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Four dimensions of nonviolent action: A sociological perspective

January 2015

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Stellan Vinthagen

University of Massachusetts Amherst

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Four Dimensions of Nonviolent Action:

A Sociological Perspective

Stellan Vinthagen

Recent unarmed uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East have dem-

onstrated the power of civil resistance. Since the 1970s “nonviolent action”

or “civil resistance” studies have attempted to explain the dynamics of such

events (for overviews, see the introduction by Kurt Schock, as well as Carter

2009; Carter, Clark, and Randle 2006; McCarthy and Sharp 1997; Sharp

1971; Vinthagen 2005). Still, it is not clear if our knowledge as scholars of

nonviolent action is relevant or of practical use to the brave women and men

who dare to face the violence of states with unarmed resistance. Activists may

receive advice from nonviolent “experts” detached from the realities of the

“street” who serve either simpliﬁed and universal lists of dos and don’ts,

abstract and nonapplicable theoretical problematizations, or superimposed

and self- righteous moralism.

The aim of this chapter is to outline a possible way to bridge current

theoretical divisions within the ﬁeld in a way that complements Sean

Chabot’s chapter on the phronesis of civil resistance (chapter 8) and Chaiwat

Satha- Anand’s chapter on the distinction between principled and pragmatic

nonviolence (chapter 10).1 I ﬁnd that nonviolent action is not one dimen-

sional, as emphasized in the current literature, but multidimensional. This

needs to be explored through empirical case studies that would help us

develop explanatory theories to describe the dynamic interaction between

diﬀerent dimensions of nonviolent action and between actors in conﬂict

situations. Such research not only lies outside of the scope of this chapter but

also warrants large- scale collaborative research programs.

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FOUR DIMENSIONS OF NONVIOLENT ACTION 

In order to make my case, I explore the limitations inherent in the con-

temporary polarization in the ﬁeld on nonviolent action. Then I argue for a

solution: the use of a social action theory, to make a new interpretation of

nonviolent action. After that I explore the consequences of such a new under-

standing— the four- dimensional model of nonviolent action— one dimension

at a time. Next I draw conclusions from what it means to apply the dimen-

sions in combinations and in empirical reality. Finally, I revisit the dichotomy

in nonviolence studies and give a concluding argument why the two current

approaches, while having legitimate and valid points, should be combined in

order to develop an “ethics of liberation.”

Nonviolent action is normally described as either a religious- moral supe-

rior force or an eﬀective technique in a power struggle (Bergfeldt 1979; Weber

2003). On the one hand, it is a tool that makes the gods smile; on the other,

it is a tool to inﬂuence humans. Either way, it is portrayed as one dimen-

sional. To skeptics of faith- based argumentation, or skeptics of reducing

society to a chess game, it is not very convincing. To make things worse,

these approaches are not systematically developed in dialogue with contempo-

rary social science. Thus, neither perspective— often referred to as the “prin-

cipled approach” and the “pragmatic or technique approach”— convincingly

explains what makes nonviolent action work in society or how the power of

nonviolent action is possible.2

Gene Sharp’s The Politics of Nonviolent Action (1973) has had great in-

ﬂuence on the study of nonviolent action. It created a wave of studies and

ﬁrmly brought an infant ﬁeld, inspired by the work of Mohandas K. Gandhi,

into proper social science (Carter 2009). Today the emphasis on pragmatic

strategy is the paradigmatic view (see, e.g., Ackerman and DuVall 2000;

Ackerman and Kruegler 1994; Chenoweth and Stephan 2011; McAdam and

Tarrow 2000; McCarthy and Kruegler 1993; McCarthy and Sharp 1997;

Zunes, Kurtz, and Asher 1999). Sharp’s work has been extremely important

for social scientiﬁc research on nonviolent action, but the problem is that he

reduces nonviolent action to a matter of power struggle, and power is concep-

tualized pre- Foucault (Vinthagen 2000). For several years Sharp’s perspective

has been criticized (see below); however, it is time to go beyond mere criti-

cism. This chapter aims to present an alternative understanding of nonviolent

action, one that fundamentally challenges Sharp’s work, while also recogniz-

ing the pragmatic dimension of nonviolent action. This will bring nonvio-

lent action studies in closer dialogue with contemporary sociological theory.

Using the sociological theory on social action developed by Jürgen

Habermas, I show that nonviolent action is a multidimensional form of polit-

ical action, consisting not only of (1) political strategy, but also (2) normative

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action, (3) self- expressive articulation, and (4) communicative rationality.

Taken together these four dimensions of nonviolent action point toward a

more complex, ﬂexible, and forceful approach to the potential nonviolent

transformation of violent conﬂicts. In this chapter I elaborate on what I have

developed elsewhere: that nonviolent action takes its transformative force

through conﬂict dialectics, bringing divergent truth- claims, norms, strategic

actions, and dramas in creative tensions (see Vinthagen 2005).

Through a conceptual exploration of nonviolent action in the perspec-

tive of late modern social theory, mainly Bourdieu, Foucault, Goﬀman, and

Habermas, I developed a social and practical description system, one that

aims to explain the power of nonviolent action (Vinthagen 2005, 2015). My

sociological framework shows nonviolent action is possible to understand as

a multidimensional rationality. Thus, at least potentially, the repertoire of

nonviolent action appears as a combination of resistance and construction, as

well as action against violence and without violence. This combinatory reper-

toire is both a strength and weakness, creating a forceful unity, yet a contra-

dictory action repertoire, a repertoire that is complex to handle but that also

enables the transformation of conﬂicts through dialectical creativity. This

novel view of nonviolent action suggests a repertoire accommodated toward

contentious political struggles, yet struggles that aim for negotiated, inclusive,

and just agreements between parties, even in conﬂicts plagued by entrenched

dominance relations, enemy images, institutionalized violence, competing

truth claims, dysfunctional social relations, and cultural group diﬀerences.

Taken together this multidimensionality of nonviolent action points

toward the possibilities of what Sean Chabot and I have suggested would

develop into a relational, constructivist, and pragmatic school of nonvio-

lence studies and an increased potential of peaceful change in diﬃcult con-

ﬂicts and oppression systems (Chabot and Vinthagen 2002). The underlying

motivation for developing such a pragmatic school is for us to better be able

to understand past successes and failures of nonviolent action campaigns

and, from that understanding, develop more practical, more creative, and

more eﬀective nonviolent action campaigns in the future. For an elaboration

of the phronetic approach to civil resistance, see Sean Chabot’s chapter 8 in

this collection.

On a fundamental level, we must recognize that both approaches to the

study of nonviolent resistance, the principled and the pragmatic or tech-

niques approach, have an unavoidable insight, one that we must recognize

(see the end of this chapter). First, many if not all act as if ethics, religion, or

principles matter; then, logically, they are also real social facts we need to

take into account in dealing with conﬂicts. Second, ethics is not useful if it

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FOUR DIMENSIONS OF NONVIOLENT ACTION 

is not practical and helpful in creating eﬀective human liberation when faced

with severe repression. Therefore, the polarization between the two approaches

is not theoretically viable, or at least not necessary. That is not surprising,

considering that both approaches are inspired by Gandhi (Sharp 1960, 1979,

especially chapters 11, 12, and 13; Vinthagen 2005). In Gandhi as a Political

Strategist, Sharp claims in a chapter titled “Nonviolence: Moral Principle or

Political Technique? Clues from Gandhi’s Thought and Experience”:

If, as Gandhi believed, the ethical course of action and the practical course

of action are ultimately identical, then the “believer” in nonviolent ethic

must be involved with the practical development of the political tech-

nique, and the “practical politician” can explore the possibility of substitut-

ing eﬀective nonviolent means in place of violence in one speciﬁc problem

area after another. If such a stage- by- stage substitution proves viable, the

behavior of the practical politician would in the end become virtually

indistinguishable from that of those who profess their belief in the univer-

sal moral principle. (Sharp 1979, 503)

Despite several statements like this, Sharp has not advocated a combination,

something we might call “principled pragmatism” (see Satha- Anand, chapter

10 in this volume), but instead maintained a technique approach uninter-

ested in the unity of ethics and technique. Therefore, we must conclude

that Sharp downplayed the Gandhian origin and diminished the meaning of

nonviolent action in order to promote the social scientiﬁc analysis of non-

violent action (see Holm 1978, who describes it as “technical moralism”).

Limitations of the Current Polarization

Within social science there has been criticism of what we might call the

“dichotomy sickness” by which various social science ﬁelds have been or are

still plagued, while trying to develop more sophisticated theories. Polariza-

tions are expressed as, for example, understanding versus explaining, facts

versus norms, objective versus subjective, private versus public, primitive ver-

sus modern, underdeveloped versus developed, and irrational versus rational.

Plainly, dichotomies obscure, simplify, and reduce the complexity, hetero-

geneity, and diﬀerences that exist in social life (see, e.g., Putnam 2002).

Dichotomies may contribute to inﬁghting in specialized science ﬁelds. In the

ﬁeld of nonviolent studies we sometimes get conﬂicts between the “priests”

of ethics and the “generals” of power techniques, but mostly the technique

approach, with its emphasis on pragmatic strategy, is taken for granted. The

technique approach is the academic hegemony within which nonviolent

action scholars operate in order to make sense.

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The dichotomy between nonviolence as ethical action and nonviolence

as power technique creates several problems that inhibit research and theo-

retical development. Although we need to appreciate the scientiﬁc turn in

nonviolent studies in the 1970s, facilitated by the technique approach and

its increased know- how that indeed has helped activists to apply the tech-

nique, there are limits to its usefulness, even to the point of misguidance.

Even if the religious, ethical, or utopian writings have been of even greater

limits to practical application, the ﬁeld of nonviolent action studies has not

developed multiple approaches, and the risk of poor theoretical work is prac-

tical irrelevance. Theoretical inhibitions may create biased, impractical, or

abstract knowledge, since one dominant paradigm may inhibit learning and

exchange with established social science ﬁelds that are close to nonviolent

action studies. Signs of these problems are, for example, the weak utilization

of studies of social movements and revolution, despite their relevance for

those who seek to understand how (nonviolent) movements bring about

(nonviolent) revolutions. Among the few exceptions, in addition to this vol-

ume, are Chabot (2003) and Schock (2005), who integrate the study of non-

violent action with social movement theory, and Nepstad (2011), who forges

links to revolution studies. Other clear signs are the weak use of established

social science theory by those who analyze nonviolent action. It is hard to ﬁnd

even footnote references to scholars such as Michael Foucault, Pierre Bour-

dieu, or Jürgen Habermas.3 The proponents of pragmatic nonviolence do not

discuss Foucault or Lukes, even though they revolutionized the understand-

ing of “power” during the 1970s and 1980s (an exception is Bleiker 2000).

Power theories of the later decades, such as those by Deleuze or Butler, are

not addressed either.

A critique of the ethical or principled approach is well developed, espe-

cially by the proponents of the pragmatic tradition (see Bergfeldt 1979;

Sharp 1973, 1979; Helvey 2004). It is criticized for being one- sided, idealis-

tic, utopian, elitist, unfounded in reality, of no practical political use, and

so forth. Few overviews of nonviolent action studies make serious discus-

sion of both camps’ contributions. However, it has become clear that there

are inherent problems within a one- sided “technique” view on nonviolent

action: it is a simpliﬁed power theory, a subject- oriented epistemology, uni-

versalistic, positivistic, mechanical, Eurocentric, ahistorical, mute on culture,

without alternatives or visions for a new society, and so forth (see Burrowes

1996, 83– 96; Holm 1978; Martin 1989; McGuinness 1993; Vinthagen 2000,

2005). The challenge today is not to further the critique, but to ﬁnd ways

of moving beyond the limitations inherent in its assumptions on nonviolent

action.

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FOUR DIMENSIONS OF NONVIOLENT ACTION 

Understanding Nonviolent Action as Social Action

Since nonviolent action is a social action, although a special one, it makes

sense to analyze it with the help of sociological theories about social action.

Any action in a social setting is possible to be viewed as a social action among

other social actions. This is true also for nonviolent action. When we act and

others are present, or we act with the memory or projection of others in our

minds, our acts are social. Social actions are actions that are done in relation

to other human beings. They diﬀer from bodily reﬂexes or other automatic

physical actions, such as withdrawing our hands from a hot stove or fall-

ing asleep when tired. Social actions are done with the awareness of others.

We are aware others might see and hear us, interpret our intentions, get an

impression, and act as a response to what we did. It means that what we

do and how we do it matter. Even a lack of reaction by a person has mean-

ing, indicating that something is uninteresting or unimportant. Also, when

no one is around, we often act with the awareness of others, out of habit or

knowledge that someone might appear or might later ﬁnd out what we did.

Social actions in the sense of actions done in relation to others can be

understood according to several possible theories, of course. In determining

which theoretical model to use there is no clear answer. Gene Sharp built

much of his “consent theory” of power on Hannah Arendt (Sharp 1980, espe-

cially chapter 6), while he criticized Arendt’s view on violence with the help

of, among others, Joan V. Bondurant (Sharp 1979, especially chapter 4).

Some years after his fundamental work on nonviolent action, he says: “The

technique of nonviolent action is, in fact, based upon the very theory of power

which Dr. Arendt presented” (Sharp 1980, 158), and further, “Hannah Arendt

has opened the way for a discussion of political organization, just as Joan V.

Bondurant in Conquest of Violence opened the discussion of sanctions” (Sharp

1980, 159). Thus, in a similar way, we now will build a new theoretical foun-

dation for nonviolent action on another sociological theory.

A theory is a good choice if it establishes and gives us new perspectives

on nonviolent action.4 One option, among some diﬀerent possibilities, is to

use the social action theory of Jürgen Habermas, one of the most cited social

scientists of today.5 He developed his theory of social action from his critique

of Weber and Parsons. Habermas claims that social action has four dimen-

sions. In order to understand them we can talk of them as four ideal types

of social actions that have diﬀerent rationalities or logics and function in

diﬀerent ways, and for pedagogical reasons I separate them in this chapter.

However, in the conclusion I come back to the very important point that

social actions have all four dimensions, meaning we need to take them all

into account at the same time.

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Jürgen Habermas’s key work is The Theory of Communicative Action

(1984, 1987), in which he reviews classical sociological theories while simul-

taneously discussing the development of modern society, an operation that

allows him to develop his novel theory of social action. Habermas claims

that Max Weber and others— among them the radical scholars of the Frank-

furt School, a cultural Marxist tradition to which Habermas belonged—

made the mistake of measuring all social actions according to the standards

of only one form of rationality: goal rationality. Weber’s inﬂuential work,

based on this fundamental fallacy, came to the conclusion that the formal

and hierarchal bureaucracy was the most “rational” form of organization,

be that in politics, economics, or culture. The development of increasingly

advanced and diﬀerentiated forms of instrumental or goal- oriented rational-

ity of bureaucracy led to the historical transformation of social life into an

“iron cage,” a reality that made Weber so depressed that he stopped working.

Habermas, on the other hand, claims humans, in fact, use diﬀerent rational-

ities to deal with the existence of the simultaneous and diﬀerent “worlds”

through which we experience our social life: the material or objective world,

in which (1) goal rationality is applied; the social world of communities, in

which (2) normative rationality is applied; the ‘inner’ world of the individual

psychic life, in which (3) expressive rationality is applied; and, ﬁnally, the most

debated world of them all; the “life- world” of mutual understanding, in which

(4) communicative rationality is applied.

Through rational goal- oriented actions humans measure success from

how much we are able to eﬀectively reach results in the natural world of

material objects and in strategic management of consequences of collective

behavior (as in the economic market or in power systems). Goal- oriented

action is valid in the world in which instrumental, strategic, or other forms

of goal- oriented actions are appropriate. Thus, in that sense Weber and

others are right. Their mistake is to assume that is the only world in which

humans live. In the other three worlds, goal- oriented rationality is not very

rational since rationality is measured from standards other than objective

results or consequences.

Through normative actions people uphold their values, standards, and

rules of behavior in a certain community. Normative actions are practical

actions that are regulated by the norms of groups, institutions, or morals,

rather than facts or instrumental calculation. And, all groups of humans,

irrespective of time and space, apply norms, although they diﬀer in content.

Self- expressive or dramaturgical action articulates esthetic views or self-

representations that are valid from subjects’ privileged experiences. Here acts

are more or less “truthful” in the meaning of expressing what that subject

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FOUR DIMENSIONS OF NONVIOLENT ACTION 

really feels or experience. However, it is not possible to say that someone who

(truthfully) feels happy, is “wrong” or, in fact, is “not feeling happy,” or, for

that matter, “should not feel happy.” Neither the objective categories of true/

false nor the social normative categories of right/wrong apply in the rational-

ity of the self- expressive world. In the subjective world, things or issues are

good/bad, beautiful/ugly, or similar. These value judgments are still possible

to argue, but according to its own rationality: claiming truthfulness toward

your experience and through motivations making a subjective perspective

possible to understand for others.

Lastly, communicative rationality deals with the use of language in social

relations and makes coordinated social action possible through cooperative

interpretation work in dialogues. Communicative rationality is a cooperative

rationality that arises from an orientation toward mutual understanding when

humans give arguments and reasons and try to convince each other. All of

us might agree such dialogues exist, but Habermas claims an orientation

toward mutual understanding is in- built in the act of talking to each other,

not totally dependent on the temporary intentions of subjects. Even during

heated arguments, there is a (frustrated) search toward understanding. In a

fundamental sense the very possibility to use everyday concepts— such as I,

you, right, need— depends on a minimum of common understanding; that is,

the actual possibility to talk with someone involves a pre- understanding and

therefore even the possibility to arrive at a disagreement.

We might agree on the theory of social action by Habermas, or not.

Irrespective of that, and here is not the space to argue his case, this is one of

several existing theories that can be applied to nonviolent action. The point

is that I have found that Habermas’s four forms of rationality help us explain

nonviolent action as a combination of social action forms. I have suggested

four nonviolent action forms, where each action form corresponds to one of

the types of rationality and social action proposed by Habermas (Vinthagen

2005): (1) Power breaking (goal- oriented political strategy), (2) Normative

regulation (normative action), (3) Utopian enactment (self- expressive and

dramaturgical articulation), and (4) Dialogue facilitation (communicative

rationality). These nonviolent action forms and their dimensions of social

action are developed below.

Let us take two examples to illustrate that the kind of rational logic

Habermas maintains is possible to identify and that it matters for our under-

standing of nonviolent action. The examples are an Indian peace project

that tried to nonviolently resist communal violence between Muslims and

Hindus in the newly independent country and a campaign against nuclear

weapons in the former West Germany.

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The Mutlangen campaign against the Pershing II nuclear weapons was

conducted throughout the 1980s at a U.S. military base in West Germany.

The campaign occurred through many diﬀerent nonviolent actions, but it

mostly implemented creative forms of blockades, since the Pershing II weap-

ons were a mobile system, on the move most of the time, in order to make

it more diﬃcult for the Soviet Union to target them. At Mutlangen nurses

blockaded the base dressed in their uniforms; pensioners blockaded it, as did

teachers, while conducing their lectures on the street, and former Holocaust

survivors, dressed in their old prison uniforms.

Among the blockades was a “symphony blockade”— a symphony orches-

tra that played classical music while closing the base for a day. Their sym-

phony blockade is a case of power breaking since it disrupted the transport

of nuclear weapons. Furthermore, it is a case of normative regulation in that

the blockade articulated values and norms such as the value of music and the

norm of taking individual responsibility for what we do or do not do, while

challenging or breaking other values or norms such as the value of military

security, the West German law, and the norm of obedience to authority,

especially since the blockades are done regularly and openly, after organizing

and planning, after training and preparation.

Moreover, it is a case of utopian enactment in that it expresses a beauti-

ful potential, a way we could entertain ourselves in this place if we wanted,

and signiﬁcantly that this beauty is shared by the soldiers and police, although

they regard the music performance as wrongly placed. They will not question

the professional performance, the type of music, or the people as musicians.

Lastly, it is also a case of dialogue facilitation in the sense that each blockade

also included a contact person who communicated with the military and

police during the action, and the campaign was launched together with an

open letter inviting dialogue with the national and provincial governments,

the U.S. military, and the police. The invitation was renewed regularly with

new letters as well as the daily presence of the campaign organizers at their

neighboring house, their daily vigils at the gates, and so on. Informal dia-

logues occurred with people in the neighborhood, soldiers, the police, as well

as media, and in the late 1980s with the politicians, military leaders, and

police oﬃcers in formal negotiations.

Similarly, when the Indian peace army Shanti Sena (1957– 1975) stood

between violent attackers of one group against another, predominantly

Hindus and Muslims, all four dimensions were at play simultaneously. The

“interposition” of Shanti Sena activists is a case of power breaking since the

power of a Hindu violent mob relies on a combination of fear for one’s own

safety and obedient acceptance among those who belong to the community

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FOUR DIMENSIONS OF NONVIOLENT ACTION 

of the mob (e.g., Hindus). The few are able to act violently since the many

accept it. Muslims and Hindus who stand together peacefully and as a human

wall in between the groups, hindering the violent mob from attacking, break

this power. The interposition forces the violent mob to ﬁrst hurt Hindus if

they want to continue to attack Muslims. It is also a case of normative regu-

lation since it aﬃrms the values of nonviolence and unity across various

divisions, elements of which modern Indian pluralism depend upon. When

Muslims and Hindus act together to protect each other, then norms of unity

are practiced. Simultaneously it breaks the norms of communalism— that

is, of loyalty to your primary (caste or religious) community, something that

also is a strong cultural element in modern India. Furthermore, Hindu inter-

position between Hindus and Muslims is also a case of utopian enactment

since it is an act in which the greatest form of unity is expressed between

Hindus and Muslims: Hindus prepared to die in order to protect their Mus-

lim sisters and brothers. In that sense a utopia of mutual solidarity is articu-

lated, showing the possibility of not only living together but also of protecting

each other in front of dangers. Lastly, these nonviolent actions are also a

case of dialogue facilitation since the movement Shanti Sena often moved

in with, stayed with, and worked together with villagers long before or after

tensions broke out in violence, building relationships, trust, and understand-

ing within the community.

However, there are, of course, also actions that do not express all four

dimensions very clearly. Some examples are conventional forms of consumer

boycotts, factory strikes, or road blockades. They are typically strong on

power breaking but weak on utopian enactment. On the other hand, other

traditional actions, such as demonstrations and vigils, strongly display par-

ticipants’ opposition or criticism to certain policies (as does one small but

necessary part of dialogue facilitation), but are weak on other dimensions.

Thus, nonviolent actions are not necessarily using the potential of nonvio-

lence fully or creative.

Goal Rationality of Nonviolent Action: Nonviolent Power Breaking

Nonviolent action is, as Gene Sharp and the technique approach have

shown, a goal- oriented action that takes the form of strategic acts dealing

with power, although goal rationality is only one out of four dimensions of

nonviolent action. Sharp maintains in his “consent theory” that state power

is produced from the cooperation or obedience of its members, through

their everyday work in the economic sector, participation in political admin-

istration, and their upholding of cultural institutions. The regime is given

powerful resources through cooperation or de facto obedience. Thus, power

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 STELLAN VINTHAGEN

is dependent on consent, or at least obedient behavior from below. It is then,

logically, through protest or through economic, political, or social nonco-

operation or intervention that the power of regimes can be withdrawn, under-

mined, and resisted. Despite fundamental criticisms of the consent theory, I

concur with its basic assumption: that power is produced from subordina-

tion (Vinthagen 2000).6 Thus, power breaking is about the undermining of

power relations through noncooperation, intervention, or direct action and

builds on the theory that power is dependent on obedience or cooperation

from those that are subordinated. It is a matter of removing the pillars of

support or the resources that make the exercise of power possible.

Explaining the goal- rational strategic behavior of nonviolent action is the

strength of the technique approach. Power does not primarily emanate from

above; on the contrary it originates in society from below, through subordi-

nate behavior. Power “over” someone does not exist; it is a produced illusion

resulting from normalized subordination. Subordination is seen as (de facto)

accepted by the subordinates, even when it is involuntarily accepted in the

shape of obedience, since all obedience (like all human acts) implies choice

(Sharp 1973, 7– 62). “Therefore, all government is based upon consent” (28).

Sharp gives historical examples, shows the eﬀective use of hundreds of non-

violent actions, and deﬁnes social power as the ability to control the behavior

of others, directly or indirectly, by handling groups of people, whose actions

aﬀect other groups of people (7– 8).

The strategy of nonviolent resistance assumes that governments are

dependent on people; that power is manifold and vulnerable, because the

control of power sources depends on many groups (Sharp 1980, 23– 24).

Nonviolent resistance is built upon the idea that political power is most

easily controlled at its origin (Sharp 1973, 10). The ruler’s power “depends

intimately upon the obedience and cooperation by the subjects” (12). It is

from the (re)production of the economy, social institutions, and ideology that

the power of the leaders derives its nourishment. That nourishment comes

from the subordinated inhabitants, who may choose to disobey. “Obedience

is at the heart of political power” (16).

Sharp speciﬁes social roots of power as authority, human resources,

knowledge and ability, psychological and ideological factors, material resources,

and sanctions (Sharp 1973, 11– 12). The strength of power is dependent upon

how much of these various resources the power holders can access, which

ultimately depends on the degree of cooperation from the subordinates.

Power holders do not create power; instead others give it to them in their

daily cooperation and support. Through dependence relations the possibili-

ties of resistance are manifested. Cooperation that generates power consists

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FOUR DIMENSIONS OF NONVIOLENT ACTION 

of active support, passive acceptance, or unwilling obedience to demands or

rules from the power holders. A ruler depends directly on cooperation from a

signiﬁcant section of the citizens to maintain the economic and administra-

tive system and its supportive sanctions system in practice. Yet, the ruler is

clearly dependent on the vast majority actually paying their taxes and follow-

ing the rules of the society and not engaging in collective resistance. When

only 0.01 percent of the Indian population ended up in prison, it became

a political and practical problem for the British colonial system. With sixty

thousand people in jail and backﬁre from repression, the empire was forced

to concede and negotiate.

Sharp argues that power systems are built upon hierarchies— chains of

obedience where leaders depend on cooperation within the power pyramid.7

According to Sharp, people are obedient for many reasons, such as habit, fear

of punishment, sense of duty, secondary advantages, psychological identiﬁca-

tion with the leading group, acceptance, or lack of conﬁdence and resources.

For the purpose of this analysis, it is enough to accept that in de facto behav-

ior people do subordinate themselves, whatever the reasons.

Sharp claims that even unwilling obedience is a choice (1973, 25– 30).

Obedience is not automatic since there is always a choice; resistance is an

option. Sharp considers the subordinate’s obedience a kind of voluntary

cooperation, even when violence is used as a threat. This gives resistance new

and unthought- of possibilities of changing power relations.

Violence is a central part of the punishment for rule breakers, and it is

assumed it will make people obedient even when they do not want to be

obedient. Key groups such as the police and military support political and

ﬁnancial elites by the threat of organized violence. People cannot be forced

to do something unless they fear the punishment (Sharp 1973, 28), which

suggests that the key to successful resistance lies in ﬁnding ways of changing

the relationship to punishment or other harmful consequences of disobe-

dience. Accordingly, Gandhi stressed fearlessness and voluntary acceptance

of suﬀering as central for nonviolent resistance. How this ability is fostered

then becomes the diﬃcult problem to solve. To Gandhi it is through spiritual

puriﬁcation, to Sharp through informed and disciplined strategy, to feminist

nonviolent activists through the empowerment of communities of support

(aﬃnity groups) (Vinthagen 2005).

From the consent theory of power, we can anticipate that possibilities

of resistance to power are created by the organized and strategic use of diﬀer-

ent techniques of disobedience. Sharp maps a way for nonviolent resistance

and indicates a number of basic techniques and dynamics based on historical

research. Many examples of how nonviolent resistance can be expressed in

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diﬀerent societies and situations are given (Sharp 1973, part 2). Since power

depends on cooperation, resistance become possible as noncooperation, and

the disobedience of nonviolent action becomes a means for change in society.

The goal- rational strategy of power breaking, or “people power,” has

brought amazing results. Research shows that the wave of democratization

between 1970 and 2005, with at least thirty cases of regime changes, was

mostly connected to this form of popular struggle (Karatnycky and Ackerman

2005). Ordinary citizens who conduct mass protest, noncooperation, strikes,

and various forms of nonviolent interventions produce these “unarmed

insurrections” or “nonviolent revolutions.” Through civil resistance in East-

ern Europe, especially in Poland and East Germany, we even saw how the

end of the Cold War came as a surprising eﬀect of this power breaking. The

civil resistance of broad alliances of ordinary citizens forced regimes to nego-

tiate or made them fall. Such mass civil resistance breaks the rules and makes

new space for social change, new openings for progress. Statistical evidence

indicates that nonviolent resistance, in fact, has been about twice as eﬀective

as violent resistance over the past century (Chenoweth and Stephan 2011).

These examples show how activists use the interdependence of power

relations, withdrawing their own cooperation or obedience and hindering

the smooth cooperation of others by various interventions (e.g., blockades

and occupations), and thus aﬀecting the situation of the opponent. The

attempted project is to undermine the power position of their opponents

so much that it becomes necessary in their self- interest to enter a dialogue

or agreement. Such struggles are strategic and build on a power analysis that

takes into account the sources, techniques, or discourses that underpin power.

The actual methods or resistance will vary according to the speciﬁc power

being challenged. In the use of such power breaking it is not only diﬃcult

to mount enough collective noncooperation or intervention to aﬀect the

power relation, but also to avoid doing it too quickly or drastically, making

the relationship collapse all together (which might lead to violent reactions or

breakdown of trust and society as a social organization). Thus, power break-

ing needs to be combined with other forms of action.

Normative Rationality of Nonviolent Action: Nonviolent Normative Regulation

Nonviolent action is not only goal- oriented rationality, but also normative

rationality. Normative regulation is about the reconstruction of the norma-

tive structure of society, which happens informally through socialization,

social institutions, and cultural discourse. Elements within the existing and

hegemonic version that underpins violence are challenged and transformed

into more nonviolent ones through institutional reforms and developments,

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FOUR DIMENSIONS OF NONVIOLENT ACTION 

training, the setting of moral examples or role models (see, e.g., Epstein

1993, 2002; Lakey 1973; Martin 1984), or use of strong cultural symbols,

cultural replacement, or renewal (Sörensen and Vinthagen 2012).

Normative regulation is fundamentally a matter of the kind of “construc-

tive program” Gandhi advocated, which the technique approach has tended

to ignore or downplay. Normative regulation builds mainly on methods such

as the development of educational programs and training, community build-

ing, and institutional construction, methods that movements like the land-

less rural workers’ movement (Movimento sem Terra, or MST) in Brazil and

the Indian liberation movement have used. The main point is that nonviolent

struggle is not only about resisting the oppressive social structures in the exist-

ing society, but also about building up the new personal habits and social

institutions to replace the oppressive ones, in order to form the basis of a new

society. It is from a normative perspective rational and possible to build such

a parallel political, economic, cultural, and social structure in society before

the actual regime change, in accordance with Gandhi’s strategy in the Indian

struggle. It is a matter of transforming the rules of social interaction ﬁelds

and incorporated habits in the persons involved in the struggle, and a matter

of building sustainable and functional social systems that can replace old ones.

Social construction of such a nonviolent normative order and regulation

is here understood as (1) the support structure and socialization that makes

new nonviolent ways of life and behavior possible, as well as the self- worth

and empowerment of subordinated groups, (2) the creation of a necessary

capacity that enables autonomy and endurance of repression, which any re-

sistance movement needs during diﬃcult times of the struggle, and (3) the

enactment of an attractive and alternative society that might replace the exist-

ing one. This new normative order needs to materialize from the beginning

of the struggle and especially within the nonviolent movement itself, in order

to develop during the struggle into something advanced enough to be able to

replace the existing repressive social system. The old assumption that after the

revolution the new society will be easy to create is not convincing anymore,

since many violent revolutions have produced many authoritarian regimes.

In order to replace, for example, a repressive and racist regime and its social

system, a resistance movement needs to develop an antiracist culture within

the movement and experiment with nonracial schools, media, democratic

decision making, economic production, courts, trade unions, and so forth.

Let us examine an example of how normative regulation can be conducted

with the Landless Workers Movement (Movimento sem Terra, or MST) in

Brazil, which is an ideal example of normative reconstructive work.8 The

peasant- based and peasant- led MST has developed a nonviolent movement

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culture based on the history of rural struggle in Brazil. The MST emerged in

1984 to coordinate local struggles for agrarian reform and land redistribu-

tion that had been taking place throughout Brazil since 1978. Inspired by

the Land Statute in Brazil’s Constitution, the MST adopted the slogan “land

for those who work it” and established an organizational structure aimed at

achieving three major goals: providing impoverished landless families with

agricultural property by occupying unused land; forcing the political system

to implement agrarian reform enabling sustainable rural development; and

promoting social justice and dignity for all Brazilians (Plummer and Ranum

2002, 19; on land occupations see Schock 2012). The MST has mobilized

about 1.5 million people and helped approximately 350,000 landless fami-

lies take over land in twenty- three of the twenty- seven states of Brazil.

However, the MST’s most signiﬁcant and enduring accomplishment

has been the formation of a nonviolent movement culture that embodies an

alternative normative framework and provides peasant activists with a sense

of purpose, eﬃcacy, solidarity, pride, self- suﬃciency, and self- conﬁdence—

not only when the social- political context is favorable, but also when it is

hostile. As one the leaders, João Pedro Stedile, notes:

the greatest success is the dignity the Sem Terra farmers have won for

themselves. They can walk with their heads held high, with a sense of self-

respect. They know what they’re ﬁghting for. They don’t let questions

go unanswered. That’s the greatest victory. No one can take that class-

consciousness away. (Stedile 2002, 11)

For MST participants land occupations are not just an eﬀective tactic or

strategy; they constitute a new way of life aimed at creating peaceful and

sustainable alternatives to the status quo. The MST employs various symbols

and rituals to preserve and reinforce the nonviolent movement culture cre-

ated in free spaces and passed along through stories. MST activists wear red

T- shirts, insignias, and caps, and carry red banners and ﬂags. In the front of

marches there is often a large wooden cruciﬁx. Inspired by Christian libera-

tion theology, many MST activists subscribe to an understanding very diﬀer-

ent from the established Catholic Church in Brazil. In this respect we can see

how a religious reinterpretation is utilized for the purpose of the movement,

and how such a religious understanding motivates activism within MST.

One key ritual element is the novel synthesis of Christian, native, and

movement elements that together create a unique form of ritual: mística. At

the beginning and end of MST gatherings, activists often use this special

ritual. At the end of one regional gathering, for example, after having elected

a new leadership to replace murdered leaders, the mística consisted of all

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FOUR DIMENSIONS OF NONVIOLENT ACTION 

activists gathering in darkness in front of several sparsely lit coﬃns and with

funeral music playing. After a while, light arose, more lively music was played,

and children started to dance among the coﬃns. Then, at a given moment,

the lids of the coﬃns were lifted, and up arose the living and newly elected

leadership. During such ritual forms as the mística, the pain, history, and

power of MST is enacted, in a way that gives rise to feelings of purpose,

emotional community, and belonging.

Based on its movement culture, the MST has developed an innovative

nonviolent action repertoire for engaging in land occupations. Land occupa-

tions not only constitute the primary form of action but also inspire an

organizational style characterized by decentralization, voluntarism, account-

ability, and “institutionalization without bureaucratization” (Veltmeyer and

Petras 2002, 93).

Similarly, MST’s discursive language underlines the movement’s reli-

ance on nonviolent direct action, practical problem solving, economic self-

suﬃciency, and political education rather than abstract theories, electoral

mechanisms, external funding, or lobbying. Therefore, even when the MST

suﬀered numerous setbacks during the early 1990s, its principal slogan always

remained: “Occupy, Resist, Produce” (Stedile 2002, 13). From the begin-

ning, the ﬂexible, multifaceted, and continuously evolving nonviolent action

repertoire has enabled as well as constrained the choice of speciﬁc tactics

and their application in practice. It also illustrates that nonviolent action is

dependent upon culture and belief systems and the potential role of move-

ment culture in transforming contentious repertoires.

The example of the MST shows how normative regulation entails mul-

tiple activities, such as the discursive undermining of violent norms, creative

construction of the institutional underpinning of nonviolent norms, and the

power of nonviolent activists and projects through the use of living models

or examples of a nonviolent moral and nonviolent society. Reconstructing

and regulating norms that embody nonviolent values are necessary in order

to start building a more nonviolent society and to facilitate the personal

transformative process of nonviolent activists and their internalization of non-

violent normativity.

Expressive Rationality of Nonviolent Action: Nonviolent Utopian Enactment

Nonviolent action is not only goal oriented and normative, but also a social

drama of expressive rationality. Emotions, identity, and social psychological

processes are essential for all conﬂict transformations, especially when con-

ﬂicts are saturated by violence, hate, and dehumanization. Enemy images

are common in violent conﬂicts and pose a special challenge for nonviolent

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 STELLAN VINTHAGEN

movements. Negotiated agreements or consensual understanding are not pos-

sible if activists are understood as unworthy of respect or regarded as “less

human.” And here the technique approach is mute, hardly recognizing the

role of this dimension at all.

Expressive rationality is manifested in nonviolent action in the form of

“utopian enactment”— acting against elements of attitudes, perceptions, and

images within violent conﬂicts through the persistent demonstration of dig-

nity, common humanity, and solidarity. It is a matter of countering existing

enemy images by showing them in practice to be inaccurate, even by “over-

demonstrating” that they are wrong, showing that they cannot be right since

there is clear evidence of behavior that is demonstrably the opposite to what

is expected.

One provocative standpoint of Gandhi is that he claims that it is possible

to reach the “heart” of the opponent and to make it compassionate through

“voluntary suﬀering” of the nonviolent resister. The Gandhian idea of the

transformative force of voluntary suﬀering is partly misunderstood as a non-

political and individual religious ritual or dismissed all together as a naive

illusion. Here the Gandhian language and framework are indeed mystic or

religious, making understanding diﬃcult. Instead, we need to reinterpret this

key part of nonviolent action. Such a reinterpretation is based on two fun-

damental points: (1) all nonroutine challenges, violent or not, involve risks

and might lead to suﬀering; (2) nonviolent activists attempt to transform

unavoidable suﬀering into a strategic element of the struggle. Thus, Gandhi’s

controversial idea of voluntary suﬀering is possible to reinterpret as a strategy

for contentious politics, and I propose that a possible way to describe that

strategy, with the help of Erving Goﬀman (1959), as a dramaturgical strategy,

one that tries to undermine ‘normalized’ violent repression and militarism in

society and the powerful “enemy images” power holders construct of its chal-

lengers or oppressed groups (Vinthagen 2005).

A typical case that can illustrate this dramaturgical challenge in conﬂicts

is the militarism of the apartheid state in South Africa, where the nonwhite

majority was viewed by the white minority as “lazy,” “simple,” “uncivilized,”

and “violent.” The basic nonviolent dramaturgical logic is then to show indis-

putable proof of being the opposite in practical behavior during the struggle—

hard working, sophisticated, intelligent, civilized, and nonviolent. Through

such a nonviolent embodiment of counterimages a moral and emotional

drama is created, and the prevalent racist images of the other are undermined.

The challenge for nonviolent activists is to be creative enough to construct

such a dramatic situation. Basically that is achieved by activists’ use of utopian

enactment, which is a dramatic “proof in action” within violent conﬂicts—

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FOUR DIMENSIONS OF NONVIOLENT ACTION 

when activists act as if their goal was already realized, as if friendly and civil

relationships were already in place. Utopian enactment undermines enemy

images by literally illustrating that existing fears and prejudices are built on

power interests, manipulation, and war propaganda, showing that there exist

a possible future of coexistence and mutually respectful social relations.

When black civil rights activists entered “white- only” beaches in the U.S.

South with a picnic basket, bathing clothes, and a cheerful smile, they not

only disobeyed the segregation practice, but they also displayed the possible

coexistence of blacks and whites. Not only did they “dramatize the injustice”

of segregation, as Martin Luther King claimed, but they also dramatized the

utopian justice. Similarly, when sixty thousand activists from the U.S. civil

rights movement engaged in sit- ins at segregated places, they not only used

power breaking against the segregation laws and structures (Vinthagen 2005,

174– 76). They also, which is an important element in the attractive story of

their actions, displayed the possibility that everyone, black and white, could

live together, eat at the same restaurants, go to the same movie theaters, ride

the same buses sitting next to each other, and wait for the bus in the same

waiting room. They showed it was a possible future, although it was distant.

Today that future is realized. The world of the 1950s southern United States

is literally turned upside down. The sit- ins did in a practical manner display

that possibility and make that utopia alive.

It is argued that the ultimate display of activists’ sincere will to coexist

is their voluntary rejection of (understandable) retaliations when faced with

violence. If that is true, suﬀering needs to be endured.9 Thus, this is the rea-

son why Gandhi (provocatively) proposed “voluntary suﬀering” with a “cheer-

ful smile.” Instead of fostering individual moral and religious strength and

purity, which was what Gandhi suggested, I argue that there is a need for

strategic understanding of the dynamics of nonviolent action and a social

environment that supports and fosters such a nonviolent culture within the

resistance movement. In order to make such a utopian enactment possible,

activists need to study the theory and history of nonviolent struggles; develop

nonviolent discipline, eﬀective leadership, organization, and communication

within the movement; and agree on nonviolent guidelines. If nonviolent dis ci-

pline is going to work, it seems necessary to conduct training of new behav-

ior in crisis situations, such as the civil rights movement that conducted

role- plays of how to act when white mobs or police attacked sit- ins at cafes,

as discussed by Sean Chabot in chapter 8.

Through theatrical skills and creative cultural work the utopian enact-

ment might be enforced. The creative theater group Solvognen that “invaded”

Copenhagen, Denmark, as “an army of Santa Claus” during Christmas 1974,

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 STELLAN VINTHAGEN

conducted anticapitalist actions in which they took things from the stores and

gave them away as “Christmas gifts” to people who passed by on the street

(Vinthagen 2005, 301– 2). When they were arrested by the police, many

people were upset, especially children. Through being dressed up as Santa

Claus during Christmastime, Solvognen could dramatize issues that would

otherwise be incomprehensible. The repression used against them received

another, more conﬂictual, meaning thanks to the drama they enacted.

Through the enforcement of the compelling and attractive vision of a pos-

sible future and the practice of nonviolent discipline, “backﬁre” may occur

when the utopias created are repressed by the regime (see Brian Martin’s

chapter 5 on backﬁre). The more violent the repression used against attrac-

tive or humorous behavior of obviously harmless activists, the more diﬃcult

it becomes for the regime to keep legitimacy of its rule and policies. But then

the message of the activists and the action form have to be attractive for

many groups and feel nonthreatening for most. If not, the activists will only

speak to their inner circles of already convinced sympathizers.

Utopian enactment, not only performed by victims of violence, might

also be utilized by those with power. Nonviolent utopian enactment might

even be stronger when executed by someone who has the possibility, as well

as the reasons, to use violence. After hundreds of years of exploitation, repres-

sion, and racism, the African National Congress (ANC) broke the strength

of the apartheid state in South Africa through massive civil resistance and

was elected as the majority party in the country’s ﬁrst free and universal elec-

tion in 1994. The fear of revenge against systematic crimes done against the

black majority was strong among the whites, and many believed that a civil

war was inevitable. At that point in history, with over 60 percent of the seats

in the parliament, the ANC surprised everyone and invited its former ene-

mies to share the power in a unity government. After a full victory gave the

ANC the possibility to change the constitution as they wanted, they oﬀered

to rule together with the white Nationalist Party and the Zulu- dominated

Inkatha Party, which had collaborated with the apartheid state and had been

involved in a civil war against the ANC in Kwazulu- Natal. The point here

is that because the ANC was in a power position, it became possible for them

to use the legal power, the state apparatus, the military force, and the full

force of the police. Their choice not to use the legal power at its disposal, but

to make an invitation of cooperation, made their utopian enactment very

strong. It is arguably a key reason behind the emergence of South Africa as a

relatively stable liberal democracy.

These examples show the courage in which a group of people, regarded

as less human or even nonhuman, in practical behavior counter prejudice or

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FOUR DIMENSIONS OF NONVIOLENT ACTION 

expected behavior, showing a human face, or even displaying more human-

ity than anyone else. We can detect a process from nonhumanness to less

humanness toward being human, or even being a model of humanity.

In each of the examples, diﬀerent kinds of emotionally loaded accusa-

tions against the activist groups need to be countered. Every such utopian

enactment campaign needs to build on a speciﬁc analysis of the expected

behavior that needs to be transformed.

Communicative Rationality of Nonviolent Action: Nonviolent Dialogue Facilitation

In exploring the fourth dimension of nonviolent action, we have to under-

stand that nonviolent action is also communicative, a dimension that has

major consequences for our understanding of this method of social struggle.

Communicative rationality takes the form of “dialogue facilitation,” which

is a matter of trying to facilitate dialogue in acute conﬂict situations where

“fundamentalist” positions are expressed and no willingness to dialogue exists.

Here it is a matter of ﬁnding forms of meetings, exchanging views, arguments,

and opinions in an equal way, and creatively developing forms of communi-

cation. Trust building is an essential part of dialogue facilitation. Dialogue

facilitation consists of two elements: the creation of conditions that make

dialogue possible and the creation of communication forms that improve

actual ongoing dialogue (greater equality, more time and attention to listen-

ing, greater ability to formulate arguments, encouragement of discussions

and disagreements, and so on). Depending on with whom within the oppo-

nent collective the nonviolent movement communicates (top- , middle- , or

bottom- level groups), diﬀerent types of communication make sense (treaty

formulations, negotiations, or dialogue) (Vinthagen 2015). A consensus ori-

entation toward understanding only makes sense at the bottom level, and

sometimes at the middle level, since power holders are limited by vested

interest in keeping existing structural conditions.

In the feminist nonviolent movement’s use of “alternative meeting forms”

and “consensus decision making,” activists experiment with what Habermas

describes as “an ideal speech situation” and “communicative rationality.” This

intra- movement experiment with democracy is paired with an attempt to

expand such communicative rationality in conﬂicts with opponents in soci-

ety.10 However, in external relations activists understand that several impedi-

ments make dialogue and consensus diﬃcult. Nonviolent struggles are similar

to the trade union struggle: that resistance serves as the tool to create serious

negotiations, and an escalation of the resistance is aimed to break the interest

of power holders to keep things as they are, and instead create a self- interest

to negotiate. Put bluntly, it is a matter of getting elites to understand that

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they will lose power if they do not negotiate with the nonviolent resistance

movement. To illustrate this point several examples could be utilized, such

as India and the negotiations between the Indian National Congress and the

British; South Africa and the negotiations between the apartheid regime and

the ANC; the example of Solidarność, the Polish trade union and national

movement that forced the socialist regime to negotiate and eventually democ-

ratize Poland. In India there were several periods of negotiations, some-

times more informal between Gandhi and the British viceroy, but toward the

end of the struggles more formal and inclusive roundtable talks. The same

development was evident in South Africa, in the secret pre- negotiations

between Nelson Mandela and representatives of the apartheid regime. But in

South Africa there were also secret negotiations outside of the country with

the South African business community that suﬀered from sanctions. And in

Poland the trade union Solidarność wanted the negotiations with the regime

to be inclusive and fully transparent, so they put up microphones in the

meeting room and loudspeakers outside of the building, where thousands of

the workers heard the negotiations.

Let us look on two illustrating examples: the historic tradition of trade

unions and the campaign against nuclear weapons in Mutlangen, West Ger-

many. In labor movements, there is an established tradition of combining

resistance (strikes, blockades, occupations) with dialogue (negotiations of

collective treaties) on diﬀerent levels (workshop ﬂoor, corporation, industrial

sector, national, or even international). The combination makes it more pos-

sible to have a serious dialogue with the opponents, since they have some-

thing to lose if they do not ﬁnd an agreement. At the same time it also makes

the dialogue more into a negotiation of an agreement than an eﬀort of

mutual understanding developed from free argumentation on the topic. Yet,

trade unions conduct trainings of their members and develop new tech-

niques and skills in negotiations, which means a knowledge of negotiation is

developed and spread among more people. Knowing how to do both resis-

tance and dialogue is an important resource for a movement. In Sweden,

the national trade union (LO) negotiated the basis of the emerging welfare

state in the 1930s at the backdrop of one of the highest strike frequencies in

Europe and a growing parliamentary representation of the social democratic

party (SAP). Thus, their claims of workers’ rights were backed by an ability

to wage economic and political power. But after the establishment of the wel-

fare state both LO and SAP became fully integrated in the state system and

dropped the combination of resistance and dialogue. It resulted in a timid

working class despite almost full organization in the union, with one of the

lowest strike frequencies in Europe, totally vulnerable for the onslaught of

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FOUR DIMENSIONS OF NONVIOLENT ACTION 

neoliberalism that arose from the 1990s and onward. So today Sweden has

one of the most privatized economies in the world.

In Mutlangen the blockade campaign tried to ﬁnd ways of creating a

dialogue with a government that did not want to talk to the activists (Vint-

hagen 2005). With the help of an open letter stating the activists’ goals and

willingness to talk, a sustained struggle for more than three years (1983– 86),

and an increasing number of people breaking the law, eventually the state

government, the U.S. military, and the police convened a roundtable dis-

cussion on the situation. The opponents of the campaign experienced the

situation as unsustainable since the area had developed the highest rate of

crimes in the country, overwhelming the judiciary and police and creating

too much public debate and even some disloyalty within the ranks of the

military, police, and judiciary. They did not like the situation and felt there

was a need to talk to the activists. It became easy to start a dialogue since the

activists had made sure from the start of the campaign that there were ongo-

ing dialogues on the local, face- to- face level. They used daily vigils, a legal

advisory bureau for soldiers who needed help against discrimination or mis-

treatment, contact persons who negotiated during actions with the military

and police, and regular statements in the press. They maintained a perma-

nent presence in the village next to the base where activists lived, invited

soldiers to meals at their houses, and visited pubs and talked to the locals and

soldiers who worked at the base.

These examples illustrate how activists develop creative solutions to the

closed mindsets of their opponents, trying to open them up to new perspec-

tives and thoughts, making them listen although they may not want to. Basi-

cally such an attempt builds on the achievements in other dimensions: to

what extent they have become seen as humans (utopian enactment) and as

strong members in the relationship (power breaking) and to what extent

they have established some new pro- communication norms across group-

ings in the community (normative regulation). We can see the process of

communicative rationality in how actors try to ﬁnd ways of agreeing on

fundamental rules of behavior while being in conﬂict and on substantial

conﬂict issues underpinning their conﬂict behavior. Within dialogue facilita-

tion there are several diﬀerent results possible: accepting to listen to each

other, understanding the position of the other while still not agreeing on

anything, agreement on living in separation, accepting to live with disagree-

ment in respect for each other, accepting a certain decision being made while

only those who really like it will actually carry it out, achieving a compromise

on non- essentials, or even the rare but ideal option: agreement on a good and

better (and a transcended) solution.

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 STELLAN VINTHAGEN

Conclusions: The Creative and Dialectic Force of Nonviolent Action

In this chapter we have seen that nonviolent action consists of four ratio-

nalities, but what does the practical combination of the four rationalities

mean for the dynamics of civil resistance? In order to complete my proposed

new theoretical framework, we need to explore what such a combination

or a multidimensional rationality means for nonviolent action and to draw

political and strategic conclusions from such a description.

It seems from our discussion above that the combination of these dimen-

sions is at least possible. If we take up the case of the “wade- in” actions in the

civil rights movement again, the point can be made clear. As part of the U.S.

civil rights campaign the wade- ins at beaches could be understood as a case

of power breaking by noncooperation with the rules that specify that beaches

are segregated. If masses of people would behave as if the beaches were not

segregated, they would also de facto desegregate them.

However, the wade- in action is also a case of normative regulation since

it challenges the segregation norm of society while claiming the value of joy,

friends, and family at the beach on a hot summer day, while claiming the

validity of the norm of equal treatment. Furthermore, it is a case of utopian

enactment in the sense that the wade- in challenged the prejudices that whites

had of blacks: it literally demonstrated the mutual longing for the beach life

during hot summer days; through the display of playful joy it counteracts

the assumed passive aggressiveness of blacks toward whites; it shows black

courage and disobedience in face of the powerful police and violent threats of

segregationists; it undermines the fear of violence since there is no retaliation.

Aspects of racist enemy images of black people are undermined, and, im-

portantly, it is done again and again, making it more and more diﬃcult to

sustain racial prejudice. Lastly, it is also a case of dialogue facilitation since

the wade- in is done in public, without any threats of violence; in fact, even

without any “action” done against white people or institutions. As long as

the beach is not full, no one is inconvenienced. Whites could, if they would

prefer, simply ignore the actions. The only thing that gives reason to act, the

only “problem” in the situation, is the presence of “black- skinned” human

beings on the beach. That also makes dialogue on the core issue more possi-

ble, since acts by civil rights activists involving property destruction, boycott,

strike, or anything else that makes life more diﬃcult for the segregationists

did not occur. Nothing disturbs the argumentation on the core conﬂict issue.

In that sense, it is a “clean” action facilitating relevant arguments.

Nonviolent struggle tries to facilitate a dialogue in a search for future

coexistence, in a diﬀerent sense than violent struggle. In line with Gandhi

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FOUR DIMENSIONS OF NONVIOLENT ACTION 

and Habermas, I argue that nonviolent action is possible to understand as

ultimately consensus oriented: it seeks to ﬁnd synthetic understanding and

agreements between conﬂict parties.11 Yet, consensus is attempted through

active engagement in conﬂicts and by creative use of confrontations, resis-

tance, and noncooperation. It is thus both a consensus and a conﬂict approach

to social relations. The goal of consensus orientation is, in fact, made pos-

sible through conﬂict. In practical reality violent conﬂicts pose a number of

impediments making consensus unlikely, and some mutually accepted agree-

ment the more realistic alternative.

I argue that the combination of all four rationalities expresses an unusual

combination of consensus seeking and conﬂict confrontation. It is through

this peculiar combination within the nonviolent action repertoire that a really

creative and transformative dynamic becomes possible in conﬂicts. Nonvio-

lent action therefore needs to be conceptualized as a dialectic approach to

conﬂicts, aiming to transcend existing contradictions and positions in order

to reach more inclusive, more truthful, and more nonviolent solutions in

existing violent and oppressive conﬂicts. The utopian goal for some of the

nonviolent activists is then full consensus, while for others it is simply a

practically functional and negotiated peace and justice agreement with pow-

erful elites.

Nonviolent action studies link to several other ﬁelds, such as conﬂict

studies. One of the founders of peace and conﬂict research, Johan Galtung,

argues that all conﬂicts have three dimensions at the same time, and a suc-

cessful transformation demands that we deal constructively with all dimen-

sions; I claim that it is possible through nonviolent action (Vinthagen 1998).

Utopian enactment deals with the conﬂicting attitudes and images of the

conﬂict parties. Normative regulation and power breaking deals with the con-

ﬂicting behavior in violent conﬂicts, and dialogue facilitation deals with the

contradiction between actors’ goals and interests in the conﬂict. It is here

necessary to have two dimensions of nonviolent action that deals with con-

ﬂictual behavior, since one is dealing with the creation of a future society

with a culture and institutions that foster nonviolent behavior, and the other

is dealing with the resistance to established institutional behavior driving

war and oppression in the existing society. Thus, a comprehensive conﬂict

transformation approach involves using all dimensions at the same time. It is

hard to imagine an eﬀective nonviolent transformation of a violent conﬂict

without using them all.

Therefore, I claim that all dimensions need to be applied simultaneously

in order to develop an eﬀective nonviolent action campaign, movement, or

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 STELLAN VINTHAGEN

transformation of a conﬂict. However, in the same sense as Jürgen Habermas,

I argue that dialogue facilitation may be more important than the other

dimensions, because communicative rationality is the rationality through

which the goals, guidelines, norms, and values are evaluated and decided

upon. It coordinates the other activities. In line with Gandhi we can say that

it is the “truth” that matters, and that truth is “found,” or rather ‘“socially

constructed,” in our common understanding when we reach beyond conﬂict

positions to a mutual and new understanding of the world and ourselves.

It is fruitful to regard the dimensions of nonviolent action as both ideal

types (in a Weberian sense) and as empirical types. As ideal types these dimen-

sions do ﬁt together, although we ﬁnd that there are some built- in tensions

between them and their diﬀerent approaches to conﬂict (Vinthagen 2005,

chapter 9). On an empirical level we ﬁnd obviously more or less of aspects

being applied and a great variation.

Much research is needed to explore this new model. We need empirical

research to explore, understand, and explain how these four dimensions func-

tion, how they could be combined in useful ways, under what conditions

they should be used, and how they could be improved and become more

eﬀective. Furthermore, we need to determine if there are more useful models

to understand the complexity and potential eﬀectiveness of nonviolent action.

As a concluding remark, then, I want to emphasize that the full poten-

tial of nonviolent action is not limited to a single dimension, not only power

breaking, normative regulation, utopian enactment, or dialogue facilitation;

rather as (1) combined rationalities, (2) in a context, and (3) in interaction

with other actors. That means we have to understand civil resistance as multi-

dimensional actions within a contentious dynamic interaction that always

are situated in a context of speciﬁc conditions. It is that kind of nonviolent

action we have to understand if we want to be relevant for practical use.

However, in order to understand that complexity of nonviolent action, it is

a prerequisite that we identify all relevant dimensions or logics of nonviolent

action. Therefore, we have to use empirical case studies in order to detect

patterns, mechanisms, and processes that are recurrent in various contexts.

With such an empirical research base, we will be able to formulate theories

on the dynamics of the “contentious politics” of civil resistance (McAdam

and Tarrow 2000). Only after that will we be able to give practical guidelines

for nonviolent action and become relevant for organizers and strategists of

nonviolent social change. If we transcend the technique paradigm, we will

be able to facilitate more theoretical diversity and development and also give

more relevant academic advice to practitioners, whether in movements or

governments.

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FOUR DIMENSIONS OF NONVIOLENT ACTION 

Notes

This research was supported with funding from the Swedish Research Council

(Vetenskapsrådet, HS- 2010– 54) and the University West, Sweden. I thank Lester

Kurtz, Kurt Schock, and the Nordic Nonviolence Study Group (Henrik Frykberg,

Jörgen Johansen, Majken Sörensen) for helpful comments on earlier drafts.

1. The discussion in this chapter is developed in detail in my recent book, The

Sociology of Nonviolent Action (Vinthagen 2015).

2. These approaches are referred to with many diﬀerent names; among the

more frequent terms are principled, moral, paciﬁst, lifestyle, or religious versus techni-

cal, strategic, political, or pragmatic. Burrowes (1996, 98– 101) outlines in detail the

diﬀerences between a principled approach, which claims nonviolence is the ethically

best, regarding means and ends as indivisible, dealing with a shared problem between

groups, accepting suﬀering, and probably regarding nonviolence as a way of life, and

a pragmatic approach, which claims nonviolence is the most eﬀective, regarding

means and ends as separate, dealing with incompatible interests in conﬂicts, intend-

ing to inﬂict suﬀering on the opponent, and not regarding nonviolence as a way of

life. But see Chaiwat Satha- Anand, chapter 10 in this volume, who suggests that

these distinctions may be illusory.

I, however, think pragmatic is here fundamentally misused (as amoral and

instrumental), at least if we take the social scientiﬁc tradition of social pragmatic

theory of John Dewey, in which socially successful action is more than simply an

instrumental technique, rather something that warrants an understanding of social

dynamics and context or what really works and is understood in a certain (language)

community. Jürgen Habermas and Karl- Otto Apel have developed their own under-

standing of pragmatism based on communicative rationality.

3. Partial exceptions exist, of course: Hare (1977) uses Parson’s system theory;

Oppenheimer (1968) uses sociological theories; Bleiker (2000) uses poststructuralist

discourse theory; and Naess (1974) uses philosophical logics and systematizes the

thinking of Gandhi.

4. Here I have used the following criteria: (1) The theory is a possible, devel-

oped, and comprehensive understanding of social action; i.e., it is dealing with dif-

ferent types of social actions. (2) The theory has survived and is still generally viewed

as a sustainable theory; i.e., it has dealt with critical objections over a longer time.

(3) The theory is, after years of discussions, among the main perspectives used within

social science. (4) The theory is fruitful when applied to nonviolent action; i.e., it

generates new possible ways of understanding nonviolence.

5. Among the other possibilities, chosen from similar criteria, are theories on

social action by Pierre Bourdieu, Judith Butler, Gilles Deleuze, Michael Foucault,

Anthony Giddens, Erving Goﬀman, Steven Lukes, or Charles Tilly. In my own work

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 STELLAN VINTHAGEN

I have used several others, such as in Vinthagen (2005), where, besides Habermas, I

have used Bourdieu, Foucault, and Goﬀman.

6. There is a serious theoretical problem with the “consent theory,” a problem

with which the technique approach so far has not engaged. However, I think there

is a possibility to keep the basic proposition of the theory, despite this problem. Here

I only have space to mention it, but I have developed the discussion elsewhere (Vint-

hagen 2000). The newer social science discussion on power, especially with such

authors as Foucault, Lukes, Bourdieu, or Butler, fundamentally challenges the assump-

tions of this power theory, while the basic idea of Sharp, that power depends on co-

operation or subordination, is possible to maintain. However, it is then necessary to

replace Sharp’s emphasis on the goal- rational, unitary, and conscious resister (the “cen-

tered” and “rational- choice” subject), and integrate a more decentered, embodied, and

discursive understanding of power and resistance. Basically this is a matter of under-

standing power and subordination as a multidimensional social process. This means

resistance— the undermining of power relations— becomes a process work dealing

with several dimensions of social life. At the same time, this has consequences for our

understanding of nonviolent action: for example, that resistance to the state can’t be

done eﬀectively without an understanding also of the power relations that are exer-

cised within the resistance movement, and within the resistance ﬁghters themselves.

My conclusion is thus that a successful liberation strategy demands a resistance move-

ment that also takes seriously a cultural and personal transformation, mainly through

the work of nonviolent normative regulation, something I am unable to develop here

(see Vinthagen 2005, chapter 8). Any liberation movement that wants to be realistic

about the power and repression it faces needs to, as Gandhi and the feminist move-

ment of the 1960s suggested, also understand that the “personal is political.”

7. While power’s dependency on its subordinates might be fundamental, Sharp

pays no attention to the fact that there are groups that the power can do without,

groups that are excluded and still subordinated (Burrowes 1996, 11– 12). At the

same time, one group of leaders may be in alliance with other power systems, thus

compensating for a lack of internal power with external support, such as an inter-

national ﬁnance agreement. But this kind of critique does not overthrow the theory

as such. It only indicates that the nonviolent struggle must inﬂuence or be organized

within the very groups on which de facto power is depending (Burrowes 1996, 96).

Therefore, a strategic struggle needs to be based on a contextual analysis of the targeted

power.

8. This section on MST draws strongly from Chabot and Vinthagen (2007).

9. What makes such a dramaturgical strategy eﬀective needs to be investigated.

Many factors might matter, including context, group relations, existing culture(s),

and previous experiences of contention. There are also good reasons to believe that

media play an important role here, since they create attention to events among a

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FOUR DIMENSIONS OF NONVIOLENT ACTION 

larger section of society, or indeed the world. Thus, when media are eﬀectively shut

out by the regime, as in Syria during the oppositional wave since 2011, or as in

North Korea continuously, then this dramaturgical eﬀect is limited to a lot fewer

groups and number of people. However, “the more media, the better” is not neces-

sarily the case. Media normally frame news in ways that are simplistic, “entertain-

ing,” conventional, nationalistic, or in line with existing prejudices.

10. For one such example, see the description of the dialogue process between

the Swedish plowshares movement and the weapon production corporation Bofors

during 1997 and 2000 (Engell- Nielsen 2001).

11. The consensus orientation of nonviolent action might be more or less

ambitious: at least it would involve getting agreement from a majority in elections

after a regime change; more often it would also lead to a negotiated regime change,

involving some former powerful groups, as in apartheid South Africa. Depending on

the context, consensus as understanding or agreement becomes more or less possible.

It is not only or even most importantly a “top- level” communication, but dialogue

with ordinary people on the opposite side of the conﬂict, that is, “bottom- up.” It is,

after all, the people at the bottom who, according to the basic view of nonviolent

activism, are the real power holders. If they disobey, rulers fall. Furthermore, it is

never an eternal consensus, often unity is temporary, and it may evolve into a disagree-

ment when the opponent withdraws, the regime falls, or the goal of the struggle is

reached, and the hard work to build the new society starts. It is not a complete con-

sensus, but limited to certain issues, with conﬂict in other areas, with several interest-

diﬀerences still in place. However, the consensus orientation does mean the potential

exists for including more people, and more issues, in more enduring agreements,

from renewed or future nonviolent struggles.

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Article

Jan 2005

In recent months, the worldwide struggle for democracy has gained increased prominence in international affairs. In late March 2005, mass demonstrations helped topple Kyrgyzstan's authoritarian president. On March 14 th , approximately one million Lebanese took to the streets in a remarkable display of nonviolent civic power to press for democracy and demand an end to Syria's military presence in their country. In November-December 2004, the international community was surprised by the scale and perseverance of nonviolent civic resistance in Ukraine, as millions of citizens successfully pressed for free and fair elections in what became known as the Orange Revolution. But Ukraine's Orange Revolution was only the latest in a series of successful "people power" revolutions that include the Philippines in 1986; Chile and Poland in 1988; Hungary, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia in 1989; the Baltic States in 1991; South Africa in 1994; Serbia and Peru in 2000; and Georgia in 2003. The proliferation and success of such civic resistance movements in effecting political transitions is spawning increased international discussion of the mechanisms by which democracy replaces tyranny. World leaders are taking notice. In his January 2005 inaugural address, U.S. President George W. Bush focused on global trends that are contributing to the spread of freedom and democracy. That speech and statements by other leaders, including UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and the European Union's Foreign Affairs Commissioner Javier Solana, have helped place on the front burner the question of how best to promote democratic change and to build the infrastructure of stable democratic life.

Nonviolence as Contentious Interaction

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