I am conducting an in-depth research project to document and study cases of citizen participation and nonviolent civic action to fight corruption, in order to distill general lessons learned and best practices. The focus is on what people--organized together, exerting their collective power--are doing to fight corruption as they themselves have discerned it. The project will examine the skills, strategies, objectives, and demands of nonviolent civic campaigns and movements, rather than the phenomenon of corruption itself, or the conditions under which it occurs.

We offered a practical definition of nonviolent struggle earlier in this series. We now turn to "civil resistance", a term often used as a synonym of nonviolent action. Is there a difference between the two? Why use one over the other? Drawing from a new release on the subject, find out what the rationale is for using "civil resistance" as a term that covers most of the ground associated with nonviolent action, without some of its unwanted aura of ascetic faith or doctrine.

“An apostle of nonviolence.” “Preaching nonviolence”. We hear these
expressions so often, we don’t question them. But there is a crucial
difference between soporific preachifying and nonviolent action. So
let's clear this up.

 When the US civil rights movement undertook transportation boycotts in the mid 1950's to fight segregation, when the People Power movement in the Philippines used human blockades in its overthrow of the Marcos dictatorship in 1986, when the struggle against apartheid resorted to mass non-cooperation and international divestment campaigns to dismantle South Africa's racist system, all sought to overcome major institutional roadblocks set to protect long-standing injustice and abuse. Major change, through conflict waged outside of official processes, became necessary. Movements had to be built around bold, non-institutional, and extralegal ways of securing fundamental rights. These were part of a vast arsenal of non-lethal weapons, a technique governed by its own set of strategic principles: nonviolent struggle. 

Here are five reasons why human rights organizations should actively promote the means of civilian-based nonviolent struggle, as a complement to the work we do.