The Methods of Nonviolent Action

By Gene Sharp, Senior Scholar, The Albert Einstein Institute, Boston.

PROTEST AND PERSUASION
Formal statements
* Public speeches
* Letters of opposition or support
* Declarations by organizations and institutions
* Signed public statements
* Declarations of indictment and intention
* Group or mass petitions
* Communications with wider audience
* Slogans, caricatures and symbols
* Banners, posters and displayed communications
* Leaflets, pamphlets and books
* Newspapers and journals
* Records, radio and television
* Skywriting and earthwriting

Group representations
* Deputations
* Mock awards
* Group lobbying
* Picketing
* Mock elections

Symbolic public acts
* Display of flags and symbolic colors
* Wearing of symbols
* Prayer and worship
* Delivering symbolic objects
* Protest disrobings
* Destruction of own property
* Symbolic lights
* Displays of portraits
* Paint as protest
* New signs and names
* Symbolic sounds
* Symbolic reclamations
* Rude gestures

Pressures on individuals
* "Haunting" officials
* Taunting officials
* Fraternization
* Vigils

Drama and music
* Humorous skits and pranks
* Performance of plays and music
* Singing

Processions
* Marches
* Parades
* Religious processions
* Pilgrimages
* Motorcades

Honoring the dead
* Political mourning
* Mock funerals
* Demonstrative funerals
* Homage at burial places

Public assemblies
* Assemblies of protest or support
* Protest meetings
* Camouflaged meetings of protest
* Teach-ins

Withdrawal & renunciation
* Walk-outs
* Silence
* Renouncing honors
* Turning one's back

NONCOOPERATION:
(1) SOCIAL
Ostracism of persons
* Social boycott
* Selective social boycott
* Lysistratic nonaction
* Excommunication
* Interdict

Noncooperation with social events, customs and institutions
* Suspension of social and sports activities
* Boycott of social affairs
* Student strike
* Social disobedience
* Withdrawal from social institutions
Withdrawal from the social system
* Stay-at-home
* Total personal noncooperation
* Flight of workers
* Sanctuary
* Collective disappearance
* Protest emigration (hijrat)

(2) ECONOMIC
(a) Boycotts
Action by consumers
* Consumers' boycott
* Nonconsumption of boycotted goods
* Policy of austerity
* Rent withholding
* Refusal to rent
* National consumers' boycott
* International consumers' boycott

Action by workers
and producers
* Workmen's boycott
* Producers' boycott
* Action by middlemen
* Suppliers' and handlers' boycott

Action by owners and management
* Traders' boycott
* Refusal to let or sell property
* Lockout
* Refusal of industrial assistance
* Merchants' "general strike"

Action by holders of financial resources
* Withdrawal of bank deposits
* Refusal to pay fees, dues and assessments
* Refusal to pay debts or interest
* Severance of funds and credit
* Revenue refusal
* Refusal of a government's money

Action by governments
* Domestic embargo
* Blacklisting of traders
* International sellers' embargo
* International buyers' embargo
* International trade embargo

(b) Strikes
Symbolic strikes
* Protest strike
* Quickie walkout (lightning strike)

Agricultural strikes
* Peasant strike
* Farm workers' strike

Strikes by special groups
* Refusal of impressed labor
* Prisoners' strike
* Craft strike
* Professional strike

Ordinary industrial strikes
* Establishment strike
* Industry strike
* Sympathetic strike

Restricted strikes
* Detailed strike
* Bumper strike
* Slowdown strike
* Working-to-rule strike
* Reporting "sick" (sick-in)
* Strike by resignation
* Limited strike
* Selective strike

Multi-industry strikes
* Generalized strike
* General strike

Combinations of strikes and economic closures
* Hartal
* Economic shutdown

(3) POLITICAL
Rejection of authority
* Withholding or withdrawal of allegiance
* Refusal of public support
* Literature and speeches advocating resistance
* Citizens' noncooperation with government
* Boycott of legislative bodies
* Boycott of elections
* Boycott of government employment and positions
* Boycott of government departments, agencies and other bodies
* Withdrawal from government educational institutions
* Boycott of government-supported organizations
* Refusal of assistance to enforcement agents
* Removal of own signs and placemarks
* Refusal to accept appointed officials
* Refusal to dissolve existing institutions

Citizens' alternatives to obedience
* Reluctant and slow compliance
* Nonobedience in absence of direct supervision
* Popular nonobedience
* Disguised disobedience
* Refusal of an assemblage or meeting to disperse
* Sitdown
* Noncooperation with conscription and deportation
* Hiding, escape and false identities
* Civil disobedience of "illegitimate" laws

Action by government personnel
* Selective refusal of assistance by government aides
* Blocking of lines of command and information
* Stalling and obstruction
* General administrative noncooperation
* Deliberate inefficiency and selective noncooperation by enforcement agents
* Mutiny
* Domestic governmental action
* Quasi-legal evasions and delays
* Noncooperation by constituent governmental units

International governmental action
* Changes in diplomatic and other representation
* Delay and cancellation of diplomatic events
* Withholding of diplomatic recognition
* Severance of diplomatic relations
* Withdrawal from international organizations
* Refusal of membership in international bodies
* Expulsion from international organizations

NONVIOLENT INTERVENTION
Psychological intervention
* Self-exposure to the elements
* The fast:
(a) Fast of moral pressure
(b) Hunger strike
(c) Satyagrahic fast
* Reverse trial
* Nonviolent harassment

Physical intervention
* Sit-in
* Stand-in
* Ride-in
* Wade-in
* Mill-in
* Pray-in
* Nonviolent raids
* Nonviolent air raids
* Nonviolent invasion
* Nonviolent interjection
* Nonviolent obstruction
* Nonviolent occupation

Social intervention
* Establishing new social patterns
* Overloading of facilities
* Stall-in
* Speak-in
* Guerrilla theater
* Alternative social institutions
* Alternative communication system

Economic intervention
* Reverse strike
* Stay-in strike
* Nonviolent land seizure
* Defiance of blockades
* Politically motivated counterfeiting
* Preclusive purchasing
* Seizure of assets
* Dumping
* Selective patronage
* Alternative markets
* Alternative transportation systems
* Alternative economic institutions

Political intervention
* Overloading administrative systems
* Disclosing identities of secret agents
* Seeking imprisonment
* Civil disobedience of "neutral" laws
* Work-on without collaboration
* Dual sovereignty and parallel government

Source: From The Methods of Nonviolent Action, Boston 1973. 
Web site: www.kreative.net/carolmoore/nv-action-methods.html