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Nonviolent Paths to Social Change

March 2009

March 2009

The past 30 years have seen a surge of nonviolent, “people power” movements around the world advancing human rights and toppling repressive rulers. This edition of eJournal USA demonstrates that nonviolent actions can be more powerful than armed insurrections in bringing about social change.

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Inside This Publication

Volume 14, Number 3 | March 2009

From the Editors

Why Nonviolence Works

  • The Power of Nonviolent Action

    Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics, University of San Francisco
    Armed insurgencies impose great human costs. Nonviolent “people power” movements succeed by calling attention to official repression and winning support from the undecided.

  • Nonviolent Thought Through U.S. History

    Ira Chernus, Professor of Religious Studies, University of Colorado at Boulder
    Rooted in 16th-century Europe, the intellectual traditions of nonviolent thought and action developed in the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries and traveled abroad to Asia and Africa.

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    Democracy and Prosperity

    Established democracies have some of the world’s most dynamic, innovative and productive economies, but questions remain about whether poor or transitioning democracies will be able achieve sustained economic growth and which policies their governments need to pursue to realize that growth.

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Generating Grassroots Change

  • What Do Community Organizers Do?

    Kathy Partridge, Executive Director, Interfaith Funders
    Millions of U.S. citizens have used community organizers to teach them how to press governments to do the right thing. Warfare is not part of the natural condition of man. Civilization promotes less violent ways of effecting change.

  • The E-Campaign: Rallying Volunteers and Voters

    David Talbot, Chief Correspondent, Technology Review
    The 2008 election victory of Barack Obama showed that Web-based tools for donating money and efficiently harnessing the efforts of large numbers of volunteers can be extraordinarily powerful.

  • Harnessing the Power of Protest

    Clay Shirky, Professor, New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program
    Simple new telecommunications tools are removing obstacles to collective action by ordinary people, and thus changing the world.

Science Suggesting Solutions

  • Will War Ever End?

    John Horgan, Director, Center for Science Writings, Stevens Institute of Technology
    Warfare is not part of the natural condition of man. Civilization promotes less violent ways of effecting change.

  • The Prisoner’s Dilemma and Other Opportunities

    David P. Barash, Professor of Psychology, University of Washington
    Game theory suggests that, although it is not at all simple to accomplish, cooperation can often be shown to be preferable to conflict.

Seven Changing the World

  • There is no single formula for implementing meaningful social change in a world of such daunting complexity and diversity. Writer Howard Cincotta here describes seven individuals who demonstrate how such change can be accomplished.

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