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Unarmed Insurrections: People Power Movements in Nondemocracies
Pinpoints reasons for successes and failures of nonviolent protest movements
Kurt Schock compares, along with other examples, the successes of anti-apartheid in South Africa and the people power movement in the Philippines with the failures of the pro-democracy movement in China and the anti-regime challenge in Burma. Unarmed Insurrections looks at how these methods promoted change in some countries but not in others, and provides insight into the power of nonviolent action.
Winner of the American Political Science Association’s Comparative Democratization Section’s Best Book Award
"For too long the study of nonviolence has been oddly disconnected from the broader study of social movements and revolutions. With this smart, admirably empirical book Kurt Schock has joined the two, greatly enriching both in the process."
— Doug McAdam
Kurt Schock compares, along with other examples, the successes of anti-apartheid in South Africa and the people power movement in the Philippines with the failures of the pro-democracy movement in China and the anti-regime challenge in Burma. Unarmed Insurrections looks at how these methods promoted change in some countries but not in others, and provides insight into the power of nonviolent action.
Winner of the American Political Science Association’s Comparative Democratization Section’s Best Book Award
"For too long the study of nonviolence has been oddly disconnected from the broader study of social movements and revolutions. With this smart, admirably empirical book Kurt Schock has joined the two, greatly enriching both in the process."
— Doug McAdam
- GenresPolitics
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
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December 20, 2016
Short theoretical volume on how opposition movements that primarily rely on nonviolent methods can succeed or fail in opposing autocratic political systems. Draws on case studies from South Africa, the Philippines, Burma, China, Thailand, and Nepal.
The nonviolent action in focus here is the use of protests, strikes, and other “non-institutional” political actions, as distinct from opposition groups that participate in the formal political system. The book suggests that while some groups can do both, the Burmese protest movement in the early 1990s lost its ability to pressure the state when it adopted an electoral strategy – would be worth digging in more on the potential tensions between these strategies to see how divergent they may or may not be.
The author identifies decentralized organizations and networks are being more effective at surviving efforts at state repression than more hierarchical ones, but the book also notes the importance of umbrella coordinating organizations (and cites the absence of such groups as a factor in the collapse of the Tiananmen movement). Ultimately, these movements succeed when they split ruling elite coalitions, withhold cooperation that the regime relies upon, and form coalitions with third parties (usually external to the country) upon which the regime relies.
Lots of potential connections here to other works (Sinno, Bueno de Mesquita, Wickham).
The nonviolent action in focus here is the use of protests, strikes, and other “non-institutional” political actions, as distinct from opposition groups that participate in the formal political system. The book suggests that while some groups can do both, the Burmese protest movement in the early 1990s lost its ability to pressure the state when it adopted an electoral strategy – would be worth digging in more on the potential tensions between these strategies to see how divergent they may or may not be.
The author identifies decentralized organizations and networks are being more effective at surviving efforts at state repression than more hierarchical ones, but the book also notes the importance of umbrella coordinating organizations (and cites the absence of such groups as a factor in the collapse of the Tiananmen movement). Ultimately, these movements succeed when they split ruling elite coalitions, withhold cooperation that the regime relies upon, and form coalitions with third parties (usually external to the country) upon which the regime relies.
Lots of potential connections here to other works (Sinno, Bueno de Mesquita, Wickham).
Displaying 1 of 1 review