definition for: #CivilResistance

NVCR stands for Nonviolent Civil Resistance. Per Wikipedia, "Civil resistance is political action that relies on the use of nonviolent resistance by civil groups to challenge a particular power, force, policy or regime." Political scientist Gene Sharp defined it ('it' signifying various permutations of the term) as "War by other means." Sharp listed many of the forms that NVCR can take in his essay, "198 Methods of Nonviolent Action." NVCR strategies of resistance are based on the fact that political and economic power rests primarily in the hands of those who are governed. As Sharp wrote, "[B]y themselves, rulers cannot collect taxes, enforce repressive laws and regulations, keep trains running on time, prepare national budgets, direct traffic, manage ports, print money, repair roads, keep markets supplied with food, make steel, build rockets, train the police and army, issue postage stamps or even milk a cow.” 

 Examples of NVCR include Gandhi’s campaign to end British rule and repression in India; the work of Reverend James Lawson and Martin Luther King, Jr. and others to expand human rights for all Americans in the Freedom Movement/Civil Rights Movement in the United States; the OTPOR! campaign, largely dominated by youth in Serbia who deposed dictator Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, and many other campaigns. NVCR, civil resistance and nonviolent civil resistance refer to both the strategy (the overall campaign to bring about a social or political reform) and the tactics (such as protests, sit-ins, blockades …) used to achieve the broader goals of a movement. 

 Recommended sources for more info about NVCR include: The International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, The Nonviolent Conflict News, “Minds of the Movement,” The James Lawson Institute, The Albert Einstein Institution, Waging Nonviolence, Campaign Nonviolence, The Satyagraha Institute, The Metta Center for Nonviolence, and others. 

 Recommended books for understanding NVCR: “From Dictatorship to Democracy”; “Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict”; “CANVAS Core Curriculum: A Guide to Effective Nonviolent Struggle”; “Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea”; “Unarmed Insurrections: People Power in Non-Democracies.”