, and Boston, he married his former college sweetheart in 1987 while in grad school in Ithaca, New York.

Selected bibliography[link]

Books

Zunes, S. & Mundy, J. (2010). Western Sahara: War, Nationalism and Conflict Irresolution. New York: Syracuse University Press. ISBN 0-8156-3219-3

Zunes, S. & McNair, R. (eds.) (2008). Consistently Opposing Killing: From Abortion to Assisted Suicide, the Death Penalty, and War. California: Praeger Press. ISBN 0-313-35278-X

Zunes, S. (2002). Tinderbox: U.S. foreign policy and the roots of terrorism. Common Courage Press. ISBN 1-56751-226-7 / ISBN 1-84277-259-7

Zunes, S., Kurtz, L. & Asher, S. (eds.) (1999). Nonviolent Social Movements: A Geographical Perspective. 1999. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 1-57718-075-5

Articles

Zunes, S. (2011). The U.S. Blows it on Bahrain http://www.fpif.org/articles/america_blows_it_on_bahrain

Zunes, S. (2011) http://www.mepc.org/journal/middle-east-policy-archives/gaza-war-congress-and-international-humanitarian-law

Stringfellow, T. (2011) http://www.narconews.com/Issue67/article4432.html

Zunes, S. (2009) http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/learn-as-you-go/weapons-of-mass-democracy

Zunes, S. (2009). The war on Yugoslavia: 10 years later http://www.fpif.org/articles/the_war_on_yugoslavia_10_years_later

Zunes, S. (2008). The U.S. and Georgia http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-zunes/the-us-and-georgia_b_118994.html

Zunes, S. (2008). Nonviolent action and pro-democracy struggles. Washington, DC: Foreign Policy In Focus.

Zunes, S. (2007). The United States and the Kurds: A brief history http://stephenzunes.org/2007/10/25/the-united-states-and-the-kurds-a-brief-history/

Zunes, S. (2006) The United States and Lebanon: A meddlesome history http://www.fpif.org/articles/the_united_states_and_lebanon_a_meddlesome_history

Zunes, S. (2006). Western Sahara: The other occupation http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/Zunes-westernsahara-the-other-occupation

Zunes, S. (2006). U.S. has contributed to Iraq's sectarian strife. National Catholic Reporter.

Zunes, S. (2006). U.S. undermines Israeli doves in their quest for peace. National Catholic Reporter.

Zunes, S. (2005). How the hawk kills the dove: Western intervention keeps slamming the door on peace in Iraq. New Internationalist.

Zunes, S. (2002). Nonviolent resistance in the Islamic world. Nonviolent Activist.

Zunes, S. (2002). The case against war. The Nation.

Zunes, S. The strategic functions of U.S. aid to Israel http://www.eroj.org/Palestina/zunes.htm

References[link]

External links[link]

• http://stephenzunes.org/ Zunes' personal website
• http://stephenzunes.org/vitae/ Link to Zunes' Vitae
• Zunes biography page at USF
• "Stephen Zunes". Global Exchange. http://www.globalexchange.org/getInvolved/speakers/75.html. Retrieved 2007-11-06. 
• "An Interview with Dr. Stephen Zunes (Part One of Three)". The Heathlander. http://heathlander.wordpress.com/2007/09/10/interview-with-dr-stephen-zunes-part-one-of-three/. Retrieved 2007-11-05. 
• "University News". Seattle University. http://www.seattleu.edu/home/news_events/news/news_detail.asp?elYear=2003&elID=19200332823. Retrieved 2007-11-06. 
• "Democracy and Nonproliferation in the Middle East". The Progressive Government. http://www.progressivegovernment.org/conversation.php?ID=36. Retrieved 2007-11-06. 
• Zunes, Stephen (2007-09-28). "My Meeting With Ahmadinejad". Foreign Policy in Focus. http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4592. Retrieved 2007-11-06. 
• Stephen Zunes speaks on alternatives to war at the University of Washington on November 2002