Browse Methods

Scholar Gene Sharp reviewed thousands of instances of nonviolent struggle and catalogued 198 different methods that were used in those encounters. At one point he called these methods "weapons," to emphasize that they are used in conflict situations. He listed them and gave historical examples of each in his 1973 book The Politics of Nonviolent Action. He grouped them into three broad categories: protest, noncooperation, and intervention, and then he further broke those into smaller classifications.

The methods of intervention may often be more directly confrontive, while the methods of noncooperation may in some situations be less so. These two groups of methods can be coercive, that is, make it impossible for an opponent to rule or carry out their policies. The other category, which Sharp calls "protest and persuasion," has methods that tend to be less confrontive, but in some situations (for example some police states) the opponent may consider them highly threatening and react accordingly.

We use Gene Sharp's classification of 198 methods in this database. He acknowledges that some methods can arguably be placed in a different category, depending on circumstance, and his classification should not be regarded as rigid. Some of the names of the methods may not be self-explanatory, so I have taken the liberty of interpreting some of them, often using Sharp's own words in the process. (Press the button "More" for further interpretation.) The material is drawn from his 1973 book, The Politics of Nonviolent Action: Part One, Power and Struggle (Boston: Porter Sargeant Publishers). Any errors I make of interpretation are my responsibility alone.

Additional methods: In researching for this database we have identified methods beyond Sharp's 198. They may of course be controversial. The user encountering them in reading the cases will probably want to return to this page and press the "More" button for those methods in order to discover our rationale for adding these methods to the 198. - George Lakey, 20/8/11

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THE METHODS OF NONVIOLENT PROTEST AND PERSUASION

Formal Statements

001. Public speeches

002. Letters of opposition or support
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Primarily private letters signed by individuals or groups; sometimes they may be revealed publicly, but even so they take the form of a private letter and are directed to an opponent or someone who is taking a stand that one agrees with.

003. Declarations by organizations and institutions

004. Signed public statements
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These are directed primarily to the general public.

005. Declarations of indictment and intention
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These go beyond stating a point of view (#003) to imply action, as in the Declaration of Independence (U.S. 1776).

006. Group or mass petitions

Communications with a wider audience

007. Slogans, caricatures, and symbols

008. Banners, posters, and displayed communications
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This has also been expanded to include webpages and openly visible internet media when used as a form of protest.

009. Leaflets, pamphlets, and books
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This can also include webpages and internet media

010. Newspapers and journals

011. Records, radio, and television
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The use of the internet, as a form of mass communication, is sometimes included under this method.

012. Skywriting and earthwriting

Group representations

013. Deputations
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This action consists of a representative delegation meeting with the party responsible for a grievance, in order to present grievances or to propose a new policy. Also see the similar method, 015.

014. Mock awards

015. Group lobbying
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When lobbying of a parliamentary representative is done by a collective group of that representative's constituents, the act becomes a form of nonviolent action. Group lobbying differs from deputations in that it is generally directed towards elected governmental officials. Also see the similar method, 015.

016. Picketing

017. Mock elections

Symbolic public acts

018. Displays of flags and symbolic colors

019. Wearing of symbols

020. Prayer and worship

021. Delivering symbolic objects

022. Protest disrobings

023. Destruction of own property
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An example of voluntary destruction of one's own property is the public burning of British tea collected from homes of American patriots in Charleston, S.C., in 1775. Sharp includes in this category material that is technically "owned" by the government but which are carried by persons, such as the draft cards (certificates of military conscription) carried by young men in the U.S. and which were publicly burned in protest during the Vietnam war.

024. Symbolic lights

025. Displays of portraits

026. Paint as protest
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This includes painting over signs (including numbers) on navy ships, and public resistance art.

027. New signs and names

028. Symbolic sounds

029. Symbolic reclamations
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These demonstrate a creative alternative to the disputed existing use or ownership, for example cultivating neglected or seized land by planting seeds or trees.

030. Rude gestures

Pressures on individuals

031. "Haunting" officials
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Activists follow officials and remind them of their presence even in unexpected places like parties or golf courses.

032. Taunting officials

033. Fraternization
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Socializing with, for example, police or soldiers, with the intention of gaining them as allies or at least reducing their capacity to injure the campaign. This is the opposite of the social boycott.

034. Vigils

Drama and Music

035. Humorous skits and pranks

036. Performances of plays and music

037. Singing

Processions

038. Marches
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A march is a group of people intending to reach a particular point for a reason: it is the seat of government, or the place where an atrocity has been committed, or the burial place where a martyr is to be laid to rest, or a place where civil disobedience or some other action will then take place.

039. Parades
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In a parade the point of destination is not politically significant; it is only a convenient place of termination.

040. Religious processions
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A march or a parade with a religious character.

041. Pilgrimages
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A walk (by individual or group) that has deep moral and religious qualities; it may last for days or months, often dispensing with banners in order to emphasize the spiritual dimension while at the same time intending to have an impact on the outward situation. Other forms of transportation can also be used in addition to walking.

042. Motorcades
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The same as a march or parade except that participants drive cars at slow speed.

Honoring the dead

043. Political mourning
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Honoring a person or group that was injured or died, or a valued policy or practice that has been violated or destroyed. Often using traditional symbols of mourning, this act is done in a spirit of sadness and at the same time is intended to have political impact. It is not an actual funeral: see 045. It does not take place at a burial site: see 046.

044. Mock funerals
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Similar to 043 except that the action takes the form of a funeral, or a funeral procession. It is not an actual funeral: see 045.

045. Demonstrative funerals
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Participants in a funeral turn that actual ceremony into a protest.

046. Homage at burial places
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The demonstration takes place at the burial site of someone connected symbolically or in reality with the struggle.

Public assemblies

047. Assemblies of protest or support
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These occur at places important to the content of the demonstration; at the courthouse if protesting a judge’s decision, for example, or the Gestapo headquarters to demand return of the Jewish husbands arrested. See 048.

048. Protest meetings
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These happen wherever convenient. See 047.

049. Camouflaged meetings of protest

050. Teach-ins

Withdrawal and renunciation

051. Walk-outs
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Expressing political objections by leaving some form of meeting or assembly before it has been adjourned. Also see 098 for an economic variation on this form of withdrawal and renunciation.

052. Silence

053. Renouncing honours

054. Turning one's back

THE METHODS OF NONCOOPERATION

SOCIAL NONCOOPERATION

Ostracism of persons

055. Social boycott

056. Selective social boycott
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A social boycott restricted to a particular type of relationship; for example, if the labor leader is willing to negotiate with a corporate executive but refuses to shake hands and engage in polite conversation in the presence of the mass media.

057. Lysistratic nonaction
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Refusal of sex (a form of selective social boycott) until policy demands are met.

058. Excommunication

059. Interdict
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The leadership of a church or faith group suspends religious services and activities in a given district or country for a specific period.

Noncooperation with social events, customs and institutions

060. Suspension of social and sports activities

061. Boycott of social affairs

062. Student strike

063. Social disobedience
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Refusing to follow social norms or rules, for example two males being a couple at a school dance, or defying clothing norms.

064. Withdrawal from social institutions

Withdrawal from the social system

065. Stay-at-home

066. Total personal noncooperation
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Refusal of a prisoner to do almost anything except breathe because he believes his arrest is unjust.

067. "Flight" of workers

068. Sanctuary
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Withdrawal to a location, such as a holy place, where one cannot be touched by an opponent without the violation of religious, moral, social, or legal prohibitions.

069. Collective disappearance
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Often temporary abandonment by a population of the usual place of living in order to frustrate opponents. See 070.

070. Protest emigration (hijrat)
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Also called voluntary exile, it is migrating to another political jurisdiction as a protest. In this database see 1989 case of East Germans doing protest emigration.

ECONOMIC NONCOOPERATION: BOYCOTTS

Action by consumers

071. Consumers' boycott

072. Nonconsumption of boycotted goods

073. Policy of austerity

074. Rent withholding

075. Refusal to rent

076. National consumers' boycott
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This is used in an international struggle, when one country (or colony or occupied country) refuses to buy products or use services from another country.

077. International consumers' boycott

Action by workers and producers

078. Workers' boycott
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Workers refusing to work with supplies or tools that are objectionable for some reason, such as having been made by non-union labor.

079. Producers' boycott
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Refusal to sell or deliver their products, or even refusal to produce a product. Sharp cites the Norwegian farmers who refused to deliver to the king the food needed by the soldiers; as a result three wars were brought to a halt. (p. 231) See 081.

Action by middlemen

080. Suppliers' and handlers' boycott

Action by owners and management

081. Traders' boycott
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In this method retailers (rather than the producers) refuse to buy or sell certain goods.

082. Refusal to let or sell property

083. Lockout
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The employer creates a work stoppage by temporarily closing down the operation of the firm.

084. Refusal of industrial assistance
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This includes refusing to give technical assistance and advice.

085. Merchants' "general strike"
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The effort to paralyze an economy by merchants closing their stores and businesses. When combined with a general strike, this creates an economic shutdown. See 117 and 119

Action by holders of financial resources

086. Withdrawal of bank deposits

087. Refusal to pay fees, dues, and assessments

088. Refusal to pay debts or interest

089. Severance of funds and credit
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Cutting off an opponent’s sources of money.

090. Revenue refusal
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Often taking the form of refusal to pay taxes or refusal to buy licenses, this refers to an individual or group's refusal to voluntarily provide revenue to the government. See 087

091. Refusal of a government's money

Action by governments

092. Domestic embargo
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A government initiates an economic boycott within its country, against selected opponents.

093. Blacklisting of traders

094. International sellers' embargo
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A government (or more than one) refuses to allow selling a product (or products) to another country as a means of pressure. Often called a “boycott” in the mass media. See 095, 096.

095. International buyers' embargo
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When a government or governments prohibit the buying of a product (or products) from another country. See 094, 096.

096. International trade embargo
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The combination of sellers’ and buyers’ embargoes – a total (or near total) prohibition of trade.

ECONOMIC NONCOOPERATION: STRIKES

Symbolic strikes

097. Protest strike
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Also called token strike and demonstration strike, lasts for a preannounced amount of time, often one hour or a day. No specific demands are made, but this action is merely an expression of a viewpoint or feelings on an issue. A protest strike is sometimes used as a warning before other forms of the strike are used.

098. Quickie walkout (lightning strike)

Agricultural strikes

099. Peasant strike

100. Farm workers' strike
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These are workers hired for wages, in contrast to the peasant strike, 099.

Strikes by special groups

101. Refusal of impressed labor

102. Prisoners' strike

103. Craft strike

104. Professional strike
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Strikes by teachers, doctors, and civil servants would fall under this category.

Ordinary industrial strikes

105. Establishment strike
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All the workers employed by a company no matter where their work site is, or what the nature of their job is.

106. Industry strike
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All the workers in a locality who work for the same industry, no matter what company they work for. For example, all the workers in a region’s coal mines, even though the mines are owned by five different companies.

107. Sympathy strike

Restricted strikes

108. Detailed strike
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The workforce is organized into sections, striking in sequence. For example, in a clothing strike the pants-makers struck one day, the vest-makers the next, and finally the coat-makers. (Sharp, 269.) See 109.

109. Bumper strike
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Similar to 108, in which a union strikes only one firm in an industry at a time. See 108.

110. Slowdown strike

111. Working-to-rule strike
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Observing all the rules and regulations so carefully that output is sharply reduced.

112. Reporting "sick." (sick-in)

113. Strike by resignation

114. Limited strike
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Workers continue to do most of their duties efficiently, but refuse to perform certain marginal work, or refuse overtime, or refuse to work on certain days.

115. Selective strike
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Workers refuse only to do certain types of work, objecting to the tasks themselves. In 1971 U.S. longshoremen in Philadelphia refused to load weapons on Pakistani ships because they were bound for use against the Bengalis.

Multi-industry strikes

116. Generalised strike
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Several industries are struck simultaneously in an area, but the strikers are less than a majority of the workers in the important industries in that area. See General strike, 117.

117. General strike
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Widespread stoppage of labor attempting to bring the economic life of the area to a standstill. Can be used on local, regional, national, or international level. May intentionally leave certain vital services operating (food and water, hospital, e.g.). See Generalized strike, 116, and Economic shutdown, 119.

Combination of strikes and economic closures

118. Hartal
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Indian method of protest in which economic life of an area is suspended on voluntary basis to show extreme dissatisfaction with a policy, etc. Usually 1-2 days long, not expected to have economic impact.

119. Economic shutdown
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Economic paralysis, when workers strike while employers and small shopkeepers halt economic activities. Can be powerful when an area is under occupation. This is a combination of the General strike, 117, and the Merchant's "general strike", 085.

POLITICAL NONCOOPERATION

Rejection of authority

120. Withholding or withdrawal of allegiance
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A refusal to recognize a regime as legally or morally deserving allegiance. Margaret DeMarco cites the refusal of Canadian Iroquois in 1921 to become Canadian citizens (Sharp, 288). The key word here is “refusal of allegiance;” see 121.

121. Refusal of public support
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At times a regime needs or requests open public support but fails to get it, for example in people refusing to turn out to listen to the governmental leader give a speech. The key word here is “refusal of support;” see 120.

122. Literature and speeches advocating resistance

Citizens’ noncooperation with government

123. Boycott of legislative bodies

124. Boycott of elections

125. Boycott of government employment and positions

126. Boycott of government departments, agencies, and other bodies

127. Withdrawal from governmental educational institutions

128. Boycott of government-supported institutions

129. Refusal of assistance to enforcement agents

130. Removal of own signs and placemarks

131. Refusal to accept appointed officials

132. Refusal to dissolve existing institutions

Citizens’ alternatives to obedience

133. Reluctant and slow compliance

134. Nonobedience in absence of direct supervision

135. Popular nonobedience
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This is disregarding or violating laws or regulations but not doing it openly. It differs from civil disobedience in that it is not confrontational. See 141.

136. Disguised disobedience
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This is defiance made to look like compliance. When German Nazis demanded lists of concert pieces to be performed, in order to crack down on the jazz they wished to suppress, they were given lists of jazz tunes with new names: “Tiger Rag” became “Black Panther,” and “Black Bottom” became “Black Earth.” (Sharp, 307). If this is done by government employees, it may be 143 or 144.

137. Refusal of an assemblage or meeting to disperse

138. Sitdown

139. Noncooperation with conscription and deportation

140. Hiding, escape, and false identities

141. Civil disobedience of "illegitimate" laws
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Deliberate, open, and peaceful violation of laws, decrees and regulations. See 135.

Action by government personnel

142. Selective refusal of assistance by government aides
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By contrast with 143 and 144, this kind of refusal is clear and open, at least to the supervisors of the employees who do this.

143. Blocking of lines of command and information

144. Stalling and obstruction

145. General administrative noncooperation
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This is when the majority of government administrative workers refuse to cooperate with orders from the top. The main point in this method is that it is large-scale. See 142.

146. Judicial noncooperation

147. Deliberate inefficiency and selective noncooperation by enforcement agents

148. Mutiny

Domestic governmental action

149. Quasi-legal evasions and delays
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Units of government may legally be prevented from defying laws or court decisions that they disagree with, so instead they find more subtle ways to noncooperate. On a structural level, this is like 144, Stalling and obstruction, but it is done by units (like departments) rather than individuals. See 150.

150. Noncooperation by constituent governmental units
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Under some conditions local governmental bodies may openly defy central authority.

International governmental action

151. Changes in diplomatic and other representation

152. Delay and cancellation of diplomatic events

153. Withholding of diplomatic recognition

154. Severance of diplomatic relations

155. Withdrawal from international organizations

156. Refusal of membership in international bodies

157. Expulsion from international organisations

THE METHODS OF NONVIOLENT INTERVENTION

Psychological intervention

158. Self-exposure to the elements

159. The fast (fast of moral pressure, hunger strike, satyagrahic fast)

160. Reverse trial
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Courtroom trials in which the accused turns the table and through words and body language assumes the role of prosecutor, putting on trial the law or policy at issue.

161. Nonviolent harassment
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Heightening private and public pressures on those who the campaigners believe are doing wrong, through, for example, “haunting” (31) or “taunting” (32) to an extreme extent. Sharp describes the art as developed by slavery abolitionists in the U.S. North to stop slave-hunters from catching runaway slaves (pp. 369-70).

Physical intervention

162. Sit-in

163. Stand-in

164. Ride-in
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Best known in the version called “freedom rides” to stop bus companies in the U.S. from discriminating against African Americans.

165. Wade-in

166. Mill-in
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Campaigners gather in a significant place but instead of sitting in or conducting a sit-down, they remain mobile. May be less confrontational than, for example, an occupation. May impede the normal operations in a site but the method does not intend to obstruct the activities. See 172.

167. Pray-in

168. Nonviolent raids
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Volunteers march to designated key points and demand possession. The method does not require that they succeed in entering the site, but they nevertheless try. See 170.

169. Nonviolent air raids

170. Nonviolent invasion
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The campaigners deliberately and openly enter a forbidden area. See 171.

171. Nonviolent interjection
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Placing one’s body between a person and the objective of his work or activity, or between a soldier/police officer and a demonstrator, or placing oneself in the path of a vehicle. It is different from nonviolent obstruction (172) in that there is not a big enough obstacle actually to block the other. In the case, for example, of putting oneself in the path of a train or truck, the aim is to change the decision of the driver who will then stop the vehicle. See 172.

172. Nonviolent obstruction
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Physical blocking, which depends on the number of bodies in relation to the space and how they organize themselves. The large number and arrangement of participants is such that the opponent's intended action is not physically possible. When in 1956, 10,000 people occupied a site in Sunakawa, Japan, intended for a U.S. air base; it turned out to be nonviolent obstruction. The plan for the air base was given up. See 171 and 173.

173. Nonviolent occupation
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This may be used after a nonviolent invasion (170) or a raid (168). It may also be used by people who have been ordered to leave their land or building. In Egypt in 2011 the campaigners who assembled in Tahrir Square to protest (047) were ordered to disperse; they maintained an occupation for weeks despite Mubarak’s effort violently to eject them. Some writers include in the term "occupation" what in this database is called a "stay-in strike" (#182), in which workers "occupy" their factory while still refusing to work, and also what we call a "nonviolent land seizure" (#183). This means that if you were searching for all cases in which what is loosely called "occupation" was used, you should search not only for 173 but also for 182 and 183.

Social intervention

174. Establishing new social patterns

175. Overloading of facilities

176. Stall-in
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Unlike the action by government employees to prevent implementation of something objectionable, 144, this action is done by customers and clients. An example is bank customers taking a half hour to do what is normally done in a few minutes, an action done in the civil rights movement. (Sharp p. 395)

177. Speak-in
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The campaigners interrupt a meeting, religious service, or other gathering to raise an issue; it interrupts a social norm.

178. Guerrilla theatre

179. Alternative social institutions
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This method creates new institutions that challenge the opponent’s preferred social norms – not only behaviors, like same sex couples offering public displays of affection, 174, but institutions. When Nazi Germany occupied Poland, Polish citizens set up an educational system independent of Nazi control. (Sharp 399) See 180.

180. Alternative communication system
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This is a specific alternative social institution, using whatever media can be made to work outside the regime’s effort to monopolize communication, like underground radio stations.

Economic intervention

181. Reverse strike
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Workers or the unemployed work when they are not expected to or even forbidden to work. In one of Sharp’s examples this method was so threatening that police shot at the unemployed Sicilian men trying to build a road. (Sharp p. 403)

182. Stay-in strike
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Best known as the “sit-down” strike; when used by miners it has been called a stay-down strike. Striking workers remain in their workplace, often as a means of preventing the continued use of the facility by strikebreakers or others. This method may be included by some writers in the general term "occupation," along with nonviolent land seizure (#183) and nonviolent occupation (#173). This means that if you are searching for all cases in which what is loosely called "occupation" was used, you should search not only for 182 but also 173 and 183.

183. Nonviolent land seizure
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These are nonviolent occupations in which the campaigners expect that the ownership of the land or facility will shift to them when they win the struggle. See also 173 and 182. Note that all three of these methods may be lumped together in the term "occupation" by writers and in popular discussion.

184. Defiance of blockades

185. Politically motivated counterfeiting

186. Preclusive purchasing
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Buying strategic commodities in world markets to prevent an opponent from getting them.

187. Seizure of assets

188. Dumping
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Selling a commodity at a lower-than-market price to pressure an opponent.

189. Selective patronage
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Campaigners urge customers to buy from a retailer or producer who subscribes to the principles of the campaign (for example, an environmentally sustainable product).

190. Alternative markets
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Creating alternative, illegal channels for buying and selling goods and services to build the strength of the campaigners and the society they seek to build.

191. Alternative transportation systems

192. Alternative economic institutions
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“For example, when consumers’ or producers’ cooperatives are engaged in conflict with capitalist or State industries, or when the cooperatives are being deliberately developed and expanded to replace the existing economic system, or part of it, they constitute economic intervention.” (Sharp, p. 415)

Political intervention

193. Overloading of administrative systems

194. Disclosing identities of secret agents

195. Seeking imprisonment

196. Civil disobedience of "neutral" laws

197. Work-on without collaboration
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When the top authority of a government or institution changes hands, and the employees want to resist, they continue to do their jobs in the old way, following the previous policies until replaced. This is similar to 145 but the stress is on collective resistance through persistently adhering to the policies of the previous administration which are declared to be still legitimate.

198. Dual sovereignty and parallel government

ADDITIONAL METHODS (named subsequent to Sharp’s list)

199. Nonviolent confinement
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In this method the campaigners restrict someone's freedom of movement, in a way that does not rely on physical barriers, and without the use or threat of injurious force. This method is similar to Nonviolent obstruction (172) in that the physical mass of bodies might restrict freedom of movement, and Nonviolent interjection (171) in which the psychological impact might do the same. However, interjection and obstruction are intended to prevent the opponent from carrying out an action which is objected to. Nonviolent confinement may have additional uses: to strongly pressure the opponent to do something they would rather not do (negotiate a peace treaty) or to restrain someone who is judged to be irrational and needs a human container in order to come to their right mind.
When the Liberian women's peace movement realized that delegates in a hotel to negotiate peace were not in fact doing so, the women surrounded the building and refused to let the delegates leave until a settlement was made ("Liberian women act to end civil war, 2003"). Nepalese students reportedly used the method in this same way at the castle in Khatmandu in 2001. In the Amazonian rainforest of Ecuador the ARCO oil company wanted to drill for oil. A delegation from the government and ARCO flew their helicopter into the jungle to meet with indigenous leaders, who confiscated the helicopter keys, felled trees across the airstrip and presented the delegation with a list of demands. The delegation was, they said, free to walk back to the city (the nearest road was four days away). After twelve days the officials signed an agreement ("Ecuadorian indigenous peoples resist oil drilling in the Amazon, 1989-1994").

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