1The term used in this context was introduced by Robert Helvey. “Political defiance” is nonviolent struggle (protest, noncooperation, and intervention) applied defiantly and actively for political purposes. The term originated in response to the confusion and distortion created by equating nonviolent struggle with pacifism and moral or religious “nonviolence.” “Defiance” denotes a deliberate challenge to authority by disobedience, allowing no room for submission. “Political defiance” describes the environment in which the action is employed (political) as well as the objective (political power). The term is used principally to describe action by populations to regain from dictatorships control over governmental institutions by relentlessly attacking their sources of power and deliberately using strategic planning and operations to do so. In this paper, political defiance, nonviolent resistance, and nonviolent struggle will be used interchangeably, although the latter two terms generally refer to struggles with a broader range of objectives.
2Freedom House, Freedom in the World, http://www.freedomhouse.org.
3Ibid.
4Patrick Sarsfield O’Hegarty, A History of Ireland Under the Union, 1880–1922 (London: Methuen, 1952), pp. 490–91.
5Krishnalal Shridharani, War Without Violence: A Study of Gandhi’s Method and Its Accomplishments (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1939, and reprint New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1972), p. 260.
6Aristotle, The Politics, transl. by T. A. Sinclair (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England, and Baltimore, Maryland: Penguin Books 1976 [1962]), Book V, Chapter 12, pp. 231 and 232.
7This story, originally titled “Rule by Tricks” is from Yu-li-zi by Liu Ji (1311–1375) and has been translated by Sidney Tai, all rights reserved. Yu-li-zi is also the pseudonym of Liu Ji. The translation was originally published in Nonviolent Sanctions: News from the Albert Einstein Institution (Cambridge, Mass.), Vol. IV, No. 3 (Winter 1992–1993), p. 3.
8Karl W. Deutsch, “Cracks in the Monolith,” in Carl J. Friedrich, ed., Totalitarianism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954), pp. 313–14.
9John Austin, Lectures on Jurisprudence or the Philosophy of Positive Law (Fifth edition, revised and edited by Robert Campbell, 2 vol., London: John Murray, 1911 [1861]), Vol. I, p. 296.
10Niccolo Machiavelli, “The Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy,” in The Discourses of Niccolo Machiavelli (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1950), Vol. I, p. 254.
11See Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1973), p. 75 and passim for other historical examples.
12Robert Helvey, personal communication, 15 August 1993.
13Recommended full-length studies are Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, (Boston, Massachusetts: Porter Sargent, 1973) and Peter Ackerman and Christopher Kruegler, Strategic Nonviolent Conflict, (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1994). Also see Gene Sharp, Waging Nonviolent Stuggle: Twentieth Century Practice and Twenty-First Century Potential. Boston: Porter Sargent, 2005.
14Aristotle, The Politics, Book V, Chapter 12, p. 233.
15See Gene Sharp, Civilian-Based Defense: A Post-Military Weapons System (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1990).
16This list, with definitions and historical examples, is taken from Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part Two, The Methods of Nonviolent Action.