Civilian-Based Defense: How to Resist Occupation

• Week 1: What is nonviolence? What is civilian-based defense?
  In our opening week, we'll gain a basic understanding of the mechanisms and principles of nonviolent action. We'll distinguish between nonviolent actions, campaigns and movements to better understand the dynamics of this form of political change. We will identify civilian-based defense as one form of nonviolent resistance.
  
  • Gene Sharp, Civilian-Based Defense, Chapter 1
• Week 2: Violent versus nonviolent resistance
  We’ll explore the evidence that demonstrates the efficacy of nonviolent resistance compared to violent forms of protest and resistance. Here we cast our nets quite wide, considering nonviolent movements seeking regime change, advancing democratic goals within eroding democracies and resisting authoritarian takeover. In taking this broad approach, we will better understand when and where nonviolence might be an appropriate tool for change.
  
  • Erica Chenowith, “The future of nonviolent resistance” (2020)
  • Aisha Ahmad, “Why annexing Canada would destroy the United States” (2025)
• Week 3: Building nonviolent capacity and engagement
  No nonviolent movement can succeed without broad popular support. We turn our attention to movement-building, exploring the historic example of Poland’s Solidarity Movement, which ultimately achieved regime change in Poland when it was still under Soviet domination. In a more contemporary context, we will look at how activists in Minneapolis have organized their resistance to ICE.
  
  • A Force More Powerful: Poland (video)
  • Brian Stout, “How can we build a ‘movement of movements’?” (2025)
  • Katherine Golub, “How to create a call-in culture (part 1)” (2020)
  • Gene Sharp, Civilian-Based Defense, Chapters 2 and 3
• Week 4: Strategies and tactics—making populations ungovernable
  Nonviolence succeeds because of its agility, creativity and resilience. This week we delve more deeply into examples of how movements large and small have mobilized the ingenuity of their members in layered resistance. Our focus this week is less on the principled arguments in favour of nonviolent resistance and civilian-based defence and more on the specific actions these movements undertake.
  
  • Gene Sharp, “198 Methods of Nonviolent Action” (1973)
  • A Force More Powerful: Denmark (video)
  • Gene Sharp, Civilian-Based Defense, Chapters 3 and 4
• Week 5: Sustaining a practice of civilian-based defense
  We’ll turn our attention to the specific case of resisting occupation through civilian-based defense. Having gained a sophisticated understanding of nonviolent resistance more broadly, we will examine how the strategies we have seen deployed elsewhere might be effective in resisting occupation. Engaged and open-minded consideration of nonviolence as an alternative to militarized responses to territorial threats is expected and encouraged.
  
  • Gene Sharp, Civilian-Based Defence, Chapter 5
• Week 6: Post-occupation politics—what civilian-based defense and nonviolence teaches us
  Scholarly research unequivocally demonstrates that nonviolent movements have a much higher likelihood of generating peaceful and democratic futures for their practitioners. We will explore this research, ascertaining the connection between democratic citizenship, civilian-based defence and nonviolent action more generally. We’ll examine whether it might be possible to build a better world through "transarmament," as Sharp suggests.

By the end of the course, you should be able to:

• Recognize the characteristics and features of nonviolent resistance, with a special focus on civilian-based defense
• Explore the principles, goals and strategies of nonviolent resistance generally and civilian-based defense specifically
• Discuss examples of both civilian-based defense and nonviolent resistance through numerous case studies
• Examine the scholarly evidence comparing violent and nonviolent movements and their relative success
• Engage with debates about how nonviolence and civilian-based defense strengthen democratic citizenship

• Lectures in a facilitated-discussion, seminar format
• Participation in class discussions
  
• Weekly readings and supplementary resources accessed through Canvas
  
• Reflective essay (applicable only to certificate students)

You will need to access Gene Sharp’s Civilian-Based Defense: A Post-Military Weapons System (1990), which can be downloaded for free from the Center for Nonviolent Conflict Research. All readings and resources will be posted in Canvas.