Avoiding violence: Eleven ways activists can confine violence in civil resistance campaigns

• Published date: 01 June 2019
• Author: Isabel Bramsen
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21254
• Date: 01 June 2019

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Avoiding violence: Eleven ways activists can confine

violence in civil resistance campaigns

Isabel Bramsen

Department of Political Science, Centre for

Resolution of International Conflicts

(CRIC), Kobenhavns Universitet,

Copenhagen, Denmark

Correspondence

Isabel Bramsen, Department of Political

Science, Centre for Resolution of

International Conflicts (CRIC), Kobenhavns

Universitet, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Email: ib@cric.ku.dk

Nonviolent resistance is a powerful tool but can also turn

into civil war when repressed. Based on interviews with

activists from Bahrain, Tunisia, and Syria and experts on

nonviolent resistance, this article investigates how activists

can reduce violence in demonstrations. Five approaches to

countering regime violence are proposed: (a) disrupting vio-

lent action, (b) constructing dilemma situations, (c) avoiding

direct confrontation, (d) inviting civilian peacekeepers, and

(d) respecting the opponent’s traditions, as well as six ways

of reducing activist violence: (a) delegitimizing violence,

(b) managing material availability, (c) managing emotions,

(d) providing alternatives, (e) changing practices of violence,

and (f) enhancing cohesion.

1|INTRODUCTION

One look at pictures or recordings of the situation on the ground in Syria today should be enough to

convince just about anyone of the importance of preventing violence in the early stages of conflict

escalation. Nonviolence is a powerful tool with which to challenge an unjust system and change the

status quo (Sharp, 1973; Sharp, 2013; Sharp & Paulson, 2005) and is potentially a critical instrument

of conflict resolution, especially in asymmetric conflicts (Dudouet, 2008; Sørensen & Johansen,

2016). But when nonviolent resistance is repressed, it can also lead to a devastating civil war that

destroys lives and dreams, including those that led to the revolution in the first place. It is therefore

crucial to investigate what, if anything, can be done early on in nonviolent revolutions to counter

both regime and revolutionary violence. If nonviolence is to be effective—even in highly authoritar-

ian and repressive regimes—we must develop options for countering regime violence and reducing

protest violence. The escalation phase of a conflict is perhaps the most promising phase for reducing

conflict-related human suffering (Bramsen, Boye, & Vindeløv, 2016). All things being equal, it is

significantly more difficult to find solutions and avoid further violence when blood has been spilt

Received: 22 December 2018 Revised and accepted: 8 March 2019

DOI: 10.1002/crq.21254

© 2019 Association for Conflict Resolution and Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Conflict Resolution Quarterly. 2019;36:329–344. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/crq 329

and relations have been broken. The moment for early intervention in Syria clearly passed long ago,

but other nonviolent revolutions will come; here, any insights about countering violence might be of

value for nonviolent activists and third parties.

In this article, I begin to build a toolbox for activists who intend to reduce violence in nonviolent

resistance. To my knowledge, no such toolbox exists with a specific focus on reducing violence. Dif-

ferent toolboxes or lists of possible nonviolent actions exist, but they are generally directed toward

how to best challenge an oppressor, not specifically on how to avoid violence. For example, Sharp

(1973) proposes 198 methods of nonviolent resistance grouped into categories of protest and persua-

sion, noncooperation, and intervention. Likewise, Sørensen and Johansen (2016) propose five ways

in which activists can escalate a conflict. However, these are different ways of challenging an oppres-

sive regime and not specifically related to violence prevention. Sharp addresses how activists should

counter repression, arguing that “the most effective response to violent repression is to demonstrate

that it does not produce submission, but instead increases resistance”(Sharp & Paulson, 2005,

p. 487). Making repression backfire is not the aim of this article, however, but it is rather to find

ways of reducing or avoiding violent repression directly, as well as a violent counterresponse.

The article draws upon my research in the early months of the Arab Spring in Bahrain, Tunisia,

and Syria, at the same time including other research and activist strategies developed in other revolu-

tions, when relevant. Moreover, I have conducted three expert interviews with scholars and practi-

tioners of nonviolent resistance (Erica Chenoweth, Maria Stephan, and Stellan Vinthagen). It may

seem paradoxical that I take good ideas for how to counter regime violence and reduce protest vio-

lence from, among other things, cases where nonviolence has been unsuccessful thus far (Bahrain

and Syria). One Syrian activist even claimed that “we exhausted every peaceful tactic there ever were

in the world, from flying balloons to shouting our lungs out”(Interview 36) and stated that nonvio-

lent tactics alone therefore could not have overthrown the Syrian regime. But given that these

methods were applied together with increasingly militarized resistance, it is difficult to assess them

independent of the violent actions, that is, whether they would have been effective in challenging the

regime if the resistance did not have an armed flank. The focus of this article is not primarily on how

tactics can contribute to a group winning but rather how different actions can potentially reduce vio-

lent regime repression in a particular situation. Thus, I can use experiences from specific situations

where violence was avoided, as well as experiences of what to avoid if one wishes to limit protest

violence, from the Syrian case.

While I aim to explore activist options for reducing protest and regime violence, not how activists

succeed in general, the endeavor is not entirely detached from the overall goal of winning a nonvio-

lent conflict as both protest and regime violence lower the likelihood of success for nonviolent revo-

lutions (Chenoweth & Stephan, 2011). Hence, also in the interest of increasing success of

nonviolence, there is good reason to consider how violence in demonstrations can be reduced.

The article proceeds as follows: having presented how avoiding violence in protests is addressed

in the literature, the article discusses the pros and cons of whether it is even preferable to avoid vio-

lence in resistance campaigns. I then proceed to discuss activist strategies for countering or reducing

regime violence. I suggest five approaches to countering regime violence: (a) disrupting violent

action, (b) constructing dilemma situations, (c) avoiding direct confrontation, (d) inviting civilian

peacekeepers, and (e) respecting the opponent's traditions. Limiting and countering regime violence

is closely linked to avoiding protest violence or “keeping nonviolent discipline”as violence often

tends to breed more violence (Bramsen, 2017a) and risks turning the revolution into a ci vil war. The

strategy used by the advocates of nonviolence to prevent protesters from throwing stones or using

weapons rarely goes beyond prohibitions and the moral rejection of violence. Rather than mere

330 BRAMSEN