Pranksters vs. Autocrats: Why Dilemma Actions Advance Nonviolent Activism

Brown Democracy Medal

by Srdja Popovic, Sophia A. McClennen

The Lawrence and Lynne Brown Democracy Medal, presented by the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State, recognizes outstanding individuals, groups, and organizations that produce innovations to further democracy in the United States or around the world.

The 2020 Brown Democracy Medal winner, Srdja Popovic, was a leader in the revolution that brought down the Milosevic regime in Serbia and he contin-ues to help protestors around the world learn effective, sometimes humorous, nonviolent tactics. In 2020, he teamed up with Sophia A. McClennen to study the concept of dilemma actions, which offers a structured, strategic approach to fighting back against authoritarianism, as well as for defending democracy.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Activism

65 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 15, 2020

About the author

Srdja Popovic is a Serbian political activist and executive director of the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS). He was a leader of the student movement Otpor!, which helped topple Serbian president Slobodan Milošević. He has taught at the Harvard Kennedy School, NYU, and the University of Colorado, among others. He lives in Belgrade.

Reviews

[Aubrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a published dissertation esqe academic piece. Kudos to these writers for how accessible and fun such a research heavy read was!

This was a good read for me that challenged me to think very critically about the purpose of strategic action.

Stand out ideas include using “laughism” to melt fear and apathy among the public. The goal is to put oppressors between a rock and a hard place where they either look stupid for arresting peaceful - and silly! - demonstrators, or don’t do anything at all.

I found myself being defensive at times because oppression and authoritarianism is no laughing matter. But these authors have done their research and the numbers show that deeply funny and silly activism really works in gaining media coverage, new members, public favor, and momentum.

[Miha Rekar · Rating 3 out of 5]

After being so enthralled by Blueprint For Revolution I wanted to read another book by Srđa. Unfortunately this one is a very short and somehow watered-down version of Blueprint's highlights. It focuses only on dilemma actions: what they are and why they work. Then there's some extra talk about _laughtivism_, but again, nothing that Blueprint doesn't cover.

The only new datapoint for me was a link to a [BBC article](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20...) which claims that nonviolent protests engaging a threshold of 3.5% of the population have **never failed** to bring about change.

So yeah, feel free to skip this one. But do read Blueprint For Revolution. Please.

[Soeph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Das gibt irgendwie voll Hoffnung :')

[Tinka Makarová · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really short but engaging look on how to fight against (wannabe) authoritarian regimes in a non-violent and even funny ways. Reading this considering the current political climate here in Slovakia, this was quite delightful. The backdrop of sidewalks full of funny and playful jabs at the government was simply too perfect.

[Zoe Peritz · Rating 4 out of 5]

idk if this counts as a book but I want credit for reading an academic paper while not in school

[Pat Perkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is essentially a research paper turned into a small pamphlet, but it’s well-written with excellent examples. Any activist can read this on an hour and come up with great advice on how to promote their nonviolent direct action.

[Jerzy · Rating 3 out of 5]

* p.35: "...you help show that your vision is not a radical threat to society, but, rather, that your target is the real threat."

I was hoping for a bit more detail & examples about how to do "dilemma actions," but this particular book seems to be more of an elevator pitch for the concept, aimed at people who aren't sold on it yet. And indeed, the subtitle says: "Why dilemma actions advance nonviolent activism." I have to admit the sales-pitch language is a bit too much for me (with chapter titles like "Laughtivism: The Secret Ingredient").

But I'm still glad I read it---it's a very quick read, and it does explain briefly the big picture idea of "dilemma actions" along with telling the story of a few good examples. They also cite resources that do have a lot more detail, such as the CANVAS Core Curriculum, or Beautiful Trouble, or the Global Nonviolent Action Database.

So, what are dilemma actions? Resistance actions that try to put the oppressors into a lose-lose situation: either they intervene to stop you & punish you over something really silly or stupid, and thus lose face by showing how repressive they are... or they don't intervene, and thus show that it's possible to stand up to them and get away with it.

* Example: Gandhi's salt protests. The British in India had a ridiculous law prohibiting people from making their own salt from seawater, so that the Brits could tax salt sales. Gandhi and others pushed back on this, encouraging people to make their own salt (as they had used to). The dilemma now for the Brits was: should they jail Gandhi over such a silly thing, making themselves look stupid and openly repressive? Or should they let it slide, making themselves look like they don't enforce their authority and emboldening further resistance? They chose to arrest Gandhi, who was able to leverage that repressive action to inspire deeper anger with the regime.

Dilemma actions DON'T necessarily lead to toppling a regime right away, of course!
Rather, the immediate goals of dilemma actions are to:
* p.8: "shift public narratives of might opponents from 'scary and powerful' to 'weak and laughable.' They also work as a recruiting tool for new members because they show the public that engaging in nonviolent resistance can be fun and satisfying. They lead to media coverage..."
* p.11: "counteract fear and apathy, two underestimated enemies of reform. Fear and apathy drive the status quo and block positive social change..."

Part of the advice here is to focus on issues where a majority of the public ALREADY agrees with you, but might not yet feel bold enough to speak out about it. It is NOT about changing the minds of people who are deeply committed to the regime; it's about emboldening and drawing in participation from those who are unhappy with the regime, but who either feel too afraid or too hopeless to join in protesting. Use dilemma actions to get the ball rolling and get people to start talking openly about social or political issues. (But you also need follow-through plans for what to do next, to keep the momentum up---true change won't come from a one-and-done event.)

* p.29: "...review the opponent's policies for burdensome restrictions on people's day-to-day activities ... Shadowy revelations are not the sort of policy we're looking for here. We mean the big, obvious, slap-in-the-face affronts, the ones that are already under everyone's noses."

Here in the USA in 2026, I guess this means that for dilemma-action purposes: Don't be too broad (e.g. protesting against Trump in general). And don't prioritize an issue that doesn't have majority support yet (e.g. nuances of immigration policy or trans rights, where I might *believe* that my own views are on the right side of history but sadly it's clear that many Americans still disagree). Instead, try to find an issue where Trump's administration is pissing off even Trump voters, hitting them directly in the pocketbook or daily life (perhaps such as the rising cost of health insurance and closing of rural hospitals? -- here in central Maine you can't help noticing these things and being negatively affected by them, even if you otherwise agree with Trump on culture-war issues). THEN think creatively about how to build a dilemma action around one such unifying issue.

That does NOT mean you shouldn't ever protest in support of trans rights etc.! It just might not be the best topic for specifically the kind of dilemma actions proposed in this book.

You want your action to get visibility and attention, ideally mass-media coverage. But you also want to avoid doing it in a way that makes it easy for the regime to counter-criticize you. You should be putting THEM in a lose-lose situation, not giving them a chance to throw it back in YOUR face. By contrast, the authors mention examples like Pussy Riot's "Punk Prayer" in Russia, or NFL players kneeling during the national anthem -- these got a lot of visibility, but it was too easy for the Russians to denounce Pussy Riot for desecrating a religious institution, or for the Americans to denounce the kneeling players for disrespecting the anthem, flag, and veterans.

***(I really wish that the authors of this book talked more about these two examples! What would they recommend doing INSTEAD in these situations? Are there more effective ways that NFL players could have drawn attention to the cause, without drawing the same kind of (stupid but apparently effective) allegations of unpatriotic behavior?)***

More detailed good advice about designing a dilemma action is apparently in Sørensen and Martin (2014), "The dilemma action: Analysis of an activist technique".

* p.30: "1. The action needs a constructive, positive element... 2. Activists should use surprise or unpredictability... 3. Opponents' prime choices should be in different domains... which means that the choices are difficult to compare... 4. Dilemma actions should seek a timing that appeals to mass media coverage, making it difficult for authorities to ignore... 5. Appealing to widely held beliefs increases pressure..."

They also cite the Chenoweth & Stephan "3.5% rule" where apparently, in their data, movements with active support of over 3.5% of the population have always ended in successful political change for the better. I was hoping to read the original source of that number, but it's unclear: apparently it's from a TED talk, or maybe a full-length book, or maybe somewhere else? Their data is online, so maybe I should have my own students analyze it...

Finally, the authors end with a summary of their own research, categorizing 44 dilemma actions from the 1930s to the present and measuring their "success rates" in various ways. To their credit, the authors admit that this is a small sample size, and also that there is sampling bias in favor of actions that DID receive media attention---otherwise they wouldn't have been able to find a record of it.

Overall, this wasn't exactly the kind of book I was looking for. But the authors are doing important work and this book is a reasonable starting place for this topic.

[Nicole Hazlett · Rating 4 out of 5]

More of a long essay/overview of research the authors did to add evidence to the idea that nonviolent activism works, provided that it has certain components. These include appealing to widely held beliefs, forcing opponents to face a dilemma (where acting makes them look stupid and/or repressive, and not acting makes them look weak), and doing something unpredictable enough to garner media attention. They often refer to using humor to one's advantage.

[Leorah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a great introductory analysis of dilemma actions and their intersection with laughtivism. Highly recommend for organizers and activists at any level as you plan your movement and consider the ways to maximize your impact and make your voice heard. I found myself highlighting things in every section!

[Ms. Beeman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought-provoking and encouraging.

[Scot · Rating 3 out of 5]

My 3 star rating (more like 3.5), reflects the fact that this is more of an overview than a deep dive into dilemma actions and laughtivism. I actually would recommend this to anyone that is interested in learning the basics of what those words mean and how one could consider applying them to the issues they care about the most.

A dilemma action is one in which you put the target (dictator, evil corporation, local bureaucrat, anti-democratic organizations, etc.) into the position where they have two choices and they both harm their reputation. The dilemma is usually between non-action which makes them look like they don't care or the protestors are correct or over-reaction which does the same and adds making them look silly or violent.

As a fan of non-violent action versus violent reaction, I also understand that people can get to serious or overreact or get paralyzed along the way and that prevents a movement from growing. The general idea behind laughtivism is to make things silly by involving clowns or memes or funny props or improv or something fun you come up with. As a huge believer in the tenet that if its not fun, its not worth doing, this is right up my alley. If we can't laugh at our oppressors, our seriousness may stop us before they do.

Again, I would recommend this as a basic primer for anyone that this is new to and also recommend checking out the Brown Democracy Medal series which is available for free through Cornell Press - https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/...

[Henrik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fint essay 3.5*, et godt bidrag i diskusjonen.
Dette er slik "Blueprint for revolution", hans tidligere bok, burde vært.
Essayet i seg selv er interessant og formen er fin. Jeg liker at han her fokuserer på "dilemma actions" i stedet for laughtivism. Det eneste som mangler er mer selvkritikk av metode.

Når han for eksempel kommer til komplusjonen at 60% av demonstrasjoner som benyttet seg av "laughtivism" [Reduced] risk of severe punishment to activists, and in case of oppressive
answer,[made] it backfire? så er det uklart hvordan de ulike bestanddelene er operasjonalisert.

Etter hvilke kriterier ble dette evaluert? Hvilke definisjoner ble brukt? Hvilke (søke)strategier ble brukt for å identifisere ulike demonstrasjoner som skulle inngå i datamaterialet?

Han skriver selv at studien er preliminær, men likevel, konklusjonene hans er ikke like beskjedne.