3
pivotal.
4
Empirical scholarship shows that nonviolent struggle has been a powerful force for
achieving group goals in literally hundreds of historical cases.
5
More relevant to this paper, a
small number of single case studies have been written about the role of nonviolent struggle in
ethno-political conflicts, movements for national independence, and resistance to foreign
occupations.
6
How Nonviolent Conflict Works
The main theory of nonviolent action is Sharp’s consent theory of power, which holds that even
brutal dictators and foreign occupying powers depend ultimately for their viability on the consent
(active or passive) of the subject population. If sufficient people, notably those in strategic
institutional positions, withdraw their cooperation then, according to this theory, they can
undermine the sources of the opponent’s power.
7
Supposedly powerful and impenetrable
regimes have collapsed when their main pillars of support were systematically stripped away.
Sharp’s consent theory is problematic when applied to the conflicts analyzed in this paper. In the
three cases presented in this paper, the states do not depend on the consent and cooperation of the
“subject” populations. Israel, Serbia, and Indonesia are more interested in the land (Occupied
Palestinian Territories, Kosovo, and East Timor) and their resources than the indigenous
population inhabiting the land. The more significant explanatory variable for how the regimes
maintain control of the territory is the political, economic, and military support from outside the
occupied territory itself. This includes their dependency on the cooperation and obedience of
4
Comprehensive on-line resources with information on past and current nonviolent struggles are the Albert Einstein
Institution (
www.aeinstein.org
) and the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (
www.nonviolent-conflict.org
).
5
For a sampling of case studies see Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall, A Force More Powerful: A Century of
Nonviolent Conflict (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000).; Stephen Zunes, Lester R. Kurtz, and Sarah Beth Asher,
ed., Nonviolent Social Movements: A Geographical Perspective (Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1999).;
Heidi Burgess Paul Wehr, and Guy Burgess, ed., Justice without Violence (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers,
Inc., 1994).; Ralph E. Crow Philip Grant, Saad E. Ibrahim, ed., Arab Nonviolent Political Struggle in the Middle
East (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1990).
6
See, for example, Grazina Miniotaite, "Nonviolent Resistance in Lithuania: A Story of Peaceful Liberation," Albert
Einstein Institution Monograph Series 8 (2002).; Olgerts Eglitis, "Nonviolent Action in the Liberation of Latvia,"
Albert Einstein Institution Monograph Series 5 (1993).; Souad Dajani, Eyes without Country: Searching for a
Palestinian Strategy of Liberation (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995). Howard Clark, Civil Resistance in
Kosovo (London and Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 2000). Adam Roberts, "Civil Resistance in the East European and
Soviet Revolutions," Albert Einstein Institution Monograph Series 4 (1991).
7
Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action: Parts One - Three, Boston, Porter Sargent, 1973
Convention