198 Methods of Nonviolent Protest and Action

Published on Apr 6, 2016 (updated Feb 5, 2024), filed under politics. (Share this post, e.g., on Mastodon.)

We, as humankind, face a good number of challenges—consider my own humble article on Medium on the relevance of The Other Manifesto, or my overview on population control—but the outlook is surely not hopeless. Why is that so? Most notably because there are a great number of great people that work hard on effecting constructive change. And because, if nothing else, there are a good number of forms of peaceful actions we can take to effect change (cf. tongue-in-cheek sabotage).

An exhaustive list of such forms of protest comes from Gene Sharp, in his 1993 book, From Dictatorship to Democracy. I contacted him and his team of the Albert Einstein Institution, and I’m happy to be allowed to reprint his 198 methods of nonviolent action (which I do without comment or endorsement).

• Methods of nonviolent protest and persuasion
  • Formal statements
    1. Public speeches
    2. Letters of opposition or support
    3. Declarations by organizations and institutions
    4. Signed public statements
    5. Declarations of indictment and intention
    6. Group or mass petitions
  • Communications with a wider audience
    1. Slogans, caricatures, and symbols
    2. Banners, posters, and displayed communications
    3. Leaflets, pamphlets, and books
    4. Newspapers and journals
    5. Records, radio, and television
    6. Skywriting and earthwriting
  • Group representations
    1. Deputations
    2. Mock awards
    3. Group lobbying
    4. Picketing
    5. Mock elections
  • Symbolic public acts
    1. Display of flags and symbolic colors
    2. Wearing of symbols
    3. Prayer and worship
    4. Delivering symbolic objects
    5. Protest disrobings
    6. Destruction of own property
    7. Symbolic lights
    8. Displays of portraits
    9. Paint as protest
    10. New signs and names
    11. Symbolic sounds
    12. Symbolic reclamations
    13. Rude gestures
  • Pressures on individuals
    1. “Haunting” officials
    2. Taunting officials
    3. Fraternization
    4. Vigils
  • Drama and music
    1. Humorous skits and pranks
    2. Performance of plays and music
    3. Singing
  • Processions
    1. Marches
    2. Parades
    3. Religious processions
    4. Pilgrimages
    5. Motorcades
  • Honoring the dead
    1. Political mourning
    2. Mock funerals
    3. Demonstrative funerals
    4. Homage at burial places
  • Public assemblies
    1. Assemblies of protest or support
    2. Protest meetings
    3. Camouflaged meetings of protest
    4. Teach-ins
  • Withdrawal and renunciation
    1. Walk-outs
    2. Silence
    3. Renouncing honors
    4. Turning one’s back
• Methods of social non-cooperation
  • Ostracism of persons
    1. Social boycott
    2. Selective social boycott
    3. Lysistratic nonaction
    4. Excommunication
    5. Interdict
  • Non-cooperation with social events, customs, and institutions
    1. Suspension of social and sports activities
    2. Boycott of social affairs
    3. Student strike
    4. Social disobedience
    5. Withdrawal from social institutions
  • Withdrawal from the social system
    1. Stay-at-home
    2. Total personal non-cooperation
    3. Flight of workers
    4. Sanctuary
    5. Collective disappearance
    6. Protest emigration (hijrat)
• Methods of economic non-cooperation: economic boycotts
  • Action by consumers
    1. Consumers’ boycott
    2. Nonconsumption of boycotted goods
    3. Policy of austerity
    4. Rent withholding
    5. Refusal to rent
    6. National consumers’ boycott
    7. International consumers’ boycott
  • Action by workers and producers
    1. Workmen’s boycott
    2. Producers’ boycott
  • Action by middlemen
    1. Suppliers’ and handlers’ boycott
  • Action by owners and management
    1. Traders’ boycott
    2. Refusal to let or sell property
    3. Lockout
    4. Refusal of industrial assistance
    5. Merchants’ “general strike”
  • Action by holders of financial resources
    1. Withdrawal of bank deposits
    2. Refusal to pay fees, dues, and assessments
    3. Refusal to pay debts or interest
    4. Severance of funds and credit
    5. Revenue refusal
    6. Refusal of a government’s money
  • Action by governments
    1. Domestic embargo
    2. Blacklisting of traders
    3. International sellers’ embargo
    4. International buyers’ embargo
    5. International trade embargo
• Methods of economic non-cooperation: the strike
  • Symbolic strikes
    1. Protest strike
    2. Quickie walkout (lightning strike)
  • Agricultural strikes
    1. Peasant strike
    2. Farm workers’ strike
  • Strikes by special groups
    1. Refusal of impressed labor
    2. Prisoners’ strike
    3. Craft strike
    4. Professional strike
  • Ordinary industrial strikes
    1. Establishment strike
    2. Industry strike
    3. Sympathetic strike
  • Restricted strikes
    1. Popular nonobedience
    2. Detailed strike
    3. Bumper strike
    4. Slowdown strike
    5. Working-to-rule strike
    6. Reporting “sick” (sick-in)
    7. Strike by resignation
    8. Limited strike
    9. Selective strike
  • Multi-industry strikes
    1. Generalized strike
    2. General strike
  • Combinations of strikes and economic closures
    1. Hartal
    2. Economic shutdown
• Methods of political non-cooperation
  • Rejection of authority
    1. Withholding or withdrawal of allegiance
    2. Refusal of public support
    3. Literature and speeches advocating resistance
  • Citizens’ non-cooperation with government
    1. Boycott of legislative bodies
    2. Boycott of elections
    3. Boycott of government employment and positions
    4. Boycott of government departments, agencies and other bodies
    5. Withdrawal from government educational institutions
    6. Boycott of government-supported organizations
    7. Refusal of assistance to enforcement agents
    8. Removal of own signs and placemarks
    9. Refusal to accept appointed officials
    10. Refusal to dissolve existing institutions
  • Citizens’ alternatives to obedience
    1. Reluctant and slow compliance
    2. Nonobedience in absence of direct supervision
    3. Disguised disobedience
    4. Refusal of an assemblage or meeting to disperse
    5. Sitdown
    6. Non-cooperation with conscription and deportation
    7. Hiding, escape and false identities
    8. Civil disobedience of “illegitimate” laws
  • Action by government personnel
    1. Selective refusal of assistance by government aides
    2. Blocking of lines of command and information
    3. Stalling and obstruction
    4. General administrative non-cooperation
    5. Judicial non-cooperation
    6. Deliberate inefficiency and selective noncooperation by enforcement agents
    7. Mutiny
  • Domestic governmental action
    1. Quasi-legal evasions and delays
    2. Non-cooperation by constituent governmental units
  • International governmental action
    1. Changes in diplomatic and other representation
    2. Delay and cancellation of diplomatic events
    3. Withholding of diplomatic recognition
    4. Severance of diplomatic relations
    5. Withdrawal from international organizations
    6. Refusal of membership in international bodies
    7. Expulsion from international organizations
• Methods of nonviolent intervention
  • Psychological intervention
    1. Self-exposure to the elements
    2. The fast
       • Fast of moral pressure
       • Hunger strike
       • Satyagrahic fast
    3. Reverse trial
    4. Nonviolent harassment
  • Physical intervention
    1. Sit-in
    2. Stand-in
    3. Ride-in
    4. Wade-in
    5. Mill-in
    6. Pray-in
    7. Nonviolent raids
    8. Nonviolent air raids
    9. Nonviolent invasion
    10. Nonviolent interjection
    11. Nonviolent obstruction
    12. Nonviolent occupation
  • Social intervention
    1. Establishing new social patterns
    2. Overloading of facilities
    3. Stall-in
    4. Speak-in
    5. Guerrilla theater
    6. Alternative social institutions
    7. Alternative communication system
  • Economic intervention
    1. Reverse strike
    2. Stay-in strike
    3. Nonviolent land seizure
    4. Defiance of blockades
    5. Politically motivated counterfeiting
    6. Preclusive purchasing
    7. Seizure of assets
    8. Dumping
    9. Selective patronage
    10. Alternative markets
    11. Alternative transportation systems
    12. Alternative economic institutions
  • Political intervention
    1. Overloading of administrative systems
    2. Disclosing identities of secret agents
    3. Seeking imprisonment
    4. Civil disobedience of “neutral” laws
    5. Work-on without collaboration
    6. Dual sovereignty and parallel government

A description of each of the methods, with historical examples, can be found in The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part 2: The Methods of Nonviolent Action.

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m an engineering lead, guerrilla philosopher, and indie publisher. I’ve worked as a technical lead and engineering manager at various companies (e.g., Google); I’m an active web and tool developer (code optimization, digital defense), a contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and a book author (O’Reilly, Frontend Dogma).

I love trying things—in web development and engineering management, but also in politics and philosophy, where I hold to one idea in particular: that we can only be well if we take good care of everyone. Here on meiert.com I talk about some of my perspectives and experiences. (Please share feedback: Interpret charitably, keep it friendly, but do be critical.)