Specific Nonviolent Protests and Movements

Author: Joachim Willems

In: Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen, Vol 25, No 1, 2014, pp. 8-14

Pussy Riot demonstrated provocatively in the Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow (which is a symbol of Russian Orthodoxy) in February 2012, and then uploaded a video of this event with the caption 'Mother of  God, drive out Putin'.  This protest resulted in the arrest of the activists and made Pussy Riot world-famous, though they had staged four other politically and artistically motivated performances. This article assesses whether Pussy Riot's acts can be seen as civil disobedience.  

A much more extensive list of German titles is available in:

Steinweg, Reiner, with Saskia Thorbecke, Gewaltf reie Aktion, Ziviler Ungehorsam, Sociale Vertedigung, Linz/ Donau 2011.

Link on http://reinersteinweg.blogspot.com//p/books.html

The bibliography (which includes a few titles in English and other languages) covers the theory of nonviolent action, case studies and  reports on individual campaigns, movement literature, training for nonviolent action, civil disobedience, social defence and third party intervention including nonviolent action.  It also includes materials on influential individual resisters and activists and theorists.  Volumes 2 and 3 cover a list of authors and titles listed by year of publication.

NB It is hoped to make this bibliography more readily available on the internet in the future.   

Author: Clemens Vollnhal

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Goettingen, 2012

The disintegration of the Soviet bloc led to different kinds of peaceful transformation in Central Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s.  In spite of many differences, common tendencies became apparent. Leading experts elaborate on similarities and differences in the GDR, Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

Author: Philipp Naucke

Curupira, Marburg, 2011

During the forty years of armed conflict in Colombia, civil society was continuously assaulted by violent infringement of rights by both left wing guerrilla movements and paramilitary groups. Nevertheless, since the end of the 1990s many communities declared themselves 'municipalities of peace'. Their members commit themselves to behave neutrally and to reject any collaboration with armed actors. Naucke investigates the origin, function and structure of San Jose de Apartado, which is one of the peaceful communities that decided to confront repression.

Author: Daniel Mullis

In: Europa Regional, Vol 20, No 1, 2015, pp. 20-32

Blockupy in Germany is one of the broadest ranging attempts to politicize the austerity measures, which have been introduced throughout Europe since 2010. Blockupy was enabled to emerge through the combination of embedding protest in the 'Global City' of Frankfurt with the practice of civil disobedience. Drawing on the theories of Lefebvre, Laclau/Mouffe and also Ranciere, the author highlights the links between dissident production of space, the historical formation of the crisis and the focus on Frankfurt as the stage for the protests.  

Author(s): Aaron Bruckmiller, Franziska Scholl

In: Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegung, Vol 29, No 1, 2016, pp. 76-82

Numerous protests took place round the world contemporaneously with the global economic crisis, but the left in Europe as a whole failed to organize. This gap should be filled by Blockupy, a European network of activists composed of trade unionists, political parties and different social movements. The article traces the history of this organization and assesses how far Blockupy has the power to create a new left movement in Germany.

Author: Maciej Bartkowsky

In: bpb, 2014

This study of the Maidan Revolution analyzes what Bartkowsky calls nonviolent resistance in violence-loaded situations. He argues that the major use of force and violence by the regime was not a sign of strength, but of the fundamental weakening of the regime and seemed to be a desperate attempt to avert its threatened defeat. Therefore Janukowytsch's fall was preceded by three months of mobilization and civil resistance that undermined the already weak defences of the regime.

Author(s): Ilker Atac, Ayse Dursun

In: Oesterreichische Zeitschrift fuer Politikwissenschaft, Vol 42, No 4, 2013, pp. 443-450

The article deals with the Gezi Park protests against the demolition of a public park in Istanbul in May 2013, which turned into nationwide protests against the government.  One source of these protests can be located in the conservative-religious neo-liberalism of the ruling AKP. The fundamental thesis  of the authors defines the protests as an expression of a search for new spheres and forms of participatory politics, as an alternative to institutional structures.

Author: Sarah Al-Taher

, Bund fuer soziale Verteidigung, 2013

Al-Taher begins by observing that, unlike in the beginning of the Syrian Spring 2011-12, the international and western press no longer reported on peaceful protests in Syria. The paper discusses two possible explanations: a problem of information (either a lack of information or an excess of news), or the absence of nonviolent protests in the region.  The author refutes the second thesis, arguing that despite the ongoing bloody civil war in Syria, large parts of the society nevertheless participate in peaceful protests.