A Symposium on Gene Sharp's The Politics of Nonviolent Action.

• Author: Coyne, Christopher J.

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Gene Sharp's insightful and important book, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, which was originally published in 1973. The papers that constitute this symposium explore different aspects of Sharp's book, with an emphasis on its contemporary relevance. In this introduction, I provide an overview of the key themes of the book and the papers that follow.

The Politics of Nonviolent Action was a revised version of Sharp's dissertation that he wrote while pursuing his doctorate at Oxford University. (1) His work on nonviolence was heavily influenced by Mahatma Gandhi, the focus of Sharp's first two books (Sharp 1960, 1961). Nonviolent action refers to a range of activities aimed at bringing about change without resorting to physical and aggressive force. The theory of nonviolent action is, in reality, a theory of collective action: it seeks to understand how ordinary people can come together to use the power they possess against an opposition that possesses an advantage in physical violence. It is focused on strategic means and makes no normative judgment about whether the ends pursued are "good" or "bad."

Sharp's book consists of three parts, which together offer a comprehensive treatment of nonviolent action. The foundations of nonviolent are presented in part 1, "Power and Struggle." Sharp begins by distinguishing between two views of political power. The monolith theory treats political power as given, durable, and concentrated in the hands of the political elite. In this view, the populace is dependent on government rulers, which limits the ability of people to exercise power in controlling the state.

The alternative to the monolith theory is the pluralistic-dependency theory of political power. This theory holds that political power results from the consent of the people and that the sustainability of the political elite depends on the tolerance of the populace. In contrast to the monolith theory, the pluralistic-dependency theory does not treat political power as fixed and given in the hands of a political elite. Instead, it is mutable, with citizens wielding significant leverage and influence over the political elite. The issue then becomes whether people recognize the power they possess and whether they are capable of coordinating with others to carry out nonviolent action.

Sharp recognizes that exercising this social power is challenging because a number of factors incentivize citizen obedience to the state. These...