History and Practice of Nonviolent Resistance

Erica Chenoweth

Political scientist Erica Chenoweth unpacks what makes a successful movement against authoritarianism, and how nonviolent resistance can be used to uphold democracy.

Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know

Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist at Harvard University, explains that civil resistance is a nonviolent strategy where ordinary people coordinate to demand and protect democracy.

Successful movements typically rely on four key factors:

Mass Participation & Momentum

Broad-based, active involvement (often referred to with the "3.5% rule") helps build pressure and legitimacy.

Loyalty Shifts

Civil resistance works when it causes key supporters of a regime (e.g., military, business elites) to defect or withdraw support.

Resilience Under Repression

Movements must stay organized and peaceful, even when facing crackdowns, using tactics like the "backfire effect" to turn repression against the regime.

Innovation in Tactics

Successful campaigns go beyond protests, using strikes, boycotts, and other forms of noncooperation to sustain pressure.

Chenoweth emphasizes that nonviolence is inclusive and more likely to succeed because it allows widespread participation.

Stacey Abrams’s campaign to fight authoritarianism gains steam: ‘We are a force multiplier’

Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate has brought together a wide tranche of civic groups to build a groundwork to defend democracy

"Abrams launched the 10 Steps campaign last year to raise alarms about the threat of authoritarianism in the US, and to provide an organization framework for resisting authoritarian government."

Public Assemblies

Strengthen Community Resistance to Rising Authoritarianism

"'The People’s Movement Assembly process provides a unique opportunity for people to build a democracy that has yet to be born,' says Denzel Caldwell. In this episode of Movement Memos, Caldwell and host Kelly Hayes discuss the power and potential of People’s Movement Assemblies, and how the practice of direct democracy can help us fight fascism."

The Commons Social Change Library

Resources on NVDA

a wide range of materials to inform folks about strategic nonviolence

Nonviolent Direct Action

Center for Applied Nonviolence

A toolkit — Methods & Tactics.

Freedom Trainers

Collective Noncooperation Training for these times

"We are a loose network of trainers teaching folks about these powerful tools of collective noncompliance and mass noncooperation based on tried and true tactics used by movements from around the world fighting against authoritarianism."

Bad Faith Documentary

Christian Nationalism in Power

"The forces tearing apart our democracy have never been more frightening or powerful, but who is actually behind them?

"BAD FAITH reveals how Christian Nationalist leaders have spread fear and anger for decades, distorting political issues into Biblical battles between good and evil. Financed through the secretive Council for National Policy, Christian Nationalists have succeeded in taking over the Republican Party, turning it into a powerful weapon to demolish democracy from within. Discover the origins of this organized grasp for power and the grassroots coalition of secular and interfaith leaders bravely confronting the unholy forces threatening democracy."

Nonviolent Action Lab

Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation

"Nonviolent resistance movements defended democratic values and institutions throughout the 20th century and into the 21st. However, the trend seems to have shifted. Over the past decade, authoritarian backsliding has occurred across the globe, and mass movements demanding democracy have been defeated in about 90% of cases since 2010.

"The Nonviolent Action Lab is an innovation hub for research on advancing democracy worldwide through civil resistance. The Lab produces and disseminates up-to-date knowledge on nonviolent action, how it works, global trends in success and failure, trends in political violence and state repression, and analysis of these trends."

American Spring? How nonviolent protest in the US is accelerating

an article from their research

"Contrary to conventional wisdom, the size and scale of anti-Trump protests this year have dwarfed those in 2017, and they have been extraordinarily peaceful."

Just Transition

Democratize, Decentralize and Diversify

"Just Transition is a vision-led, unifying and place-based set of principles, processes, and practices that build economic and political power to shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy. After centuries of global plunder, the profit-driven, growth-dependent, industrial economy – rooted in the myth of white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, consumerism, and ableism – is severely undermining the life support systems of the planet. An economy based on extracting from a finite system faster than the capacity of the system to regenerate will eventually come to an end—either through collapse or through our intentional re-organization. Transition is inevitable. Justice is not."

Weaving a Network of Resistance

from The Grassroots Connector

"Social networks mimic the bio-diverse mycelium networks of forests and wooded areas. These naturally occurring networks provided us an exquisite model for a social network that nourishes a social movement."

Minnesota Is the Movement We’ve Been Waiting For

from Hammer & Hope

"Minnesota has modeled a movement that anyone — everyone — can join."

De-escalation tactics at protests

Guide on how to diffuse tensions

"In this guide, you will learn how to de-escalate tensions at a protest. Using these de-escalation tactics will help keep your protest non-violent."

Non-Violence Pocket Guides

Democracy Security Project

"It’s the most dangerous time in the U.S. in decades. Rising threats and harassment threaten our civil society and our democracy. The Democracy Security Project exists to provide durable solutions and support for change-makers, organizers, civil servants, authors, artists, teachers, healthcare professionals, journalists, leaders, and anyone facing new or urgent threats to themselves or their work."

No Kings Safety & De-Escalation Training

Being Prepared

Streetwise & Steady

A Workbook for Action Peacekeepers or Event Marshals

"We are living through a moment of democratic backsliding — an erosion of norms, institutions, and freedoms that some felt unshakable. Authoritarianism isn’t new to this country. It has roots in slavery and Jim Crow, Japanese internment camps, the colonial project that tried to exterminate all Native peoples, and legacies of brutality and repression that have etched our history.

"Democracy has always been waged. In this environment, public protest becomes both more necessary and more risky. Those in power may deploy tactics from the authoritarian playbook — stoking fear, marginalizing dissent, and justifying repression. History shows that when movements stay grounded in nonviolence, discipline, and solidarity, they can expose these tactics for what they are: desperate attempts to cling to control. That’s where peacekeepers come in. Peacekeepers, or marshalls, are the quiet stewards of safety and coordination in the streets. They help keep our movements organized, our people protected, and our message clear. They are not bosses, not enforcers, but facilitators — trying to ensure that our protests remain spaces of courage, care, and collective power.

"This guidebook offers practical tools and principles for peacekeepers, rooted in the belief that nonviolent discipline is not just a tactic — it’s a strategy for resilience. By projecting calm, modeling solidarity, and preparing for the unexpected, peacekeepers help movements withstand pressure without fracturing. If fear is the goal, then solidarity is the antidote."

CISA

De-escalation Products and Resources

"CISA encourages organizations to train all personnel to recognize suspicious behaviors and activities and to safely address the situation. When properly trained, alert employees can RECOGNIZE the warning signs of someone on a path to violence, ASSESS the situation to protect personal safety and the safety of those around you, take actions to DE-ESCALATE the situation if safe to do so, and REPORT the situation to 9-1-1 or through organizational reporting mechanisms."

The Conflict with Conflict

from Susan Raffo

"I love that the old meaning of the word “conflict” is “to strike together.” Can’t you hear the sound of it? Bodies rushing each other, wooden sticks drawn and then - crash - a striking together. Together, striking.

"We don’t know what we are talking about when we talk about conflict. Conflict is something that exists. It is a part of relationship. In fact, a relationship is not possible without it. Conflict is one of the paths for relationships to deepen, to entangle, to become rooted in how we are together. In who we are. It is one of the primary driving forces of evolution, of the shifting and shaping of an ecosystem including an ecosystem that is a culture. But that is not how the English language holds or expresses conflict. If you are reading this, it is highly likely that you have been shaped and conditioned to think of conflict as a form of battle or disconnection without the inbuilt assumption that no matter how much we might disagree or hurt each other, we are still kin on this earth."

Spread Power, Not Panic

"False information about immigration enforcement and border patrol sightings can create unnecessary panic in immigrant communities.

"Before trusting or sharing posts on social media warning about ICE or CBP sightings, ask yourself: Is this information backed up with evidence?"

Handbook: Messaging this Moment

from the Center for Community Change

A great message doesn’t say what’s already popular; a great message makes popular what needs to be said.

FrameLab

FrameLab is a newsletter about politics, language and your brain. It was founded by Dr. George Lakoff and Gil Duran in 2017 (as the FrameLab podcast).

The goal of FrameLab is to help our readers understand how political language works, and to illuminate the key frames in our political discourse – ideological structures that are often hiding in plain sight. They also analyze and deconstruct propaganda tactics which, unfortunately, are accelerating in the digital age.

Freedom Over Fascism Toolkit

Generations of Americans before us have faced and fought oppression, confronting forces determined to harm their lives and endanger their livelihoods while still forging ahead toward the unrealized promise of liberty and justice for all. Now, it is our turn to pick up the baton and show up – marching, striking, voting and protecting each other – for our freedoms, our families, and our futures. We have won fights against exploitation by a wealthy, White few before, and by joining together, we will again.

Guide To Messaging Our Freedoms

developed by We Make the Future, ASO Communications and partner organizations

"We know our opposition is doing everything they can to distract and divide us while they test the limits of how much of their authoritarian agenda they can enact at the federal level. We cannot be stuck reacting to the opposition’s efforts to overwhelm us and throw us off course. Instead, we need to proactively name what we are fighting for: Our freedoms, our families, and our futures. What we share here are proven approaches to motivate and inspire our audiences to join us in resistance, and push toward the future we all deserve."

The Authoritarian Playbook

7 characteristics

The press has a foundational role to play in how democratic systems hold leaders accountable, and doing so requires clarity about the gravity and implications of their actions. Understanding and recognizing the authoritarian playbook as a whole can help journalists not only decide what to cover as threats to democracy, but can also help enrich and contextualize coverage about how the individual components of the playbook fit together. Americans suspect that their democracy is at risk. But by identifying and connecting individual threats to democracy to the global whole, reporting can help inform voters about more than just what is happening — it can tell them what the news means.

Surround Sound Communications

How to Build a Narrative Machine

"A single canvass conversation doesn’t shift how people understand their world. What does is encountering the same frame across contexts—at their door, in a group chat, in a news story, from a neighbor—until it stops feeling like an argument and starts feeling like common sense."

Breach Repairers

Bishop William J. Barber II & Moral Mondays

Repairers of the Breach is a national organization that trains moral leaders and builds social justice movements that are rooted in a framework that uplifts our deepest moral and constitutional values.

We are committed to supporting moral movements for social change and training fusion leaders, including activists, artists, and people of faith, who organize and mobilize around a moral agenda that lifts from the bottom so that everybody rises.

Say 'regime,' not 'administration':
Messaging guidance about fascism

"Politics and the English Language" is a 1946 essay by George Orwell that criticised the written English of his time. In it, Orwell wrote about the connection between bad prose and oppressive ideology.

In a nod to Orwell’s work, political messaging expert Anat Shenker-Osorio recently released a two-page guide titled Fascism and the English Language.

One of our core tasks, the guide argues, is to communicate that we are beyond the point of any type of normalcy. The current political period is a break from anything we’ve experienced in the US in recent history.

For example, instead of using language like government or the administration, which makes the situation more benign and lends legitimacy, we should talk about the regime. Instead of using the word deportation, which refers to specific legal procedure that uses due process, we should talk about abductions, or disappearing people, without trials, to foreign concentration camps.

• See the fascism messaging guide here.
• Watch the conversation with the author of the messaging guide.

Interviews with Rebecca Solnit

Rebecca Solnit

"It’s easy to focus on authoritarians and their petty victories. But zoom out and the picture is more encouraging, says the woman who popularised the term ‘mansplaining’, whether it’s in feminism, or the environment, or civil rights.

"When I speak to Rebecca Solnit, she is beaming, and I can’t immediately figure out why. Her new book, The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change, blasts in with a pragmatic positivity"

The Tide is Turning

from Robert Hubbell

"Can you feel it? Like an undertow in the shallows, the currents beneath the surface are reversing direction. The upstart waves divert our attention with spray and noise. But the undertow exerts a silent force, restoring equilibrium, settling nature’s accounts by subsuming the momentary turbulence of breakers into the stillness of deep oceans."

Beyond the Gatekeepers

Fascism, the Fight for Democracy, and the Frontline Reality of Black Queer & Trans Life in the South

This conversation with guest Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson hosted and moderated by Bishop Vanessa M. Brown with Bishop Yvette A. Flunder is an inspiring example of the potency of the language of faith and radical belief in community possibility. Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson is a deep thinker & powerful organizer who meets the urgency of the moment with clarity, impactful strategy and loving commitment. She is a frequent collaborator with Indivisible and many other social change organizations.

The New Antifascist Consensus

How organizers and everyday residents are stopping ICE around the country

"The broad coalition of labor, community, faith and hundreds of other groups — along with more than 700 businesses — that drove the ​“Day of Truth and Freedom,” along with the networks of grassroots resistance, like the volunteer patrols, are examples of what is now a new antifascist consensus spreading like wildfire across the country."

How to Fight Fascism

from Assembly Required

Stacey Abrams & Rachel Maddow are a pleasure to hear in conversation. We are in this struggle together & we have some brilliant thinkers on our side.