List of forms of actions

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Gene Sharp researched and catalogued 198 methods of nonviolent action published in The Politics of Nonviolent Action, 1973. These methods are broken into three broad classifications: Protest and Persuasion, Noncooperation, and Nonviolent Intervention. These are further grouped into sections. The full list is available on this wiki page or at http://www.aeinstein.org.

1. Protests and Persuasion

Demonstrations – Many people expresses what they want by walking together in the street. –For example the demonstrations 15 February 2003, which was the biggest anti-war demonstration ever. There were demonstrations in more than 600 cities around the world. Just in London two million people demonstrated.

Protest lists – Signing your name on a list to express dissent with a certain politics, for instance a protest against Swedish weapons exports to the USA and UK during the Iraq war.

2. Non-cooperation

Boycott – To refuse to buy merchandise or a service to show dissatisfaction with the one selling it. For example the boycott of South African products during the apartheid regime. First individuals and organisations started to boycott South African merchandise and after a while entire countries boycotted South Africa

Strike – To refuse to work. For example during the first Intifada, the Palestinian resistance that started 1987, most Palestinians refused to work for Israelis. Israel lost a lot of money when they didn’t have access to cheap Palestinian labour and the economy stagnated.

Political non-cooperation – The refusal to do military service or to perform an extradition. War Resisters International is one of the organisations that supports those that want to refuse to do military service.

Refusal to cooperate – For example during the second world war Norwegian teachers refused to follow the Nazi curriculum for schools. They were sent to concentration camps because of their disobedience, but most of them were taken back when the Nazis understood that they wouldn’t give in.

3. Intervention

Blockades – To place your body in the way of something. For example Israelis and international solidarity activist that get in the way of Israeli bulldozers that are about to demolish Palestinian homes.

Preventive Presence – To protect endangered persons in conflict areas. For example peace observers in Mexico, Israel-Palestine or Colombia.

Plowshare Actions – To openly disarm weapon and to be willing to take your sentence. For example the disarming of Trident nuclear submarines in Scotland.