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    From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation
    From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation
    From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation
    Ebook143 pages2 hours

    From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation

    By Gene Sharp

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    “What Sun Tzu and Clausewitz were to war, Sharp. . . was to nonviolent struggle—strategist, philosopher, guru.”—The New York Times

    The revolutionary word-of-mouth phenomenon, available for the first time as a trade book

    Twenty-one years ago, at a friend's request, a Massachusetts professor sketched out a blueprint for nonviolent resistance to repressive regimes. It would go on to be translated, photocopied, and handed from one activist to another, traveling from country to country across the globe: from Iran to Venezuela—where both countries consider Gene Sharp to be an enemy of the state—to Serbia; Afghanistan; Vietnam; the former Soviet Union; China; Nepal; and, more recently and notably, Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and Syria, where it has served as a guiding light of the Arab Spring.

    This short, pithy, inspiring, and extraordinarily clear guide to overthrowing a dictatorship by nonviolent means lists 198 specific methods to consider, depending on the circumstances: sit-ins, popular nonobedience, selective strikes, withdrawal of bank deposits, revenue refusal, walkouts, silence, and hunger strikes. From Dictatorship to Democracy is the remarkable work that has made the little-known Sharp into the world's most effective and sought-after analyst of resistance to authoritarian regimes.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThe New Press
    Release dateSep 4, 2012
    ISBN9781595588579
    From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation

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    Reviews for From Dictatorship to Democracy

    3.5/5

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    • 5/5
      Gene Sharp offers the keen insight that if war is the continuation of politics with other means, then dictators bring the bigger sticks to the fight. Using violence against dictators is both a very bloody and often futile approach, as the chosen battlefield (violence) is a dictatorship's main source of strength. A successful challenge thus must come from other, more patient and more cautious means: Non-violent resistance á la Gandhi, targeting a dictatorship's weaknesses and putting stress upon its bureaucracy. A dictatorship is, by definition, a highly centralized organization that can bear little information and control overload. Lessening its grip on society and control over information by establishing parallel (informal and formal) institutions dismantles a dictatorship step by step.The second big message of the book is the importance of planning and logistics. Caution is the word. Manning the barricades and organizing demonstrations without the legwork and underlying strategy result only in futile bloodshed. While the media promote the images of the brave young revolutionaries, the important work has to be done in meetings, hopefully long prior to the actual revolution. Otherwise, just as in Hungary 1956, winning the tactical fight on the barricades is traded for the strategic loss against the powers of repression.Sharp's concise manual and checklist of non-violent political measures needs to be fleshed out and adapted to the individual struggle. The biggest omission in my view is the colonial outlook of the manual. It basically assumes either a colonial or local oppressor set against the people. In many current conflicts, however, there are ethnic fault lines where the question is less about dictatorship vs democracy but which clan/ethnic group rules over other clans/ethnic groups. If resources (and wealth) come from a single source (such as oil or diamonds), is there a chance of decentralized democracy or are such countries doomed to fall to strongmen?In any case, Gene Sharp is an inspiration to the world and this booklet a guide to freedom.
    • 3/5
      This is an actual handbook on nonviolent resistance, which on the one hand makes it incredibly intriguing but on the other makes it rather boring, since it reads somewhat like an instruction manual. I presumed when I heard about the book that Sharp would include many references to real-life struggles in order to illustrate his points, but he rarely did this even though the book would have benefitted from more concrete examples. The last few chapters were more interesting as he discussed the planning and implementation of specific strategy, but overall the book is geared more toward people who are planning to utilize the information in their countries, and not toward those of us who are simply interested in the phenomenon.

    • 4/5
      Sharp is a modern day combination of Gandhi and Machiavelli. While not a strict pacifist, Sharp makes the point that by picking up the gun, you have chosen to fight on the dictator’s terms. Totalitarian regimes can usually muster much greater firepower than their subjects. Rifles against tanks is not a good idea, if it can be avoided.Sharp catalogs numerous forms of creative resistance, not just gather in the square and be shot down. The utility of his ideas was demonstrated in Serbia and in the Arab Spring.Egypt was a prime example of the successful use of such mostly non-violent tactics. And Syria shows what happens when the dictator is willing and able to use his armor and air force.This is an important book, but rather dry. For a much more readable exposition of Sharp’s ideas, with plenty of anecdotes, read The Dictator’s Learning Curve. There is also an excellent documentary on DVD, How to Start a Revolution. For the importance of having at least the neutrality of the armed forces, read Katharine Chorley’s Armies and the Art of Revolution. If you ARE the armed forces, Luttwak’s Coup d’État: a Practical Handbook is essential reading.

    Book preview

    From Dictatorship to Democracy - Gene Sharp

    Preface

    ONE OF MY MAJOR CONCERNS for many years has been how people could prevent and destroy dictatorships. This has been nurtured in part because of a belief that human beings should not be dominated and destroyed by such regimes. That belief has been strengthened by readings on the importance of human freedom, on the nature of dictatorships (from Aristotle to analysts of totalitarianism), and histories of dictatorships (especially the Nazi and Stalinist systems).

    Over the years I have had occasion to get to know people who lived and suffered under Nazi rule, including some who survived concentration camps. In Norway I met people who had resisted fascist rule and survived, and heard of those who perished. I talked with Jews who had escaped the Nazi clutches and with persons who had helped to save them.

    Knowledge of the terror of Communist rule in various countries has been learned more from books than personal contacts. The terror of these systems appeared to me to be especially poignant for these dictatorships were imposed in the name of liberation from oppression and exploitation.

    In more recent decades through visits of persons from dictatorially ruled countries, such as Panama, Poland, Chile, Tibet, and Burma, the realities of today’s dictatorships became more real. From Tibetans who had fought against Chinese Communist aggression, Russians who had defeated the August 1991 hard-line coup, and Thais who had nonviolently blocked a return to military rule, I have gained often troubling perspectives on the insidious nature of dictatorships.

    The sense of pathos and outrage against the brutalities, along with admiration of the calm heroism of unbelievably brave men and women, were sometimes strengthened by visits to places where the dangers were still great, and yet defiance by brave people continued. These included Panama under Noriega; Vilnius, Lithuania, under continued Soviet repression; Tiananmen Square, Beijing, during both the festive demonstration of freedom and while the first armored personnel carriers entered that fateful night; and the jungle headquarters of the democratic opposition at Manerplaw in liberated Burma.

    Sometimes I visited the sites of the fallen, as the television tower and the cemetery in Vilnius, the public park in Riga where people had been gunned down, the center of Ferrara in northern Italy where the fascists lined up and shot resisters, and a simple cemetery in Manerplaw filled with bodies of men who had died much too young. It is a sad realization that every dictatorship leaves such death and destruction in its wake.

    Out of these concerns and experiences grew a determined hope that prevention of tyranny might be possible, that successful struggles against dictatorships could be waged without mass mutual slaughters, that dictatorships could be destroyed and new ones prevented from rising out of the ashes.

    I have tried to think carefully about the most effective ways in which dictatorships could be successfully disintegrated with the least possible cost in suffering and lives. In this I have drawn on my studies over many years of dictatorships, resistance movements, revolutions, political thought, governmental systems, and especially realistic nonviolent struggle.

    This publication is the result. I am certain it is far from perfect. But, perhaps, it offers some guidelines to assist thought and planning to produce movements of liberation that are more powerful and effective than might otherwise be the case.

    Of necessity, and of deliberate choice, the focus of this essay is on the generic problem of how to destroy a dictatorship and to prevent the rise of a new one. I am not competent to produce a detailed analysis and prescription for a particular country. However, it is my hope that this generic analysis may be useful to people in, unfortunately, too many countries who now face the realities of dictatorial rule. They will need to examine the validity of this analysis for their situations and the extent to which its major recommendations are, or can be made to be, applicable for their liberation struggles.

    Nowhere in this analysis do I assume that defying dictators will be an easy or cost-free endeavor. All forms of struggle have complications and costs. Fighting dictators will, of course, bring casualties. It is my hope, however, that this analysis will spur resistance leaders to consider strategies that may increase their effective power while reducing the relative level of casualties.

    Nor should this analysis be interpreted to mean that when a specific dictatorship is ended, all other problems will also disappear. The fall of one regime does not bring in a utopia. Rather, it opens the way for hard work and long efforts to build more just social, economic, and political relationships and the eradication of other forms of injustices and oppression. It is my hope that this brief examination of how a dictatorship can be disintegrated may be found useful wherever people live under domination and desire to be free.

    Gene Sharp

    6 October 1993

    Albert Einstein Institution

    Boston, Massachusetts

    1

    Facing Dictatorships Realistically

    IN RECENT YEARS VARIOUS DICTATORSHIPS – of both internal and external origin – have collapsed or stumbled when confronted by defiant, mobilized people. Often seen as firmly entrenched and impregnable, some of these dictatorships proved unable to withstand the concerted political, economic, and social defiance of the people.

    Since 1980 dictatorships have collapsed before the predominantly nonviolent defiance of people in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Slovenia, Madagascar, Mali, Bolivia, and the Philippines. Nonviolent resistance has furthered the movement toward democratization in Nepal, Zambia, South Korea, Chile, Argentina, Haiti, Brazil, Uruguay, Malawi, Thailand, Bulgaria, Hungary, Nigeria, and various parts of the former Soviet Union (playing a significant role in the defeat of the August 1991 attempted hard-line coup d’état).

    In addition, mass political defiance¹ has occurred in China, Burma, and Tibet in recent years. Although those struggles have not brought an end to the ruling dictatorships or occupations, they have exposed the brutal nature of those repressive regimes to the world community and have provided the populations with valuable experience with this form of struggle.

    The collapse of dictatorships in the above named countries certainly has not erased all other problems in those societies: poverty, crime, bureaucratic inefficiency, and environmental destruction are often the legacy of brutal regimes. However, the downfall of these dictatorships has minimally lifted much of the suffering of the victims of oppression, and has opened the way for the rebuilding of these societies with greater political democracy, personal liberties, and social

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