Sean Chabot, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands (chabot@pscw.uva.nl)
& Stellan Vinthagen, University of Göteborg, Sweden (stellan.vinthagen@padrigu.gu.se)
At The Centre for Peace Studies
(CPS), University of Tromsø, Norway.
In 1993 Ronald M. McCarthy & Christopher Kruegler, published the monograph
Toward Research and Theory Building in the Study of Nonviolent Action,
in
which they launch the "technique approach" to nonviolent action.
Together
with Gene Sharp they both belong to the Albert Einstein Institution, founded
in order to "expand the understanding and use of nonviolent sanctions to
advance group interests in conflicts world-wide". The technique approach
is
founded on Gene Sharp’s classic, The Politics of Nonviolent Action (1973). This text argues that despite being a major
contribution to the research of
nonviolent action the technique approach is seriously misguided and suggests
that an
alternative is needed in order to further our understanding of nonviolent
resistance. One possible alternative approach is the proposed one in this text
– the relational and constructionist dynamics of nonviolent action.
Limitations of the Technique Approach
American sociologist Gene Sharp has written a number of books (e.g.,
1973,
1979, 1980), which have become classical works both in the nonviolent research
community and the nonviolent movement. To Sharp nonviolence is something you
consciously and rationally choose, once you learn the techniques of nonviolence
and realise the force of organised and strategic resistance. His view of both power and resistance is
pragmatic and technical, which has its advantages. It has allowed Sharp to present something of a
"smorgasbord" of the different forms and techniques of resistance to
the nonviolent activist who is willing and able to use them.
Sharp defines social power as the ability to control the behaviour of
others, directly or indirectly, by handling groups of people, whose actions
affect other groups of people (Sharp 1973: 7-8). This is expressed in the
strategic struggle of power between actors. The unique aspect of his
contribution
to the discussion on power lies in his combination and development of
theories from Gandhi and Hannah Arendt. Gandhi stresses the force of
disobedience and Arendt speaks of power as a creative human ability to act
collectively in consent. To Sharp, the counterpower of resistance becomes a
form of collective disobedience.
In the development of his own concept of power, Sharp has reached the opinion
that power ultimately based on the cooperation of subordinates and that
obedience is essentially a free choice (Sharp 1973: 25-30). All systems of
power are built upon chains of obedience where the leaders always stand or fall
by the strength of the hierarchy of power. According to Sharp, people are
obedient for many reasons, such as habit, fear of
punishment, sense of duty, self-interest, psychological identification with the
leading group, despondent acceptance, or lack of confidence and resources.
Sharp differs from Arendt in regarding the subordinate's obedience as a kind
of voluntary cooperation. This voluntariness gives resistance new possibilities
for changing the relations of power, possibilities that Sharp seeks to
investigate. You can't make anyone do something unless they fear the punishment
(Sharp 1973: 28). Disobedience is
always an option and it is the relationship between the group and the
punishment that decides whether it dares to defy the power holder’s orders,
laws and rules. This means that the key to successful resistance lies in
finding ways of changing the group’s relationship to the punishment.
The revolutionary understanding of power that Gandhi made into a part of
nonviolent resistance movements implied that India was not colonialised when
the British took over the country, but when the Indian people gave up control
of the country through their
submission to the British. Irrespective of the level of violent threats against
or golden promises for those who submit, all social interaction between people
involves some degree of cooperation from the participants. A slave who does not
cooperate might soon become a dead slave, but then he is also no longer a slave
controlled by the master! In other words, as long as the slave lives and serves
his master, slavery builds on cooperation from the slave. The satyagraha
struggle is built on "the immutable maxim, that government of the people
is possible only as long as they consent either consciously or unconsciously to
be governed" (Gandhi in Sharp 1979: 54). The goal of the nonviolent
struggle was not to take over the existing political system but to empower
people, to give them the tools for their own liberation (Gandhi 1970: 258-260).
Sharp basically accepts the Gandhian understanding of power but he fails to
appreciate the significance of the Gandhian understanding of truth and
morality. Nonviolent resistance in Sharpian terms is simply the functional
substitute to war and violence, a
substitute that is superior as a tool for combat (Holm 1978: 33-34, 56-62).
Sharp regards nonviolent techniques as effective in conflicts more or less
regardless of what kind of truth/end you fight for (idem: 19-24, 31). Sharp reduces
Gandhi’s "experiments with truth" to a pure matter of effective
strategy and tactics, exactly as in military operations during war. Nonviolent
struggle is to "attack the specific aspect which symbolizes the
"evil" they are fighting, which is least defensible by the opponent
and which is capable of arousing the greatest strength among the nonviolent
actionists and the wider population" (Sharp 1980: 138).
The problem is that Sharp reduces the tools of the struggle to pure
instruments, while for Gandhi they are creative (Bondurant [1958]1988: 232).
Sharp's nonviolent tools are weapons to fight for your own and pre-existing
understanding of truth/justice/goals. They are means for social manipulation in
order to get things the way you want them to be. Gandhi's nonviolent tools, in
contrast, are creative means to fight for a kind of truth/ justice/end that the
contending parties will agree on (idem: 34; Sharp 1979: 68). Sharp seeks
effective tools of influence in service of a given group interest. Gandhi seeks
effective tools to explore and reach a deeper understanding of a common truth.
With Sharp the victory belongs to the nonviolent conflict fighter, with Gandhi
victory involves a more inclusive understanding of each other’s common needs
and views. With Sharp the law of nonviolence is mechanistic and produces
results in the short run, with Gandhi it is dialectical and fruitful in the
long run.
In her dissertation, Berit Holm describes Sharp’s nonviolent theory as
"technical moralism” (Holm 1978: 30-31, 107, 152). "Nonviolence"
is initially a social
relation but through his theoretical construction Sharp turns it into a
"functional
cause" that brings about certain effects. Violence is made
one-dimensional, that is,
without connections to its social and material context and differing forms.
Social development becomes something that is possible to steer through certain
means that achieve certain ends. Morality then becomes a matter of technical
management. The core question of ethics—what should I (not) do?—is reduced to
the technical
question of how. Sharp turns Gandhi’s dynamic and dialectical view of means and
ends
into a simple question of effective
means (Iyer 1973).
To be sure, Sharp's perspective is fruitful when trying to understand
nonviolence; but at the same time it is rather one-dimensional (Holm 1978;
McGuinness 1994; Burrowes 1999: 83-96). With a simplified concept of power
comes a simplified concept of resistance. Sharp ignores how power shapes us as
people and forms our way of thinking,
feeling and acting. According to Foucault, power is prohibiting as well as
enabling and is partly incorporated into people's minds, language and
behaviour. This makes it difficult to separate people's will to submit or
resist from the existing power structure (see also, Sewell 1992).
We agree with Sharp that power is a matter of subordination, but take one step
beyond him by interpreting established power as a forming process and changing
our perspective of nonviolent movements accordingly. Sharp's reasoning assumes
the existence of a conscious and free will independent from power (Sharp 1973:
25-32). But the idea of a free will is not necessary for the survival of his
theory. Sharp’s theory ultimately relies on the hypothesis that subordination
is created or changed, not on the hypothesis that someone is conscious of how
this is done (Sharp 1980: 98, 212, 341). Even if power is forming people's
wills and actions the fact remains that power arises from the participation and
obedience of subordinates.
One could say that Sharp and Foucault complement each other. Both investigate
strategies and techniques: Sharp those of resistance, Foucault those of power.
Still the theoretical differences are considerable. Both argue that power is
instable,
changeable and diffuse. But contrary to
Foucault, Sharp sees power as a
zero-sum-game (McGuinness 1994). When one group gains power, another group
loses power. Foucault, however, claims that power can increase without
diminishing somewhere else. Sharp's concept of power is based on the
Anglo-Saxon philosophy of the subject, in which individuals with a free will
try to govern others against their will.
Foucault is more interested in how different techniques of power form our wills
and actions.
Sharp actually recognizes this weakness in his theory and calls for more
research on
how the will is formed by institutions and how it could be liberated (Sharp
1980: 20). So far, though, the technique school has not produced serious
studies on this particular subject.
The forming done by power takes place through different techniques and ways
of conversation (discourses), which work irrespectively of the participating
people’s wishes. Power is "not built up out of 'wills' (individual or
collective), nor...derivable from interests" (Foucault: 1980: 180),
"neither given, nor exchanged, nor recovered, but
rather exercised...in action" (idem:89) within "an unequal and
relatively stable relation of forces" (idem: 200). Power is about how
actions, independent of the actor's intentions, actually can structure the
space of other actions (Foucault according to Beronius 1986: 25). We assume in
a similar way that subordination does not necessarily depend on the personal
will of the participants but rather on the social fact that behaviour is
subordinated.
According to Foucault, power is a productive act of dominance that is
relatively autonomous. The acting individual does not control the activity; it
is the activity that controls the individual and forms her personality. The
individual does not exercise power; power expresses itself through the
individual (Foucault 1974: 36-37).
With this you can say that Foucault actually maintains the opposite to Sharp.
The nonviolent activist cannot exist outside of power, make a decision to
engage in resistance, and then act against power. Although resistance is always
a possibility, the threads of power are deeply embedded in the thinking,
language, methods and culture of the nonviolent activist (see, e.g., Lukes
1974; Gaventa 1980). It is not the subordination of the obedient that provides
dominant individuals and groups with power, but a set of techniques that
governs those who apply it. Whereas Sharp argues that the struggle for power
goes on between participants, Foucault argues that the struggle for power
actually forms participants. But does this necessarily mean that the view of
power as subordination is false?
It is important that we do not mix up power and techniques of power. In
Foucault’s hands, power has a tendency to appear as a force without individuals
or actors. (Foucault 1980: 117). Although this was probably not Foucault’s
intention, some of his followers have almost completely ignored the autonomous
role of the activist (Cheater 1999: Chapter 1). This creates the risk of
mythologizing power as independent techniques and ways of speaking. But surely,
techniques or languages of power have to be practised and employed; otherwise
they would not be effective in the creation of power. Techniques and discourses
of power are social, not self-acting objects. When we subdue our behaviour to a
routine or scheme of techniques we become part of the power forming. Whether
this happens to be what we want to do or we just do it without thinking is not
really relevant. Power will be at work anyway, as our actions result in
subordination.
Critics have wrongly accused Foucault of reducing everything to power (Foucault
1994: 133). After all, Foucault acknowledges that there are spaces free of
power and that actors’ decision-making process is not completely determined by
power. Foucault speaks of "plebs", a feature in the social body, in
classes, groups and individuals themselves, which to some degree escape
relations of power (Foucault 1980: 137-138). While no person or group as a
whole can exist outside of power, this plebeian quality does evade power by
existing on its borders or beyond its reach.
This means that research on nonviolent action needs to understand how power
infiltrates the nonviolent movement and disturbs the opportunities for
resistance to power. Research also needs to explore how the social construction
of resistance is possible—a kind of resistance that does not simply reproduce
power relations (see e.g., Sewell 1992; Emirbayer and Goodwin 1994; Emirbayer
and Mische 1998).
The need for an alternative to the technique
approach
In their manifesto, McCarthy and Kruegler point to the poor quality of existing
studies on nonviolent resistance and propose a serious research program. They
call for unification of research on nonviolence along the lines of their "technique
approach". But their approach is problematic in several aspects, and might
lead researchers in the wrong direction. Their approach is built on an
empiricist epistemology, positivist methodological approach and an essentialist
idea of Strategic Man. It assumes that movements and people act as rational
chess players that use resources effectively and urges researchers to assess
the empirical effects of various methods.
The Sharpian dominance of the field is undeniable and not necessarily a bad thing.
They do valuable research that has contributed significantly to our
understanding of nonviolent action. The real problem is that few scholars have
attempted to develop serious alternative approaches. What we need is social-scientific discussions between various
theoretical perspectives in order to come to a deeper and more sophisticated
understanding of nonviolent action, not just more technical reductionism.
Although the technique approach has produced a number of high-quality books and
reports, the latter have become irrelevant to their main audiences. The
governments and military officers targeted by Sharp and his colleagues since
the 1970s have displayed a lack of real interest. It has not helped that the
technique school has adopted a military-strategic mode of thinking and
maintained that central organization of and national training in strategic
nonviolent action is always superior to military means. As a result, for
example, the Baltic states that initially showed a strong interest in nonviolence
have recently joined NATO.
The state or the military might not be the correct or main institutions for
promoting nonviolent action. But the major problem of the technique school is
its theoretical and analytical approach, which is much more fundamental. We suggest that there is a need for research
emphasising communication, narrative, emotion, symbols, culture, identity,
discourse and constructivism rather than more empirical studies on nonviolent
action techniques and their visible political effects (e.g. Emirbayer and
Goodwin 1996). Scholarship on
nonviolent resistance is outdated and needs to take recent developments in the
fields of sociology, political science, and international relations seriously. The kind of positivist analysis engaged in
by Sharp and his collaborators has been under heavy criticism since the 1970s
and contemporary scholars should start incorporating the insights of prominent
social scientists like James Scott, Jeffrey Alexander, Anthony
Giddens, Alberto Melucci, Jürgen Habermas, Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault.
McCarthy and Kruegler convincingly argue that Gandhian scholars need to avoid
the
personality cult of Gandhi, one-sided success stories, moral idealism, and
religious illusions of the traditional literature on nonviolence. We agree that
a scientific understanding of nonviolent action indeed necessitates a battle
against unsystematic and simplified analysis of nonviolent action. But we highlight that it also involves a
battle against other one-dimensional systems of thinking, including the overly
general Sharpian theories on nonviolent strategy and techniques. In short, in our eyes, McCarthy and Kruegler
throw out the baby with the bath water by assuming that concepts like truth,
ethics, values, spirituality, conscience, dialogue, understanding, and
interpretation necessarily lead to idealistic moralism and religious mythology
(compare Iyer 1973). Despite the fact that Gandhi once remarked that the
results of nonviolence were only one-fourth visible and three-fourth invisible,
they argue that everything that is not observable is not part of
"science" (CWMG 70: 261).
The problem is that the technique approach becomes as essentialist as the kind
of personality studies they criticise by replacing the myth of the Holy Man/Liberator/Spirit
with the magic of the Effective Technique/Strategy. We stress that technique
without the historical context and a multidimensional understanding of social
processes leads to just another kind of mythology.
Researchers in the field need to focus on developing key concepts like power,
discourse, language, constructivism, relationalism, culture, networks, identity
etc. (Lukes 1974; Gaventa 1980; Steinberg 1995, 1998, 1999; Emirbayer 1997;
Polletta 1997; Emirbayer and Goodwin 1994); on specifying how they relate to a
non-essentialist understanding of nonviolence (Chabot and Duyvendak 2003); and
on analyzing the spread of nonviolence between social movements across time and
space (Zunes, Kurtz, and Asher 1999; Chabot 2002; Scalmer 2002). One of the
great battles within social movement research concerns the relationship between
collective identity construction and strategic resource management (e.g., Cohen
1986; Jasper 1997; Goodwin and Jasper 1999; Polletta and Jasper 2001; Calhoun
1994). We should learn from this discussion that the construction of a
"we" feeling enables the strategic choice for nonviolent resistance
and the mobilization of nonviolent social movements (Polletta and Jasper
2001). The complicated and
conflict-loaded social construction of a "we" is only one of the
issues overlooked by the technique approach.
One possibility is to incorporate insights by innovative sociologists like
Mustafa Emirbayer, Jeff Goodwin, James Jasper, Francesca Polletta, Mimi
Sheller, and Ann Mische, all of whom favor a relational and constructionist
approach that tries to balance strategy and identity, culture and politics,
civil society and state, reason and emotion, facts and narratives (Emirbayer
1997; Emirbayer and Goodwin 1994, 1996; Jasper 1997; Goodwin and Jasper 1999;
Goodwin, Jasper, and Polletta 2001; Polletta 1997, 1998; Emirbayer and Mische
1998; Emirbayer and Sheller 1999). This emerging framework may be a
starting point for a more dynamic and less positivist approach to nonviolence and
nonviolent action.
Tentative suggestions for a relational and constructionist approach to
nonviolent action
Our relational and constructionist approach would suggest a different direction
of future research. Instead of focusing on the ideals or argumentative logic of
nonviolence, and
instead of focusing on the strategic effectiveness of possible fighting
techniques, our tentative framework would focus on the construction of
nonviolent resistance as part of a complex and dynamic process of interaction
(McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001).
One research direction would be to focus on the problematic construction of a
"movement culture of nonviolent action". The proposal would be that
the social construction of personal habits into a functional institutional
system where nonviolent action is embedded in a movement culture would make
nonviolent action sustainable. The movement culture of nonviolent action is a
nonviolent proto-society grounded within a dominating social system, yet moving
against it by socially sustaining critical thinking, solidarity, dialogue, and
action. It is about a new kind of society opposing the existing one as well as
being situated in the middle of it, by counter acting its main logic, functions
and values.
An example would be the environmental activists in Innerdalen in southern
Norway who opposed the construction of yet another large water dam. Unlike in
the Alta struggle in northern Norway, they did not only engage in dramatic yet
sporadic collective action events during which they chained themselves to each
other with heavy steel chains and impeded construction work. Instead, they
tried to sustain resistance by moving down
into the valley of Innerdalen and living there, toiling the land and building a
village community—just as Gandhi and fellow activists did in Indian ashrams.
They created an Environmental University during summer time, educating visitors
about the construction of alternative energy and old handicraft. The point is
that they did not only oppose the status quo through a short-lived blockade or
in isolated and secluded eco-friendly communes. They actually put their ideas
into practice and started building an alternative society in the midst of the
dominant system. As long as they did their work on the land
and lived in the village houses, the water dam could not be completed—at least
not without killing all the inhabitants of this alternative society.
In the end, the village people in Innerdalen were driven away by the police and
were unable to sustain the movement culture of nonviolent action. Other groups,
though, have been more successful. Take for example the landless movement in
Brazil, the MST. The MST started in the
early 1980s and is now a social movement with about 1.5 million active landless
people and small farmers united in seeking "land-reform from below"
by engaging in peaceful land occupations of non-used land. They have so far
performed over 2,000 occupations and enabled land distribution that is more
extensive than what the Brazilian state had achieved previously. In the MST—the
encampamentos—people live in plastic tents for long periods of time
(often 5-10 years) before their persistence allows them to become landowners.
Like most nonviolent movements in the past, this movement is nonviolent for
pragmatic reasons, not merely out of principle. Occasionally, they use their
farming tools to defend themselves, but they have not collectively armed
themselves despite regular attacks by organised paramilitary groups.
The MST has created a movement culture of nonviolent action by combining
several activities and institutionalising them. First of all, they founded
“schools” for their children in their temporary tent-society. When they can
finally purchase the land, these schools ensure that the values and experiences
of their struggle are transferred to the new
generations. With their own rituals and social dramas they enact the events of
the struggle and confirm their solidarity. Secondly, economic cooperatives
generate the livelihood and resources for a more professional and extensive
struggle, which is emerging from the settlements that have won their pieces of
land. They reinvent traditional forms of protest by institutionalising them as
permanent parts of life rather than as single events or spontaneous movements.
They mix cultural elements like the Madonna figure, Che Guevara and football,
and make a new blend of "MST-Culture" in order to sustain resistance.
In other words, they are creating the social and material foundations for a
life of struggle.
This kind of movement culture of nonviolent action is about living the
revolution, not simply individually as a life-style or for self-betterment,
but collectively as in Gandhi’s constructive program (which Sharp almost
completely ignores due to his focus on technique). This movement culture is not
merely about alternative living, but about creating a confrontational society
that challenges the power structure by living according to its own values and
principles. This movement culture is not about liberal forms of protest such as
free speech and opinion making, but about enacting and living the alternative
life by putting it into practice. This dynamic process is problematic and
multidimensional: a lot of things need to function together as a whole for it
to survive and expand. As such, we—as scholars and/or activists—have much work
to do in order to understand the various conditions enabling and constraining
movement culture and sustainable nonviolent action.
We must ask: what makes the movement culture of nonviolent action possible
among the landless movement in Brazil, but not in the environmental movement of
Norway? What aspects of social life need to interact creatively in order to
make this confrontational society durable? This is surely not only a matter of
effective resource management, but also a matter of creating social solidarity
and integration in a situation when both tempting offers and frightening
reactions by the dominant system risks tearing apart the fabric of social
solidarity on which any wise movement strategy relies.
A relational/constructionist approach would try to understand what makes the
unthinkable—nonviolent and persistent resistance against violence and
oppression—intellectually thinkable, emotionally conceivable AND social
sustainable. What makes nonviolent action become part of a movement's culture,
part of a community’s habits? What
makes nonviolent action become natural and integrated into social life instead
of an exotic idea promoted by strategic thinkers in ivory towers?
Another research direction would be to focus on general repertoires
rather than distinct techniques.
According to Charles Tilly, the author of the contentious repertoire
concept:
The word repertoire
identifies a limited set of routines that are learned, shared, and acted out
through a relatively deliberate process of choice….[P]eople in a given place
and time learn to carry out a limited number of alternative collective-action
routines, adapting each one to the immediate circumstances and to the reactions
of antagonists, authorities, allies, observers, objects of their action, and
other people somehow involved in the struggle (Tilly 1995b: 26-27; see also
Tilly 1986, 1995a; Tarrow 1996).
For example, researchers could study the emergence and development of
the Gandhian repertoire as one historically specific set of nonviolent direct
action routines. The Gandhian
repertoire was unique, multifaceted, and flexible: it consisted of interrelated
action forms, organizational styles, and discursive language that continuously
adapted to changing temporal and geographical circumstances--initially in South
Africa and India, later also in the United States (Fox 1989; Parekh 1989;
Chabot and Duyvendak 2003). Its power
and effectiveness derived not from the particular protest techniques
themselves, as Sharp would argue, but from the practical ways that activist
groups applied an innovative combination of tactics and symbols in their
interactions with authorities and bystander publics (McAdam and Tarrow 2000). Rather than treating divergent forms of
nonviolent action as equivalent (as in Sharp’s The Politics of Nonviolent
Action), we suggest that scholars should concentrate on the historical
genealogy of original sets of nonviolent action forms—such as the Gandhian
repertoire—in its immediate relational setting. Subsequently, they should analyze whether and how this repertoire
was able to diffuse across time and space (see also, Fox 1997; Scalmer 2000,
2002; Chabot 2002).
Practical relevance for scholars and activists
Although our main purpose is to modify, extend, and reconstruct Sharp’s
theoretical and empirical approach to nonviolent action, we assert that our
suggestions have direct implications for contemporary social scientists and
protesters. In the first place, we
highlight the need to build activist networks, experiment with new forms of
contention, and engage in local community work—not just when the political
context is favorable, but especially when it is unfavorable. In the anti-radical climate of the “post
9-11 world,” people who believe in militant yet nonviolent direct action need
to be even more actively involved in the preservation and development of
“movement culture.” Only then can we
(as scholars as well as activists) identify future opportunities—and create new
ones—for mobilizing mass-based nonviolent movements at the local, national, and
global levels.
And finally, we refer to the Gandhian repertoire because we feel that it
was not only a powerful guide for the Indian independence movement and the
African-American struggle; it might also serve as an inspiration for current
and future social movements. The
present generation of nonviolent activists and researchers could (and, in our
eyes, should) learn from the example of the American civil rights movement and
seek to reinvent the Gandhian repertoire to confront specific injustices
in today’s social, political, cultural, and economic environments (Chabot 2002;
Chabot and Duyvendak 2003). In any
case, initiating sustainable and effective nonviolent social movements involves
much more than a given group with given interests choosing and applying fixed
techniques of nonviolent action, as Sharp and his collaborators would
argue. It involves adopting,
(re)constructing, and applying a dynamic repertoire of nonviolent direct action
that is suitable for mobilizing a wide variety of Western AND non-Western
activists to fight repression and inequality in the twenty-first century. Time will tell whether the latest repertoire
of nonviolent direct action will be a reinvented Gandhian repertoire or a new
one.