by Gene Sharp

THE 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

Read the full text here: 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action

We wish to thank Gene Sharp for permission to repost this work. A more detailed description and historical examples of each of the methods contained in the list can be found in Gene Sharp’s The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part II: The Methods of Nonviolent Action, Boston: Porter Sargent, 1973, available for purchase at www.extendinghorizons.com/

EDITOR’S NOTE: Gene Sharp (b. 1928) is one of the world’s leading experts on the history, theory, and practice of nonviolence. His three-volume work The Politics of Nonviolent Action is considered essential reading for anyone interested in any aspect of nonviolence and nonviolent struggle. He is Professor Emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and was for thirty years a research fellow at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. He is also founder of the Albert Einstein Institution in Boston, a non-profit organization concerned with nonviolent action and conflicts. The Albert Einstein Institution statement about Dr. Sharp is worth quoting here in its entirety. “He maintains that the major unsolved political problems of our time — dictatorship, genocide, war, social oppression, and popular powerlessness — require us to rethink politics in order to develop fresh strategies and programs for their resolution. He is convinced that pragmatic, strategically planned, nonviolent struggle can be made highly effective for application in conflicts to lift oppression and as a substitute for violence.”