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Pacifism is opposition to war, militarism or violence. The word pacifism was coined by the French peace campaigner Émile Arnaud (1864–1921) and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress in Glasgow in 1901. A related term is ahimsa, which is a core philosophy in Indian Religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. While modern connotations are recent, having been explicated since the 19th century, ancient references abound.
Nonviolence is the personal practice of being harmless to one's self and others under every condition. It may come from the belief that hurting people, animals and/or the environment is unnecessary to achieve an outcome and it may refer to a general philosophy of abstention from violence. It may be based on moral, religious or spiritual principles, but also the reasons for it may be purely strategic or pragmatic.
Johan Vincent Galtung is a Norwegian sociologist, and the principal founder of the discipline of peace and conflict studies.
Gene Sharp was an American political scientist. He was the founder of the Albert Einstein Institution, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the study of nonviolent action, and professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. He was known for his extensive writings on nonviolent struggle, which have influenced numerous anti-government resistance movements around the world. Unofficial sources have claimed that Sharp was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2015, and had previously been nominated three times, in 2009, 2012 and 2013. Sharp was widely considered the favorite for the 2012 award. In 2011, he was awarded the El-Hibri Peace Education Prize. In 2012, he was a recipient of the Right Livelihood Award for "developing and articulating the core principles and strategies of nonviolent resistance and supporting their practical implementation in conflict areas around the world", as well as the Distinguished Lifetime Democracy Award.
Peace and conflict studies is a social science field that identifies and analyzes violent and nonviolent behaviours as well as the structural mechanisms attending conflicts, with a view towards understanding those processes which lead to a more desirable human condition. A variation on this, peace studies (irenology), is an interdisciplinary effort aiming at the prevention, de-escalation, and solution of conflicts by peaceful means, thereby seeking "victory" for all parties involved in the conflict.
A nonviolent revolution is a revolution conducted primarily by unarmed civilians using tactics of civil resistance, including various forms of nonviolent protest, to bring about the departure of governments seen as entrenched and authoritarian without the use or threat of violence. While many campaigns of civil resistance are intended for much more limited goals than revolution, generally a nonviolent revolution is characterized by simultaneous advocacy of democracy, human rights, and national independence in the country concerned.
Peace News (PN) is a pacifist magazine first published on 6 June 1936 to serve the peace movement in the United Kingdom. From later in 1936 to April 1961 it was the official paper of the Peace Pledge Union (PPU), and from 1990 to 2004 was co-published with War Resisters' International.
Nonviolence International (NI) acts as a network of resource centers that promote the use of nonviolence and nonviolent resistance. They have maintained relationships with activists in a number of countries, with their most recent projects taking place in Palestine, Sudan and the Ukraine. They partnered with International Center for Nonviolent Conflict to update Gene Sharp's seminal work on 198 methods of nonviolent action through a book publication. NI has also produced a comprehensive database of nonviolence tactics, which stands as the largest collection of nonviolent tactics in the world. They partner with Rutgers University to provide the largest collection of nonviolence training materials in the world.
Peacebuilding is an activity that aims to resolve injustice in nonviolent ways and to transform the cultural & structural conditions that generate deadly or destructive conflict. It revolves around developing constructive personal, group, and political relationships across ethnic, religious, class, national, and racial boundaries. This process includes violence prevention; conflict management, resolution, or transformation; and post-conflict reconciliation or trauma healing, i.e., before, during, and after any given case of violence.
Civil resistance is political action that relies on the use of nonviolent resistance by civil groups to challenge a particular power, force, policy or regime. Civil resistance operates through appeals to the adversary, pressure and coercion: it can involve systematic attempts to undermine the adversary's sources of power, both domestic and international. 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. Mahatma Gandhi was the first to use it to free India from British imperialism. The phenomenon of civil resistance is often associated with the advancement of democracy.
Nonviolent resistance (NVR), or nonviolent action, is the practice of achieving goals such as social change through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, satyagraha, or other methods, while being nonviolent. This type of action highlights the desires of an individual or group that feels that something needs to change to improve the current condition of the resisting person or group.
Bradford Lyttle is an American pacifist and peace activist. He was an organizer with the Committee for Non-Violent Action of several major campaigns against militarism, including "Omaha Action", against land-based nuclear missiles (1959); "Polaris Action" against submarine-based nuclear missiles (1960); the San Francisco to Moscow Peace Walk (1961); and the Quebec-Washington-Guantanamo Peace Walk (1963).
Making Europe Unconquerable is a book about how civilian-based defense can be incorporated into the foundations of European defense and collective security. Written by Gene Sharp, the book was originally published in the United Kingdom and United States in 1985. Its subtitle was the potential of civilian-based deterrence and defense. The book was reviewed in major newspapers, magazines, and professional journals. Although it advocated a significant departure from existing defense policies, it received a favorable review from George F. Kennan, widely perceived as one of the major architects of the US approach to the cold war. Later in the same year, the book was republished with a foreword from Kennan. It has also been published in Dutch and Italian editions.
Civilian-based defense or social defence describes non-military action by a society or social group, particularly in a context of a sustained campaign against outside attack or dictatorial rule – or preparations for such a campaign in the event of external attack or usurpation. There are various near-synonyms, including "non-violent defence", "civilian defence" and "defence by civil resistance". Whatever term is used, this approach involves preparations for and use of a range of actions – which can be variously called nonviolent resistance and civil resistance – for national defence against invasion, coup d'état and other threats.
The Politics of Nonviolent Action is a three-volume political science book by Gene Sharp, originally published in the United States in 1973. Sharp is one of the most influential theoreticians of nonviolent action, and his publications have been influential in struggles around the world. This book contains his foundational analyses of the nature of political power, and of the methods and dynamics of nonviolent action. It represents a "thorough revision and rewriting" of the author's 1968 doctoral thesis at Oxford University. The book has been reviewed in professional journals and newspapers, and is mentioned on many contemporary websites. It has been fully translated into Italian and partially translated into several other languages.
Resistance, Politics, and the American Struggle for Independence, 1765–1775 is a book that examines the role of nonviolent struggle in the period before the American Revolution. Edited by Walter H. Conser, Jr., Ronald M. McCarthy, David J. Toscano and Gene Sharp, the book was published in the United States in 1986. It argues that the Stamp Act resistance and other campaigns from 1765 to 1775 were fundamental for shaping the outcome of the struggle for American independence, and were not merely a "prelude" to armed conflict.
Direct action originated as a political activist term for economic and political acts in which the actors use their power to directly reach certain goals of interest; in contrast to those actions that appeal to others ; by, for example, revealing an existing problem, using physical violence, highlighting an alternative, or demonstrating a possible solution.
Peace psychology is a subfield of psychology and peace research that deals with the psychological aspects of peace, conflict, violence, and war. Peace psychology can be characterized by four interconnected pillars: (1) research, (2) education, (3) practice, and (4) advocacy. The first pillar, research, is documented most extensively in this article.
In Johan Galtung's 1969 paper, "Violence, Peace and Peace Research," he presents his theory of the Conflict Triangle, a framework used in the study of peace and conflict, with the purpose of defining the three key elements of violence that form this "triangle." The theory is based on the principle that peace must be defined by widely accepted social goals, and that any state of peace is characterized by the absence of violence. When a conflict has features of all three areas of violence, the result is a more consolidated, static state of violence in a social system, which may include a conflict or a nation-state, whereas the absence of these three typologies of violence results in peace.
Confidence-Building Defense is a military school of thought developed in the 1980s focused on conventional defense, with the purpose to defuse the East-West confrontation.
References
- 1 2 3 4 Gene Sharp (1997). "Transarmament" (p. 534) in: Roger S. Powers, William B. Vogele, Christopher Kruegler, Ronald M. McCarthy (1997), Protest, power, and change: an encyclopedia of nonviolent action from ACT-UP to women's suffrage. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-8153-0913-0
- ↑ Adam Roberts (ed.) (1968), Civilian resistance as a national defense: non-violent action against aggression. Stackpole Books. (320 pages)
- ↑ Adam Roberts (1969) "Transarmament to Civilian Defence" (pp. 336-348) in Adam Roberts (ed.), "Civilian Resistance as a National Defence," Baltimore, MD: Penguin/Pelican, 1969. (367 pages)
- ↑ Johan Galtung (1984). "Transarmament: From offensive to defensive defense". Journal of Peace Research. 21 (2): 127–139. doi:10.1177/002234338402100204.
- ↑ Wilhelm Agrell, "Offensive versus Defensive: Military Strategy and Alternative Defense", Journal of Peace Research 24(1), 1987; accessed via SagePub, DOI: 10.1177/002234338702400107.
- ↑ Johan Galtung, "From Disarmament to Transarmament: Evolving Trends in the Study of Disarmament and Security", June 1984; published 1986 in the UNESCO yearbook on peace and conflict studies.