Social Movements, Nonviolent

AbstractNonviolent social movements rely primarily or entirely on methods of nonviolent action to promote change. The focus here is on social movements that directly challenge authorities or hegemonic structures, and that do so – by choice or owing to limited options – only or primarily through methods of nonviolent action, such as protest demonstrations, marches, boycotts, strikes, occupations civil disobedience, and constructive programs. In the early twentieth century Mohandas Gandhi was instrumental in merging elements of “pragmatic” and “principled” strands of nonviolence and nonviolent resistance. Gandhi drew from and transcended these traditions by linking together mass‐based campaigns with nonviolent discipline and strategizing. Nonviolent social movements proliferated during the course of the twentieth century, propelling democratization and various issue‐related movements, such as the labor, women's, peace, and environmental movements. The crucial variable in determining the outcome of nonviolent struggle is not violent repression, as is commonly assumed, but rather the presence or absence of dependence relations that can be leveraged by challengers to undermine the opponent's power, and the creation of alternative relations that counter hegemonic cultural, economic, and political structures.