MA WAR STUDIES

“The Pen is Mightier than the Sword”.

In the ‘Information Age’, why does Civil Resistance Appear to be a more Attractive Strategic Option than Violence to Networked Social Movements?

Nicolas James Carr

Supervisor: Dr. David Betz

Submission: 15 December 2014

Word Count: 14893

This dissertation is the sole work of the author, and has not been

accepted in any previous application for a degree; all quotations and

sources of information have been acknowledged.

I confirm that my research did not require ethical

approval.

Signed: Nicolas James Carr

Date: 15 December 2014

Contents Introduction. ................................................................................................................................ 4

Literature Review. ........................................................................................................................ 6

Vanguardism. ............................................................................................................................. 16

Regime Type............................................................................................................................... 26

International Factors................................................................................................................... 37

Conclusion. ................................................................................................................................ 49

Bibliography. .............................................................................................................................. 53

4

Introduction.

The dawn of the ‘information age’ has seen waves of political tumult sweep across the globe.

Orchestrated by networked social movements, these revolutions are distinct in that they are

characterised by their use of non-violent resistance methods, specifically civil resistance. These

movements have been challenging governments and demanding political change with tactics such as

strikes, go-slows, boycotts, occupations and demonstrations. Good examples would be the colour

revolutions in Eastern Europe such as in Ukraine in 2004, the Arab Spring with the Egyptian and

Tunisian Revolutions in 2011 and finally the Occupy Movement protests. There appears to be an

increasing number of networked social movements that are adopting non-violent civil resistance

tactics where previously we would have expected them to adopt violent action. However, compared

with the literature on violent action, comparatively little academic focus has been placed on non-

violent action. This knowledge gap needs to be rectified, given the dawn of the ‘information age’

where non-violent action and in particular civil resistance appears to be an increasingly popular and

powerful method of challenging the state. The question is why, in the ‘information age’, civil resistance

appears to be a more attractive strategic option than violence to networked social movements? These

movements are not adopting non-violent civil resistance because they have a principled aversion to

violence; they are adopting it because it makes more strategic sense to do so. There must be factors

which are influencing this decision making process. This paper seeks to analyse some of these factors

by analysing three themes which, having examined the pre-existing literature, appear to be influential.

These themes are vanguardism, regime type and international factors.

This paper will be thematic in its approach and we should acknowledge the limitations of this

method. Thematic approaches allows flexibility in allowing for a wide data set, identifying patterns or

themes within a data set and allowing wide ranging conclusions to be drawn. However, thematic

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treatment does have weaknesses and care must be taken when generalising about any findings due

to the unique contexts and histories of each example selected. Thematic approaches can sometimes

overlook the nuances of any particular example and could limit the reliability of any results garnered.

Because thematic approaches allow a wide range of data to be examined it is important not to cherry-

pick cases that service the hypothesis and as a result it is critical to note the limits of the hypothesis

when analysing examples. Failure to do so, may lead to misleading conclusions. Having taken the

above limitations into account, the overall structure of this paper will consist of five chapters.

Following the introductory chapter, the relevant academic literature will be examined to establish the

conceptual framework. Certain theories attempt to explain social movements behaviour in the

’information age’ and it is imperative that we understand them to place the three case studies

examined within the appropriate theoretical context. This chapter, will therefore, demonstrate the

gaps in the literature, define key terms and establish the key themes which will be used to answer the

research question. The following three chapters will consist of an analysis of the three themes

established in the literature review. Finally, there will be a concluding chapter, which will include a

summary and critique of the paper’s findings and finally areas for future research.

6

Literature Review.

Before examining the key literature surrounding civil resistance it is advantageous to

understand the literature that provides the broad theoretical framework for this thesis. This concerns

the ‘information age’. Drucker, spoke of knowledge workers.1 Touraine, wrote of a programmed

society.2 The origins of the ‘information age’ begin with the work of Bell, who states, “a post-industrial

society rests on a knowledge theory of value. Knowledge is the source of invention and innovation”. 3

The fundamental focus is on how societies were becoming increasingly ori entated around

information, hence the ‘information age’. Manuel Castells, who contends that networks have

transformed human societies, has developed these ideas into the concept of a networked society,

which is “a social structure based on networks operated by information and communication

technology based in microelectronics and digital computer networks that generate, process, and

distribute information on the basis of the knowledge accumulated in the nodes of the networks”. 4 As

Mackinlay explains, the use of digital networks has compressed the space and time between nodes

(and therefore individuals) to almost zero.5 This allows for instantaneous mass communication. Due

to this change, individuals and, importantly, social movements now exercise counter power which is

the capacity of social actors to challenge power for the purpose of claiming representation for their

own values and interests.6 Therefore, individuals and groups now have significant autonomy and

power to orient their own behaviour and the ability to self-organise. Because of the network society,

social movements defined as a “collective challenge to elites, authorities, other groups or cultural

1 Drucker, (1968) 264 2 Touraine, (1971) 3 3 Bell, (1973) xvii 4 Castells and Cardoso, (2005) 7 5 Mackinlay, (2009) 137 6 Castells (2012) 5

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codes by some significant number of people with common purposes and solidarity”, 7 have been

transformed into networked social movements. Gerlach, explains how now these networked social

movements are segmented with many flexible groups, polycentric with shifting leaderships and

networked in that they have multiple linkages and overlapping memberships.8 Moreover, their

behaviour has been transformed. The space of autonomy allows networked social movements to

organise, mobilise and coordinate campaigns and thus challenge the state. 9 Most importantly, it

allows them to occupy cyberspace, whilst simultaneously occupying physical locations.10 They can

therefore exist both offline and online simultaneously. This new operational environment does not

totally discard older methods of behaviour but offers new tools that networked social movements can

use to organise their campaigns be they violent or non-violent. However, much focus has previously

been on violent insurgency campaigns.

Metz defines insurgency as “an organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted

government through the use of subversion and armed conflict”.11 Insurgency has developed into

networked insurgency. This is form of insurgency is best explained by Mackinlay who shows that whilst

older forms of insurgency had a top down hierarchical structure, networked insurgencies have little

defined leadership and are instead held together by horizontally ordered networks.12 All forms of

insurgency employ violence to achieve their strategic objectives. With the change to networked

insurgency, the propaganda of the deed has become the foremost form of this violence. Bolt defines

this as “a terrorist act of political violence aimed at creating a media event capable of energising

populations to bring about state revolution or social transformation”. 13 What can be observed is

7 Tarrow, (1994) 3-4 8 Gerlach (2001) 289-290 9 Castells, (2012) 222 10 Ibid., 222 11 Metz, (2007) 5 12 Mackinlay, (2009) 224 13 Bolt, (2012) xvii-xviii

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popular mobilisation using violence, with the battle for the narrative. Moreover, Bolt shows that,

insurgency is a form of revolution that uses violence to achieve objectives. Violence, and revolution

have long been considered to be linked concepts. Indeed, much work on revolution stipulates that

revolution must involve the use of or threat of force.14 Mao saw violence as inherent to insurgency

with three stages, with each employing different types and ever increasing levels of violence, ranging

from terrorism to guerrilla warfare and finally utilising combined arms.15 So, whilst gaining the support

of the population first was crucial for Mao, without violence he could not ultimately gain power.

Revolution and violence are seemingly inseparable and consequently civil resistance has been

overlooked as a form of collective action by which power can be created. Is there then, any scope for

a revolution to be non-violent in nature and use non-violence to create power? By examining the

relationship between power and violence, we can observe that there is.

It is worth understanding that there are many types of violence, personal, interpersonal and

collective. This paper is interested in the collective violence of large groups of people, specifically

networked social movements. However, a further complication is that violence is a heavily subjective

concept and contains various definitions, some expansive and others narrower. This paper therefore

needs a definition of what collective violence actually entails. Galtung’s broad def inition sees violence

as “avoidable insults to basic human needs, and more generally life”.16 Contrastingly, Keane argues

that violence should be “the more or less intended, direct but unwanted physical interference by

groups and or individuals with the bodies of others, who are consequently made to suffer a series of

effects ranging from shock…to death”.17 Too broad a definition of violence in which anything could

potentially be considered violent would not allow us to distinguish between social movements that

14 Tompkins, (2012) xvii 15 O’Neill (2005) 50 16 Galtung, (1990) 292 17 Keane, (2004) 35

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employ violence and those that choose non-violence. Adopting too narrow a definition could mean

that actions such as vandalism and looting could be seen as non-violent simply because there is no

intended threat to a human being. Taking this into account, this paper defines violence as the

intentional use of physical force, designed to cause deliberate harm or damage to either individuals

or property by a group in the pursuit of their stated objectives.

The relationship between power and violence has been widely investigated with much of the

discourse seeing power and violence as linked. This school of thought identifies with Max Weber who

argued that “power is the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to

carry out his own will despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability rests”. 18 As

Goelher points out, this can be achieved through the use of violence. 19 Less studied has been the

normative concept of power usually associated with Hannah Arendt. Arendt argues “power springs up

when people get together and act in concert”.20 Therefore, Arendt adds that “violence can always

destroy power; out of the barrel of a gun grows the most effective command, resulting in the most

instant and perfect obedience. What can never grow out of it is power”.21 Goelher, argues that power

cannot be reduced to one basic concept, but each approach must be seen as coexisting in

complementary relationship to each other because power is both empirical (power over) in the

Weberain sense and normative (power to) in the Arendtian, one potentially violent, the other not.22

The crucial point is that power must be seen as multi -faceted in nature and, therefore, the creation of

power does not necessarily have to involve violence. It is clear, as Arendt has argued, wars and

revolutions are not totally defined by violence,23 and social movements can employ non-violent

18 Weber (1978) 53 19 Goelher, (2000) 41 20 Arendt, (1972) 151 21 Ibid., 152 22 Goelher, (2000) 42-43 23 Arendt, (1963) 9

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methods in the pursuit of their goals. This is supported by Clausewitz who states that strategy is “the

use of engagements for the object of war”.24 The focus has usually been on the violent aspects of

Clausewitz’s approach, particularly his emphasis that the “direct annihilation of the enemy’s forces

must always be the dominant consideration”.25 However, as Burrowes has noted this is qualified by

Clausewitz arguing that that an opponent’s forces must be put into a condition where they no longer

continue to fight, which interestingly can be induced by many forms, and thus the political object can

be potentially be achieved without using armed force.26 Revolutions therefore, from a theoretical

standpoint do not have to be violent to create power and we can adopt Goodwin’s definition that

revolutions are “irregular extra-constitutional and sometimes violent changes of political regime and

control of state power brought about by popular movements”.27

Clearly, there is no theoretical issue with social movements engaging in non-violent

revolution. Given the recent and successful uses of non-violent action by social movements, it also

works in reality. However, there are many forms of non-violent action, and consequently a great deal

of overlap between the concepts within the non-violent resistance literature. The form that this paper

is interested in is civil resistance, which has its theoretical roots within the work of Ghandi who first

demonstrated, with his concept of Satyagraha, that regimes could be vulnerable to concerted

organised campaigns of civil disobedience.28 Building on Ghandi’s work, Gene Sharp is the key theorist.

As Schock shows us, whilst Ghandi’s form of non-violent action is based upon principled pacifism,

Sharp’s form of non-violent resistance is one which sets “aside the question of moral beliefs or codes

to which practitioners must adhere”,29 and is therefore chosen purely as a pragmatic strategic choice.

24 Clausewitz (1976) 128 25 Ibid., 228 26 Burrowes, (1996) 27-28 27 Goodwin, (2001) 9-10 28 Bondurant, (1988) 3 29 Schock (2013) 279

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Sharp’s work on non-violent resistance is based upon his theory of power that states: “governments

depend on people, that power is pluralistic, and that political power is fragile because it depends on

many groups for reinforcement of its power sources”.30 So what Sharp calls non-violent weapons such

as strikes and boycotts,31 can be used to challenge repressive governments. Such non-violent

campaigns are successful because of the four mechanisms of change. These mechan isms are:

conversion, where the opposition is convinced to make changes, accommodation where opponents

grant changes due to the perceived costs of not doing so, non-violent coercion where the non-violent

movement can implement change because the opponents will is blocked and finally disintegration

where non-violent resistance causes the opponents power to collapse. 32 All forms of non-violent

resistance, including civil resistance, work using mechanisms to effect political change. How then is

civil resistance different from other forms? Civil resistance is:

“a type of political action that relies on the use of non-violent methods…it involves a range of

widespread and sustained activities that challenge a particular power, force, policy or regime-hence

the term resistance. The adjective civil in this context denotes that which pertains to a citizen or

society, implying that a movements goals are civil in the sense of being widely shared in a society; and

it denotes that the action is…non-violent in character”.33

We can observe that we are using the term civil resistance because it shows us that non-

violence is being employed strategically, not for principled reasons and also that it is civic in nature,

being employed by the whole or greater part of a society.

The literature concerning civil resistance has looked principally at the outcomes of civil

resistance campaigns, repression, diffusion and motivations. Roberts has argued that to help

30 Sharp (1973) 8 31 Ibid., 110 32 Sharp (1990) p. 15-16 33 Roberts, (2011) 2

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determine outcomes, civil resistance must be not be considered in isolation, moreover despite its

many successes it can lead to adverse outcomes.34 The most important work that has been carried out

concerning outcomes has been Chenoweth and Stephan’s empirical study that found that non-violent

campaigns are generally more successful than violent ones because they provide various participation

advantages to non-violent campaigns over violence.35

The literature concerning repression focuses mainly on how repression can rebound on the

regime that employs it. Gene Sharp has termed this feature political Ju-Jitsu.36 Aside from Sharp, the

most thorough work done has been by Hess and Martin, who have found that unjust repressive events

can generate a huge public backlash called backfire against those responsible, indeed it becomes a

huge transformative event that can sometimes lead to greater movement mobilisation. 37 Social

movements only gain from backfire, if they can communicate this story past regime censorship and

narratives, thereby highlighting the importance of communication to social movements.38

There has been much focus within the civil resistance literature about how the message of

non-violence is transmitted across state borders. Givan has found that three types of diffusion of social

movements exist, these are relational, non-relational and finally mediated.39 Scholars are examining

all three types to establish just how the doctrine of non-violence is spreading globally. Some, however,

argue against placing too much emphasis on diffusion since it can lead to the importance of local

context being overlooked. Nepstad and Vinthagen in their study of the International Plowshare

34 Roberts, (2011) 1 35 Chenoweth and Stephan, (2011) 7 36 Sharp (1973) 110 37 Hess and Martin, (2006) 249 38 Ibid., 262 39 Givan, (2010) 209

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Movement show how local movements must shape theories of non-violence to fit the local context, if

mobilisation efforts are to be successful.40

Lastly, the current literature has looked at the motivations behind why violent or non-violent

action is chosen. Pearlman and Cunningham have looked at the internal structure of movements

finding that “actor fragmentation plays a critical role in conflict processes”.41 Cunningham meanwhile,

looks at self-determination disputes, concluding that non-violent action is chosen “when groups are

smaller, are less geographically concentrated, are excluded from political power, face economic

discrimination, make independence demands, and operate in non-democracies”.42 This area of the

factors influencing the choice of civil resistance has been underexplored and requires further study.

This is where the three key themes can be utilised to explain what motivates networked social

movements to adopt civil resistance instead of violence.

The role of a vanguard in organising a revolution has traditionally been associated with Marxist

theorists such as Lenin who strongly favoured the necessity of a trained professional vanguard to lead

and direct a revolution stating “no revolutionary movement can endure without a stable organisation

of leaders maintaining continuity… such as organisation must consist chiefly of people professionally

engaged in revolutionary activity”.43 This thinking is in line with Marx and Engels in the ‘Communist

Manifesto’ who advocated the use of a vanguard as they have the “theorising edge in understanding

the conditions, heading, and the general results of the proletarian movement”.44 This school of Marxist

thought as a top-down approach to revolution, is naturally suspicious of spontaneous revolution;

hence the great debate between Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg. As Luban notes “Luxe mburg put the

emphasis on the spontaneous action of the masses and on the socialist party’s forward driving

40 Nepstad and Vinthagen, (2008) 39 41 Pearlman and Cunningham, (2012) 11 42 Cunningham (2013) 291 43 Lenin (1988) 185-186 44 Marx (2004) 74

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agitation, not on the organizational party work and on pure orders of the leadership.45 Obviously, this

theory was problematic for Lenin as it meant that he would not be able to direct the revolution as he

saw fit. The idea of spontaneous revolution has much support in the information age; indeed the very

nature of the network society appears to have enhanced its appeal. Carne Ross’s theory of leaderless

revolution sees that in an interconnected global system, the people and not leaders have the agency

to elicit revolutionary change spontaneously.46 There is no need for a vanguard for a social movement

to adopt non-violent civil resistance campaign. The role of professional vanguards has been

overlooked in favour of views that see the recent spate of civil resistance actions as being entirely

spontaneous. There is therefore a need for a reappraisal of this situation.

Schock states, “it is assumed that there are no special contexts where only violence can be

mobilized and effective. If violent resistance can be mobilized and be effective, then non -violent

resistance can be mobilized and effective”.47 Carter states that Sharp believes that “with good enough

organisation and sufficient courage, popular non-violence always has the potential to succeed”.48

Because of this belief, Sharp overlooks the issue of how different regime types can make civil

resistance more attractive than violence. Ghandi, first demonstrated, with his concept of Satyagraha,

that different types of regime could be vulnerable to concerted organised campaigns of civil

disobedience conducted by social movements.49 However, Ghandi’s example is limited to non-violent

resistance campaigns based upon pacifism and not on civil resistance which is deliberately chosen as

a strategic option. Also, Ghandi’s work is not applicable to the networked social movements

conducting civil resistance campaigns in the information age. In addition, we also need to avoid just

looking at repressive regimes. In the last decade civil resistance campaigns have been conducted

45 Luban (2012) 360 46 Ross, (2013) xx 47 Schock (2013) 282 48 Carter (2005) 51 49 Bondurant, (1988) 3

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against all types of regime. Most of the work in this area most has focused principally on civil resistance

campaigns conducted against authoritarian regimes and relatively little consideration has been paid

to liberal democracies. It is prudent to rectify this oversight by examining different regime types not

just repressive ones.

Finally, in regards to international factors, the existing literature provides no clear narrative

as to its exact influence on the attractiveness of civil resistance, particularly in regards to the role of

states and non-state actors. Ritter argues that because of liberal expectations placed on autocratic

regimes, they find themselves in an iron cage of liberalism that makes the repression of non-violent

demonstrators politically costly.50 Others are more pessimistic about states. Chenoweth and Stephan

argue that non-violent campaigns can benefit from sanctions, diplomatic support, and allies in

international civil society.51 However, they also argue that support for non-violent campaigns is best

when it comes from multilateral sources rather than from single states, as it is more legitimate and

less politicized.52 Therefore, since the literature provides no clear narrative, this is an area suitable for

further academic study.

50 Ritter (2015) 5 51 Chenoweth and Stephan, (2011) 223 52 Ibid., 225

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Vanguardism.

The networked social movements of the ‘information age’ that employ civil resistance such as

the ‘Orange Movement’ are often seen as entirely spontaneous, leaderless, grassroots movements

that suddenly burst onto the streets and rapidly sweep away long entrenched oppressive regimes.

These spontaneously organised networked social movements comprise many individual digital

activists and networked groups who act as a quasi-leadership attempting to coordinate and organise

the movement. This assortment of actors most likely has no formal training in the real-world

application of non-violent civil resistance as a strategy. However, as Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci

states, “pure spontaneity does not exist in history…hence in such movements there exists multiple

elements of conscious leadership”.53 Therefore no social movement can ever be entirely spontaneous

and will have some degree of professional leadership. The question is how far do the presence of these

vanguards influence the choice of civil resistance to the networked social movements in the

information age? This chapter establishes that vanguardism plays a decisive role in making civil

resistance attractive to that social movement. Indeed, often it is vanguardism that allows a networked

social movement’s choice of civil resistance to appear entirely spontaneous. Professional training

enables vanguards to achieve this by; pre-protest information campaigns, understanding a regime’s

initial response to public opposition, preparations for the long term occupation of protest locations

and finally through creating dedicated activists and example setting.

Professional training means that vanguards understand techniques to engage with and

mobilise populations long in advance of the civil resistance campaign. This long-term effort prepares

a population to be more likely to support a civil resistance campaign when the vanguard initiates civil

resistance actions because the movement has built up social capital. Consider how the first stage of

53 Gramsci (2005) 196

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the Pora! civil resistance campaign in Ukraine prepared the population for civil resistance with an

information campaign, Pora! achieved two critical objectives. Firstly, they ensured that the Ukrainian

people thought that change was possible and that their votes truly mattered. Thus, when it became

clear, following two rounds of voting, that the election had been stolen from them, and Yanukovych

was declared the winner with 49.5 per cent of the vote compared to Yushchenko’s 46.6, 54 the people

would be angered and open to the idea of a civil resistance campaign. Secondly, this information

campaign meant that Pora! could build links within communities, build relationships and networks,

emphasise the role and message of the movement. In effect, Pora! would gain huge social capital

ensuring that the Ukrainian people would both recognise Pora! and be more open to support its

message and join the civil resistance campaign when the time came. The informational campaign

actually consisted of the two wings of Pora! running concurrent campaigns, Yellow Pora! connected

more with the political sphere, whilst Black Pora! focused on a grass roots mobilization campaign.

Both, campaigns sought to reduce people’s fear of the regime, providing important electoral

information and stressing the importance of voting. Both campaigns began well in advance of the

rigged 2004 Presidential election. The Yellow Pora! campaign coordinated heavily with the official

opposition to the extent that Yellow Pora! had access to the financial resources and contacts of the

opposition. By utilising these resources of Yushchenko’s opposition movement, Pora! could build

support networks, and better spread its message wider both within the official opposition and

throughout Ukraine. In effect, they could build on pre-established anti-government support networks.

Simultaneously, Black Pora! the leaderless networked wing of Pora! ran a grassroots anti-Kuchma

campaign. This was popular amongst the Ukrainian youth, known for its humour. As Alina Schpak of

Pora! noted "We mocked the power as much as possible…You can't be afraid of someone you're

laughing at".55 These campaigns by both Yellow and Black Pora! meant that before the election, the

54 Wilson, (2005) 116 55 Traynor, (6 June 2005) http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jun/06/iantraynor

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Pora! website, www.pora.org.ua became Ukraine’s fifth most popular site, and that the organization

had distributed 70 million copies of printed materials.56 Pora! as a whole, had been able voting and

around the country,57 this was despite intimidation from the authorities. As a result, some 11,000,000

Ukrainians cast their ballots for Yushchenko,58 in the 2004 presidential elections. These were votes

not just for Yushchenko, but also for change. When it became clear from the differences between exit

polls that gave the opposition an 11-point lead,59 and the government polls that showed a narrow

government victory, it became clear that the result had been stolen from the people. Thus, the fruits

of this campaign’s success in terms of making civil resistance more attractive than violence can be

seen in the second stage, the rapid mobilization campaign which began when Pora! began to occupy

protest locations weeks before the election result.60 Given the speed and turnout of hundreds of

thousands of Ukrainians,61 especially in freezing winter temperatures, occupying the Maidan

Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in Kiev and other locations throughout Ukrainian cities and that

there were no outbreaks of violence during the Orange Revolution the information campaign, can be

seen as being highly influential in the choice of civil resistance by the Orange Movement. It is this stage

that made the protests appear to be spontaneous. However, in Ukraine, it must be noted that the

Pora! campaign was limited by Ukraine’s ethnic divide, it was far more successful in Western Ukraine

than in the pro-Yanukovych east, where there were few sympathy protests. This is evidenced by the

Pora! Motorcade of Friendship, which was a last ditch attempt to generate support for the movement

56 Klid, (21 April 2005) https://www.ualberta.ca/CIUS/announce/media/Media%202005/2005-04-21_PORA%20Coordinator%20(eng).pdf 57 Kaskiv et al, (2005) under, ‘Developing the volunteer network and conducting the campaign (Sept.-Nov. 2004)’ 58 Central Election Commission, (2005) http://www.cvk.gov.ua/pls/vp2004/WP0011e 59 Traynor, (26 November 2004) http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa 60 Kaskiv et al, (2005) under, ‘Developing the volunteer network and conducting the campaign (Sept.-Nov. 2004)’ 61 Khokhlova, (26 November 2004) http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C00EEDF123EF935A15752C1A9629C8B63

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in eastern Ukraine.62 Even despite this limitation, there is evidence that where there is the long-term

preparation of a society for civil resistance by vanguards, then the attractiveness of civil resistance to

social movements is increased.

In terms of protest organisation and coordination, professional training means that vanguards

are able to overcome obstacles; they use their expertise to organise and coordinate protests so that

citizens are able to overcome their fear of the regime to join the physical protests in such large

numbers that they are more likely to reach, and be able to occupy, the protest locations. Once

revolutionary vanguards are trained, they have the ability to organise and coordinate non-violent civil

resistance protests. One of the leaders of the April 6th Movement Mohamed Adel went to Belgrade

where he received training from the Centre for Applied Non Violent Actions and Strategies (CANVAS)

states: “I got trained in how to conduct peaceful demonstrations, how to avoid violence, and how to

face violence from the security forces … and also how to organize to get people on the streets".63

Because of this professional training, the April 6th movement was able to prepare detailed and well-

constructed plans on how to organise and prepare for the protests online. One of the founders Ahmed

Maher recounts how the movement:

“established this ‘operations room’ around 15 days before the beginning of the protests, …to

discuss routine details including assessing the reach of our calls to protest with regards to Internet

websites, looking at the data and information that was being provided to citizens and studying

innovative mechanisms of protesting which aimed to overcome the methods that the state security

services always use to pre-empt demonstrations and protests”.64

62 Kaskiv et al, (2005) under, ‘Protecting the Election: the Orange Revolution (November – December 2004)’ 63 Mohamed Adel, quoted in Rosenberg, (February 17, 2011) http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/02/16/revolution_u 64 Ahmad Maher, Interview by Arshaq Al-Awsat, (10 February 2011) http://www.aawsat.net/2011/02/article55247577

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Maher goes on to add that:

“Two days prior to the demonstrations we implemented a new mode of operation which saw

activists being split into separate groups, with each group being made up of between 30 and 50

activists who would be posted to central areas and public squares to incite protests whilst only the

leader of each group would be informed of the precise location of where the protests were scheduled

to begin…meeting his group in a pre-selected location just prior to the beginning of the protest, and

then guiding this group to the main rendezvous point”.65

This demonstrates that the April 6th Movement was prepared to spark the initial protests. By

placing sizeable numbers of dedicated activists onto the streets to incite protests, ordinary citizens

would join, as they would see that they would not be protesting alone and therefore vulnerable to

repression. This stage was crucial in getting people out of their homes onto the streets owing to the

inherent fear that many people felt about openly confronting the regime. We can see that the

movement reduced the physical costs of participation. These activists could then coordinate directing

these groups to the main protest locations where they would be most effective. The planning,

however, went even deeper than this; co-founder of the April 6th movement Ahmed Salah has noted:

“the idea was to start these small rallies in densely populated areas, and to come out from

the back streets and into the main central points in every city. This way the security could not mass

their troops in one particular area, because whatever is happening is happening everywhere. By the

time the numbers reach the central designated areas where the dense police presence is, you already

65 Ahmad Maher, Interview by Arshaq Al-Awsat, (10 February 2011) http://www.aawsat.net/2011/02/article55247577

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have large numbers of people that can get through these police numbers, and you can take that

ground”.66

The initial protest locations were thus strategically selected in high population areas so that

the protest groups had the best chance of getting to a critical mass. By spreading out geographically

and then converging, the protesters could avoid the massed ranks of the Egyptian security forces until

they had sufficient numbers to outnumber the police and occupy the final protest locations. This is

essentially the civil resistance version of Napoleon’s famous dictum of march divided, fight united. 67

Without sufficient numbers being present, the Mubarak regime would not have hesitated to violently

repress the protesters. By ensuring that the protest groups could get to critical mass, the vanguard

movement cleverly lowered the physical costs of participation, again making civil resistance more

attractive as there is more chance of anonymity for the individual in a large crowd. The costs of

repression for the regime were raised, as the attempted repression of such large groups of peaceful

protesters would, thanks to new information communication technologies, be a huge international

media event. The attempted repression of protesters in Tahrir Square in the Battle of the Camel was

detrimental to the stability of the Mubarak regime by garnering much international and domestic

support for the protesters. Clearly, this preparation of the 2011 protests by the April 6th movement,

which took into account the regime’s response was crucial, for if the protesters had not reached the

protest final locations in large enough numbers then there would have been no protest and the

Mubarak regime could not have been provoked and pressurised non-violently.

The Pora! Movement, meanwhile provides an excellent example of a revolutionary vanguard

that prepared protesters to be able to occupy a protest location for an extended period of time and

in extreme conditions. Through extensive preparations, Pora! helped to ensure that protest locations

66 Ahmad Salah, Interview by International Centre on Non-violent Conflict, (3 March 2011) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfFnpVBxQdA 67 Smith, (2006) 37

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such as the Maidan in Kiev could be occupied by large numbers of protesters f or long periods of time

thereby lowering the costs of participation for participants. Pora! had pre -prepared tents for protest

locations across Ukraine in cities such as Kharkiv, Donetsk, Cherkassy, Dnipropetrovsk and Ternopil

and most importantly Kiev.68 In Kiev alone, some 1,500 tents were provided to help protesters to

continue to occupy the Maidan despite the extremely low winter temperatures. 69 By ensuring that the

protesters could continue to occupy the square, even in winter temperatures, it enabled the pressure

on the Kuchma regime to be continuous. This type of pressure then forces regimes to respond either

by backing down or with violent action which allows the social movements to portray themselves as

victims, which gains support and raises the costs of further repression.

Finally, the presence of a vanguard ensures that civil resistance is more attractive through

teaching and example setting. Professional training such as that provided by the CANVAS organisation

creates activists dedicated to using civil resistance. Through such training, activists become convinced

of the values of using civil resistance instead of violence and the dangers of not doing so. Entsar Qadhi,

a Yemeni activist, after attending American training sessions in Yemen stated that “It helped me very

much because I used to think that change only takes place by force and by weapons…but now, it is

clear that results can be achieved with peaceful protests and other non-violent means.70 Crucially,

once trained, they can train other activists about both the importance of non-violence and the use of

non-violent strategies and then those activists can set examples of using non-violence to protesters

during protests thus guiding the movement as a whole towards civil resistance. This teaching

behaviour can be observed in movements like Kefaya and the April 6th movement in Egypt and Pora!

in Ukraine. They had memberships which had received extensive professional civil resistance

68 Kaskiv et al, (2005) under, ‘Protecting the Election: the Orange Revolution (November – December 2004)’ 69 Ibid., 70 Entsar Qadhi, quoted in Rosenberg, (February 17, 2011) http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/02/16/revolution_u

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training.71 Consider April 6th activist Adel, who took a week-long course in the strategies of non-violent

revolution in Belgrade where he learned how to organize people… and most importantly, he learned

how to train others. Afterwards, he went back to Egypt and began to teach others the same methods.72

This transmission of knowledge created a large number of dedicated civil resistance activists.

Once trained, these individuals could be strategically placed in the protest locations, to ensure

that the protests were as non-violent as possible with the activists leading by example. In Ukraine,

Pora! activists Andriy Husak, Andriy Rozhniatovsky, Ihor Kotsiuruba, and Mikhaylo Plotnikov were

present to organize and coordinate the activities of the tent camp in Kiev to ensure that they stayed

peaceful.73 Indeed, such was the penetration of the Pora! values of non-violence that the Orange

Movement as a whole attempted to avoid violence by ensuring that police lines were protected by

lines of older demonstrators facing the crowds, to keep out hot-heads and possible infiltrators planted

by the authorities.74 In addition, to further reduce tensions, they used young girls to place flowers in

riot policeman’s shields.75 Indeed, Roman Zvarych, a pro-Yushchenko MP commented, “It's very hard

to be angry when beautiful Ukrainian girls are pushing flowers into your riot shield”.76 These activists

could also distribute civil resistance literature to protesters at protest locations. In Egypt, trained

activists distributed thousands of copies of Sharp’s 198 methods of non -violent civil resistance to

protesters.77 However, such measures and behaviour can never be totally effective due to the

enormity of the crowds and as emotions in such environments are hard to keep in check and can easily

71 Rosenberg, (February 17, 2011) http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/02/16/revolution_u 72 Ibid., 73 Kaskiv et al, (2005) under, ‘Protecting the Election: the Orange Revolution (November – December 2004)’ 74 Wagstyl and Turner, (2 December 2004) http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/43aae19c-4406-11d9-af06-00000e2511c8.html#axzz3LDw3xa75 75 Ibid., 76 Roman Zvarych, quoted in Wagstyl and Turner, (2 December 2004) http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/43aae19c-4406-11d9-af06-00000e2511c8.html#axzz3LDw3xa75 77 Arrow, (21 February 2011) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12522848

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escalate towards violence. Indeed, in Egypt, there are numerous cases of vi olence being used in self-

defence when violent repression was used by the regime, most notably during the Battle of the Camel.

Moreover, there are cases of pro-active violence, for example, in Suez and in the northern Sinai area

of Sheikh Zuweid, several hundred Bedouins and police exchanged live gunfire, killing a 17-year-old

man.78 So obviously, there are limits to what even a professional vanguard can achieve. Nevertheless,

the handing out of civil resistance literature and the example set by professional activists undoubtedly

helped ordinary protesters to understand the importance of using civil resistance and not violence.

What emerges is that when professionally trained vanguards are present the likelihood of

networked social movements adopting civil resistance instead of violence is greatly magnified. Firstly,

they are capable of conducting large scale information campaigns which prepares a civil society to be

receptive towards a campaign. Effectively, these campaigns create social capital meaning that citizens

are more likely to support the vanguard when they choose to begin the protests. However, in states

with sectarian divides, information campaigns by vanguards are likely to be less effective as they may

be seen to only represent the interests of only one section of a society, thereby making their message

less appealing to other demographics. Secondly, we can also observe that civil resistance is made more

attractive by the way in which vanguards organise and coordinate the initial stages of protests so as

to be able to overcome the targeted regime’s initial response. Consequently, the movement can more

easily make the initial difficult transition from being a virtual protest to also being a physical one. This

is achieved because vanguards have an understanding of the regime’s repressive response to public

confrontation. These can then be overcome, which lowers the costs of participation thereby allowing

more citizens to overcome their natural fear of the regime to join the protests thus protests have more

chance of getting to critical mass and a greater chance of being able to actually occupy protest

78 Al-Jazeera (14 February 2011) http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/01/201112515334871490.html

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locations which exerts pressure on the regime. Moreover, once those anti -government forces have

reached the protest locations, vanguards make preparations so that those locations can be occupied

for extended periods of time even in adverse conditions that enables the pressure on the regime to

be applied continuously. Finally, vanguards are best able to ensure that non-violence is adopted

through teaching and example setting. Overseas training creates dedicated civil resistance activists

who understand the costs of employing violence. They can then return home to teach other members

of the vanguard movement these same values, thereby ensuring that all members will adhere to the

non-violent doctrine. These trained activists can then be placed in strategic locations to prevent

violence from occurring by setting an example to ordinary protesters. They can also distribute civil

resistance literature to the crowds. However, with emotions so high in such environments there are

limits to how far these measures can be effective

26

Regime Type.

Throughout the last decade, networked social movements have carried out civil resistance

campaigns against regimes with diverse natures. In places as diverse as Egypt, Ukraine, Tunisia and

the United States, civil resistance appears to have become the tool of choice for networked social

movements. The regimes targeted are all so different that the reasons for civil resistance being more

attractive than violence must be many and varied. The question is whether regime type affects why

networked social movements are adopting civil resistance? By examining two types of regime; liberal

and repressive, it will be argued that regime type is influential in the choice of civil resistance by

networked social movements. However, before embarking on an examination of the effects of regime

type on the attractiveness of civil resistance it is important to first classify the re gime types being

examined. This chapter uses a dichotomous classification of regime type, these being liberal and

repressive. Liberal democratic regimes are defined as regimes that are based upon two principles.

Firstly, “political liberties exist to the extent that the people of a country have the freedom to express

a variety of political opinions in any media and the freedom to form or to participate in any political

group”.79 Secondly, “democratic rule (or political rights) exists to the extent that the national

government is accountable to the general population, and each individual is entitled to participate in

the government directly or through representatives”.80 Repressive regimes are therefore regimes that

seek to deny the liberties and freedoms that are available to citizens in liberal regimes through the

use of, or threat of, force in the maintenance of their own power.

Liberal democratic regimes increase the attractiveness of civil resistance for several reasons.

Firstly, they make it is exceedingly simple for networked social movements to organise and coordinate

multiple campaigns of civil resistance, not just nationally but globally. This is achieved through

79 Bollen, (1993) 1208-1209 80 Ibid., 1209

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guaranteeing the freedoms of speech and of association. Both types of freedom are often enshrined

in law. Article 11 of the Human Rights Act allows for the freedom of assembly that grants citizens the

legal right to join together for the purposes of collective action.81 Therefore, the creation of networked

social movements critical of the government is not illegal. Furthermore, Article 10 allows for the

freedom of public expression,82 which means that the social movement organisations and individuals

within the entire networked social movement can openly communicate with each other to coordinate

civil resistance actions without fear of government interference. The ‘Occupy Movement’ was able to

openly organise numerous well-supported rallies and action across the globe against numerous liberal

regimes because it had free access to social media networks via the Internet. The first of the

constituent movements, the ‘Occupy Wall Street Movement’, inspired copycat movements globally

such as ‘Occupy Melbourne’ and ‘Occupy London’. All the independent movements used the Internet

and social media such as Facebook and Twitter to plan and coordinate local Occupy protests whilst

simultaneously coordinating globally so that cities in 25 countries could all be simultaneously occupied

on October 15th, 2011.83 Alex Gard of ‘Occupy Melbourne’ stated, “We are inspired by what's

happening on Wall Street and loosely liaising with each other, but it's not organized in any central

way".84 This level and ease of communication and coordination was to some extent possible because

of the freedoms guaranteed by liberal democratic regimes. The measures that more repressive

regimes use to prevent networked social movements organising are not permissible. The prospect of

the British and American governments employing an Egyptian style Internet blackout is unthinkable.

Secondly, liberal regimes create very low costs for citizens to participate in civil resistance

campaigns meaning, that in theory, the mobilisation of participants is not a problem. Again, this stems

81 BBC News, (29 September 2000) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/946400.stm 82 Ibid., 83 Voigt, (October 7, 2011) http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/07/business/wall-street-protest-global/index.html 84 Ibid.,

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from the provision of certain freedoms and protections. Freedom of speech ensures that networked

social movements can influence public opinion by freely broadcasting their message across the

Internet and social media to attract support from sympathetic citizens. Therefore, they can potentially

influence huge swathes of society to engage with their campaigns. However, in a media environment

where everybody can express their opinion and ideas it is possible that the message of a movement

can be drowned out in such a ‘noisy environment’. Secondly, owing to freedom of association, citizens

are free to join and support such movements without penalty. However, free riding is a problem

because of the low costs of joining a Facebook group or following a Twitter hash tag and high potential

benefits if the movement succeeds. Of the 13,000 likes,85 that ‘Occupy London’ had prior to the 2011

protests only about 200 tents were actually pitched in the piazza outside St. Pauls,86 suggesting that it

is more likely that people will passively support a movement online then actually physically join the

protests. Furthermore, citizens are most likely to take to the streets and protest against the

government if they have grievances. For example, Article 11 of the Human Rights Act in the UK

provides for the right to protest, thereby making many civil resistance tactics legal. Legislation exists

which curtails the behaviour of the police, meaning that liberal democratic regimes generally have a

very low capacity for the coercion of the population. As a result, when protests do take place, there

are restrictions on police behaviour in dealing with large groups of protesters and the public in general.

Police in the United Kingdom may only use “force as is reasonable in the circumstances”.87 Police are

held to a certain code of conduct, indeed, as the 1984 Police and Criminal Evidence Act states, “officers

are subject to the same rules as the rest of society, but must meet higher standards than the public

because police forces are public bodies, officers have a duty under the Human Rights Act not to use

85 Waldram, (14 October 2011) http://www.theguardian.com/news/blog/2011/oct/14/occupy-england-protests-gather-momentum-via-facebook 86 Kingsley, (20 October 2011) http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/oct/20/occupy-london-st-pauls-protesters 87 BBC News Online, (8 March 2007) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6430073.stm

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force that might constitute "inhuman and/or degrading treatment".88 This is not to say that police

forces in liberal regimes are incapable of brutality, it is just that if it does occur it is not used as a

systematic tool of repression designed to create an environment of fear. As a result, the costs of

participation are very low, which as a result means that citizens are more likely to come out onto the

streets and support a peaceful protest as they have less fear of being violently repressed by the police.

Most definitely, media freedom in liberal regimes encourages the use of non-violent tactics

because it is very simple for the media to demonstrate to the public social movements using violent

methods. Consequently, the movements may lose public support if the cause is delegitimised by

violence. According to a YouGov poll in the UK 64% of adults believe television to be the most

trustworthy news source.89 Therefore, the media can easily sway public opinion for or against a

movement. Civil resistance activist Naomi Klein of Occupy Wall Street recognised the values of using

non-violence because of the influence that the media wields. Indeed, she wrote, “You have refused to

give the media the images of broken windows and street fights it craves so desperately”. 90 Clearly,

Klein recognises the key danger of using violent tactics that elements of the media can seize upon to

delegitimise the movement. For example, consider the clashes in the City of Oakland between the

Occupy movement and the police in November 2011 which turned violent. Daniel Halper of the right-

wing American media magazine ‘The Weekly Standard’ wrote “Given the choice between siding with

the law or with a protest made up of hooligans who place police officers in headlocks, who would you

pick?”91These words demonstrate that when violence does occur it is invariably seized upon and

emphasized by elements of the media, often to the detriment of the non-violent elements of the

88 BBC News Online, (8 March 2007) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6430073.stm 89 Thompson, (14 November 2011) https://yougov.co.uk/news/2011/11/14/trust-media/ 90 Elliot, (17 October 2011) http://www.salon.com/2011/10/17/occupy_wall_streets_struggle_for_non_violence/ 91 Halper, (16 October 2011) http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/does-obama-endorse_595959.html

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movement. This means that non-violence is more attractive if movements wish to avoid negative

publicity that can damage vital support for the movement, as people will not wish to be associated

with a violent organisation.

Liberal democratic regimes also make civil resistance less attractive to networked social

movements. Firstly, the minimal coercive state capacity for repression ensures that highlighting the

barbarity of the regime is generally not a tactic that can be employed against liberal democratic

regimes. This prevents a social movement from mobilising domestic and international support for the

movement. Consequently, liberal democratic regimes will not face any increased pressure to accede

to the movement’s demands. It is largely impossible to present a liberal democratic regime as

repressive if protesters are unlikely to be violently treated. Secondly, because of the existence of

formal mechanisms of change, people’s willingness to join civil resistance actions will be reduced since

they have a belief in the change that can be effected by the system. Free and fair elections in which

citizens can freely and secretly vote for any political party of their choice means that civil resistance is

not the most effective way to effect political change. They provide citizens with a strong official

alternative to the government of the day along with the reality of getting that opposition into office.

Independent watchdogs such as the Electoral Commission in the UK oversee elections to prevent fraud

and to ensure the correct result is reached. Therefore, when change does occur, it is likely to be free

and fair and therefore, less open to challenge. Options such as civil resistance will be less effective as

they cannot guarantee real change, therefore people are less likely to support the movement. The

majority (60%) of the British population still believe that voting is the only way to have their say. 92

Civil resistance appears, at first, to be an unattractive prospect to use against repressive

regimes. This is because the use of repression constructs what can best be termed ‘fear environments’.

92 Arnett, (20 February 2014) http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/feb/20/is-russell-brand-right-are-we-disenchanted-by-politics

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This environment presents a major obstacle to traditionally organised social movements, but it allows

networked social movements to flourish. Indeed, such regimes employ many mechanisms to limit

social movements from organising and mobilising support for a civil resistance campaign. At first

glance, it is extremely difficult to convince people to join such campaigns for fear of violent repression.

In Egypt, police brutality, and the use of torture were common tools of repression; one only has to

observe the death of Khaled Saeed at the hands of two policemen in an Alexandrian cybercafé in June

2010 to observe the extent of violent state repression. It is, therefore, unsurprising that in Egypt some

common proverbs used by ordinary Egyptians during the Mubarak era were “walk quietly by the wall

(where you cannot be noticed) and whoever is afraid stays unharmed”.93 It is more difficult to organise

campaigns if your prospective audience has an innate fear of the regime. Clearly, there are high

participation costs that must be overcome. However, convincing people to do this is extremely difficult

when there are few public mechanisms to express dissent. However, in reality the following sections

will demonstrate this is not the case with the networked social movements operating against

repressive regimes in the ‘information age’.

Where repressive regimes dominate the traditional media environment, it forces dissenting

voices and public opinion to shift into the digital online sphere. This is attractive to social movements

because they can more easily organise and mobilise a population ripe for a civil resistance campaign

in a way not possible offline. Indeed, within this sphere they are able to organise and mobilise almost

as freely as in liberal regimes. The Internet and cellular communications played a key role in the

Orange Revolution. Pora! was also able to use the Internet to set up an online network of NGOs from

whom they received support such as legal advice and communications technology.94 Also, anti-

government websites sprung up, such as Gongadze’s ‘Ukrayinska Pravda’ which spread an alternative

93 Ghonim, (2012) 3 94 Kaskiv et al, (2005) under ‘Who Created Pora’ http://pora.ua/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=141&Itemid=206

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message to that of the regime. Likewise in Egypt, grievances were expressed freely and opinions

concerning democratic change shared infinitely to likeminded individuals and groups in an anonymous

environment. This was highlighted by activist Noha Atef who said of the online aspects of the

revolution “to have a space, an online space, to write and talk to people, to give them messages, which

will increase their anger, this is my favourite way of online activism”. 95 Facebook groups such as ‘We

are all Khaled Saeed’ were created, which called for Egyptians to gather in protest on January 25. “As

one Egyptian activist succinctly tweeted during the protests there, we used Facebook to schedule the

protests, twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world”. 96 This was only possible because

people could be more easily mobilised and organised online, as the personal costs for joining these

groups were low. The fear barrier was overcome as online personas offered anonymity and, moreover,

it was not possible for the security services to arrest or intimidate every blogger or online journalist.

The availability of such tools increases the attractiveness of civil resistance to networked social

movements as it allows the campaigns to actually be organised and mobilised even in the most

repressive political environments.

The second effect of regimes repressing the traditional media is that it can be extremely

successful in its purpose in that it creates an overreliance on using those methods. However, the result

of this is that the regime can become blind to changes in societal structure and complacent to the

emergence of the new forms of organisation and mobilisation taking place in the online sphere. They

unwittingly allow social movements to organise and mobilise almost unchallenged mass protests in

the online sphere. Traditional methods of repression are very effective in creating public

environments based on fear where traditional methods of organisation for social movements can be

almost unworkable. However, as a result of this success, these regimes have little understanding of

95 Noha Atef, quoted in Aouragh and Alexander, (2011) 1348 96 Tilley and Wood, (2003) 97

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how to the confront novel threats to their power presented by the Internet and social media except

by using these trusted methods or by resorting to drastic measures both of which are ineffective.

Indeed, in many cases they do not appreciate the nature of the threat posed by protests organised

through digital networks can pose until it is too late; Egypt in 2011, is a prime example of this. Although

the Mubarak regime had set up an online ‘Electronic Commission’ to try to influence online opinions97

and routinely arrested online bloggers,98 it totally underestimated the power that the Internet could

give to dissident groups and individuals to organise and mobilise protests. This can be seen further

from the experience of activist Wael Ghonim. After an interrogation, during the 2011 protests, Ghonim

noted that he was asked questions regarding his religious beliefs but not his Internet experience.99

This demonstrates that the regimes’ priorities concerning the control of dissent in the population lay

in long-established methods of repression. Similarly in Ukraine, the laws concerning the Internet under

President Kuchma were relatively liberal, demonstrating the regime’s lack of awareness of its potential

for mass organisation and mobilisation. That many repressive regimes simply resort to shutting down

the Internet to combat protests, is further evidence of their lack of comprehension concerning both

the new information communication technologies and how they could be used by social movements

to effect change via civil resistance. Again, examine Mubarak in Egypt, where the Internet was shut

down for five days. This was a totally ineffective measure because the networked social movements

and activists behind the protests had been using the Internet to organise the protests long before this

was implemented. This increases the attractiveness of civil resistance for networked social

movements since they can exploit a repressive regime’s slothful approach to countering such novel

methods of protest organisation and mobilisation.

97 Ghonim, (2012) 36-37 98 Greenberg, (2 February 2011) http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2011/02/02/mubaraks-digital-dilemma-why-egypts-Internet-controls-failed/ 99 Ghonim, (2012) 27

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As in more liberal regimes, the use of violence delegitimises a social movement’s cause

because of the media coverage. In Egypt, after the violence of the 2008 riots in El-Mahalla El-Kubra,

the April 6th Movement, seeing how using violence had led to negative media coverage which had

undermined their domestic and international support, instead chose to adopt strict non-violent civil

resistance and received professional overseas training in this regard.100 The situation was similar in

Ukraine in 2004 where the protests following the Kuchma gate crisis are also indicative of this process.

This crisis, created protests from social movements such as ‘Ukraine without Kuchma’ and ‘For Truth’.

They occupied the Maidan in Kiev’s Independence Square with 5000 activists and soon gained the

support of opposition groups.101 However, the protests, ended when there was violence between the

protesters and the security services meaning that the protesters lost the support of the people.102 So

clearly, the media is a factor in making civil resistance more attractive than violence regardless of

regime type. However, repressive regimes will use any example of violence as a pretext for violent

crackdowns, which raises the physical costs of participation, making it harder for social movements to

get support onto the streets. In Ukraine, the social movement Pora! learnt this lesson. Indeed,

Zolotariov a Pora! coordinator stated that “If we were not violent, we could compete. If we were

violent, they could have resorted to force. This was the only efficient strategy within the current

environment”.103

It is well established that networked social movements use the Internet and social media to

highlight a regime’s brutality. Non-violence is necessary for this to be effective as, if violence is used,

social movements cannot portray themselves as the victims. If they can claim this status, then they

100 Frontline, (February 22 2011) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/revolution-in-cairo/inside-april6-movement/ 101 Olearchyk, (21 December 2000) http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/ukraine-without-kuchma-leader-yury-lutsenko-6683.html 102 Solodko, (9 March 2011) http://www.istpravda.com.ua/videos/2011/03/9/30212/ 103 Zolotariov, quoted in Binnendijk, (2006) 416

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gain domestic and international sympathy and support that then raises the costs of further repression,

making it less likely and thus the protesters can continue to occupy protest locations and putting

continued pressure on the regime. However, this is only possible if a regime employs violent

repression, which is more likely to happen in repressive regimes than in liberal ones. The Battle of the

Camel in Tahrir Square on February 2nd 2011 is an example of what can happen when repression can

be highlighted. Prior to this, the regime appeared to be caving in to the protestor’s pressure. Indeed,

Mubarak’s speech on February declared “I have tasked the vice -president with holding dialogue with

all political groups over all of the issues at hand for political and democratic reform”. 104 Ghaly

described this speech, as “slick and dividing public opinion”.105 However, after the battle, Ghaly states

“the one good thing to come out of that day, was that all those who had wanted to give Mubarak a

‘chance’ changed their minds within hours…The divide that was palpable the day before

disappeared”.106 This change had occurred due to the extensive media coverage that the battle had

received both domestically and internationally, which had highlighted the brutality of the regime.

Consequently, the regime was on the receiving end of a domestic and international backlash, which

allowed the movement as a whole to generate further support, which increased the pressure on

regime. This is demonstrated by the Friday after the battle, where estimates of 700,000 protesters

came to Tahrir Square spontaneously.107 However, it should be noted that this could only be effective

if communication with the outside world can be maintained by overcoming regime censorship. As will

be seen in the third chapter, this is contingent on the support of the online international community.

Regime type certainly does affect the attractiveness of civil resistance to networked social

movements over violence. Liberal democratic regimes somewhat increase the attractiveness of civil

104 Kortam, (3 February 2013) http://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2013/02/03/the-battle-of-the-camel-the-final-straw-for-mubaraks-regime 105 Ghaly, (2011) 150-151 106 Ghaly, (2011) 151 107 Sioufi, (2011) 249

36

resistance by making them simple to organise and mobilise on a global scale. Moreover, the presence

of a free media makes the use of non-violence tactics imperative, due to the media’s ability to

delegitimise a social movement’s cause. However, they also ensure that civil resistance tactics are less

attractive because the tactic of highlighting the barbarity of the regime, to harness international and

domestic support, cannot be employed. Most importantly the system has inbuilt mechanisms

(elections) which provide real change, unlike civil resistance which cannot guarantee any change will

actually occur. Certainly, it makes it difficult for any of Sharp’s mechanisms to be effective. So,

evidently liberal regimes ability to increase the attractiveness of civil resistance is somewhat mixed.

In contrast, repressive regimes increase the attractiveness of civil resistance to networked social

movements. Most critically, they force dissenting opinions into the online sphere, where networked

social movements can freely organise and mobilise large scale civil resistance campaigns. This is a

realm that the regime cannot effectively police for two reasons. Firstly, the infinite and flexible nature

of the digital environment means that it is impossible to control everything that exists on it. Secondly

by dominating the traditional media environment, regimes are likely to underestimate the potential

of the digital sphere for mass organisation and mobilisation, thereby disregarding it as threat until it

is too late, only then implanting ineffective drastic measures such as Internet blackouts. As in more

liberal regimes, the use of violence delegitimises a movement’s cause. However, in repressive regimes

the use of violence can also justify the use of violent repression, which makes future mobilisation

efforts much more difficult as the costs of participation are raised. Finally, repressive regimes allow

for the brutality of the regime to be highlighted using the Internet and social media, which can garner

much international and domestic support.

37

International Factors.

In the ‘information age’ many social movements are choosing to employ non-violent civil

resistance over violence. This form of non-violent resistance appears to be in vogue given events such

as the Arab Spring, where social movements dedicated to civil resistance appear to spread acros s

borders from state to state in an almost contagion like fashion. Interestingly, these campaigns are

occurring in an international environment that, because of globalisation, is one full of paradoxes. As

the French economist Jacques Attali has noted “We l ive in a world that is simultaneously shrinking and

expanding, growing closer and farther apart...National borders are increasingly irrelevant. And yet

globalism is by no means triumphant. Tribalisms of all kinds flourish. Irredentism abounds”. 108 Thus

this international environment is one where the relevance of the established paradigm of Realist

Westphalian sovereignty is being challenged and the importance of non-state actors is growing. Non-

state actors (NSAs) are “a broad category of actors in global pol itics who represent interests and exert

influence but who do not exhibit the distinguishing state characteristics of legal sovereignty and

control of territory and people”,109 who have in recent decades exploded onto the international scene

in many forms. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs), multinational corporations, international

global media organisations and hacktivist organisations are self -activating popular political action

groups within cyberspace that seek to influence the offline world. 110 All now play a key role in a

multidimensional international environment. Therefore, both states and NSAs are influential parts of

the current international environment. Indeed, states do appear to be diminished as actors wielding

direct influence. In fact, when states attempt direct involvement what results does not increase the

attractiveness of civil resistance. As a result, it is non-state actors who now wield the ability to directly

108 Attali, (1991) 117 109 Calhoun, (2002) 338 110 Jordan and Taylor, (2004) 1

38

influence the international arena. However, as established by Manuel Castells, although states have

lost sovereignty, and can only create wield influence in international arena of shared sovereignty, they

still wield considerable influence,111 which can be observed by states providing funding for non-state

actors, through which civil resistance campaigns can be funded and professional activists trained,

whose effectiveness we observed in chapter one.

States, as independent actors, make civil resistance less attractive to networked social

movements when they intervene individually because of their strategic interests. Firstly, to protect

these interests, states can provide regimes with the technical means to repress the anti -government

forces. Prior to the 2011 revolution, and since the Camp David Accords in 1978, Egypt had been a

stalwart American military ally in the Middle East against Islamism. Indeed, “between 1948 and 2011,

the United States has given Egypt about $71.6 billion in bilateral military and economic aid”. 112 More

important though, was the aid used specifically for military and security purposes. Indeed, of the $1.5

billion in aid Egypt received from the United States for the 2011 fiscal year, $1.3 billion was designated

for peace and security.113 More recently, Amnesty International has discovered that even during the

2011 protests three deliveries of arms were made to Egypt by American company Combined

Systems.114 Indeed, many of the empty tear gas canisters, found in Tahrir Square, have been found to

have ‘Made in the U.S.’ markings much to the irritation of the protesters in Tahrir Square.115 Thus, the

United States was directly funding and supplying the equipment used by Egyptian security forces to

repress the Egyptian protesters. Obviously, simply having the equipment ready to use raises the costs

of participation for citizens in a civil resistance campaign, making them harder to mobilise since they

111 Castells (2004) 365 112 Plumer, (9 July 2013) http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/09/the -u-s-gives-egypt-1-5-billion-a-year-in-aid-heres-what-it-does/ 113 Wingfield, (29 January 2011) http://www.forbes.com/sites/brianwingfield/2011/01/29/making-sense-of-u-s-foreign-aid-to-egypt-and-elsewhere/ 114 BBC, (7 December 2011) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16075152 115 Ibid.,

39

are more likely to be repressed. Moreover, it can be used to provoke the protesters into abandoning

non-violence, thereby justifying the use of further repression, which could lead to violent escalation

and the complete abandonment of non-violence.

The provision of technical support and aid, as detailed above, that direct efforts to prevent

repression, such as statements calling for a regime not to employ repression, are likely to fall on deaf

ears, whilst the threats of sanctions are unlikely to be seen as credible. Consequently, the threat of

repression to protesters remains high making it more difficult for social movements to mobilise

domestic support for their campaigns. The behaviour of the Mubarak regime in Egypt is a good

example of this. President Obama threatened to withdraw military aid unless the regime refrained

from violence against protesters and reversed the Internet blackout,116 which the regime eventually

did on February 2nd. The protesters could again organise and mobilise the protests using social media

and mobile telephony, whilst also demonstrating to the world the brutality of the regime. They

thereby mobilised further domestic and international support, increasing the pressure on Mubarak.

The regime’s actions were, however, not down to the threat of sanctions. The Mubarak regime was

unlikely to believe that the threats from the United States were credible given the shared interest in

tackling the Islamist terror threat, and the US having invested billions of dollars of aid into Egypt.

Indeed, the Obama administration was reluctant to abandon Mubarak and the US adopted a Janus

like approach to the crisis; there was no concrete demand that Mubarak should stand down.117

Without an outright demand to stand down, the Mubarak regime had the perception that it could, to

some extent, continue to repress the protesters violently without genuinely losing the support of the

US. Indeed, with regard to Egypt, Obama’s statement was made on January 28th whilst the violent

repression of the Egyptian people continued. Indeed, the worst of the violence against protesters

116 McGreal, (29 January 2011) http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jan/29/white-house-aid-egypt 117 Ibid.,

40

occurred on February 2nd during the Battle of the Camel some five days later. As a result the chances

of repression were not lowered, thereby maintaining the physical costs of participation for citizens,

making civil resistance less attractive. Moreover, the Internet blackout was not ended because of state

pressure – it ended because the economic costs of maintaining the blackout were extremely high. All

economies are now integrated with the Internet, meaning that when the Internet is removed so is a

sizeable portion of the economy. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

conservatively estimated that the Internet shutdown resulted in a US$90 million loss for Egypt, some

3-4% of GDP with other estimates being as high as US$110 million.118

Finally, because states support repressive regimes to protect their strategic interests, they

can become a toxic brand to the citizens repressed by that regime. This means that anything

associated with that state would become less attractive. This is a particular problem for civil resistance,

since it has American origins. Therefore, in states where the Unites States is not popular, civil

resistance could be unattractive, if its origins were revealed to the local population. Such associations

could make it harder for a movement to mobilise domestic support. Moreover, there are even fears

that it could potentially destabilise fragile protesting movements. This was a problem that civil

resistance activists had to contend with during the Egyptian revolution. The mixed messages that the

US propagated in the Middle East, paradoxically supporting both democracy and the maintenance of

authoritarian regimes meant that, in Egypt, the US was extremely unpopular. Indeed, in 2010 “more

than four out of five Egyptians (82 percent) now rate the U.S. negatively, including nearly half (48

percent) who give the United States a "very unfavourable" rating”.119 Therefore, it is unsurprising then

that when told by a BBC journalist of the origins of the 198 non-violent methods given out to

118 Olsen, (3 February 2011) http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2011/02/03/how-much-did-five-days-of-no-Internet-cost-egypt/ 119 Blumenthal, (31 January 2011) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/31/egypt-poll-negative-views-us-obama_n_816428.html

41

protesters, Mahmoud, a protestor in Tahrir Square stated: “This is an Egyptian revolution, we are not

being told what to do by the Americans”.120 Could the organisers of the protests convince ordinary

Egyptians to join the protests if it were openly known that they were using an American’s methods?

Given that, they refused to talk about Gene Sharp on camera and that his works were distributed in

Arabic because of fears that the work being of American origin could destabilise movements, 121 it

seems unlikely. Destabilised movements are more likely to splinter, potentially allowing radical fringe

movements to adopt violence, as they are no longer marginalised by the majority consensus. It should

be noted however, that this problem only applies to some states in particular circumstances, since

adopting civil resistance was obviously not an issue for the Occupy Movement or for Pora!. However,

as long as the US retains its current role as the global superpower, this problem of association is

unlikely to disappear as a problem for the attractiveness of civil resistance.

In comparison to states, non-state actors such as multinational corporations (MNCs), the

international media and hacktivist organisations and non-governmental organisations do have

significant power to influence making civil resistance more attractive than violence to networked

social movements. Firstly, let us examine the international media. Without doubt, the international

media organisations can be a potent influence on the attractiveness of civil resistance because of the

significant amount of pressure that negative news coverage can exert on a regime. Sophisticated

information communication technologies allow live around the clock broadcasting of events such as

the Orange Revolution and the Arab Spring to a global audience. The stories that journalists report are

often emotionally charged and designed to make the viewer empathise with those portrayed as the

victims. Indeed, most importantly, such coverage altered international and domestic public opinion

and turned it against the regime. Hillary Clinton has remarked of Al Jazeera that “they are changing

120 Arrow, (2011) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12522848 121 Ibid.,

42

people's minds and attitudes. And like it or hate it, it is really effective". 122 During the Egyptian

Revolution, news stations like Al-Jazeera and CNN presented the regime in a bad light, raising the

political costs of repression and thereby, according to Wael Ghonim, kept the protesters safe by

highlighting the barbarity of the regime.123 Consider the example of the Battle of Camel in Tahrir

square, which as we have already seen, thanks to the coverage provided by international media

organisations, caused a huge domestic backlash which not only allowed greater mobilisation of the

population to be achieved, but also massively improved the ability of the networked social movements

operating in Egypt to leverage pressure against the regime as the crowds grew in number.

In some situations, however, controlling the narrative is less possible for networked social

movements, because regime censorship of traditional media and the Internet can mean that social

movements can struggle to highlight the brutality of the regime. It seems in such cases that violence

would be the only option. However, other non-state actors, such as multinational corporations and

hacktivists groups, can intervene with technical support for the networked social movements so that

non-violent movements gain vital media exposure and overcome censorship, ensuring that the global

news and social media networks can actually continue to raise the costs of repression and lower the

physical costs of participation. In effect, this technical support that transcends national borders helps

networked social movements to control the narrative concerning the regimes brutality during the

blackout, thereby generating support both domestically and internationally through both traditional

and new media outlets. This coverage then sways domestic support that in turn puts pressure onto

the regime as more people join the protests. Examples of this support can be found during both

Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions. When the Tunisian uprising started, the hacktivist group known as

‘Anonymous’ announced in an open letter:

122 Huffington Post, (3 March 2011) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/03/hillary-clinton-calls-al-_n_830890.html 123 Ghonim, (2012) 236

43

"Dear Journalists, It has come to our attention that the ongoing riots in Tunisia have by and

large escaped the notice of the major Western news networks. It is the responsibility of the free and

open press to report what the censored press cannot. The people of Tunisia have asked for our help

and we have responded through launching a new operation, Operation Tunisia. We are asking you,

the journalists, to respond to the Tunisians' appeals for assistance at this most troubling time".124

More than just drawing attention to the non-violent struggle taking place in Tunisia,

Anonymous also actively helped the protesting social movements overcome regime censorship.

Indeed, Anonymous “created a care packet, translated into Arabic and French, offering cyber-

dissidents advice on how to conceal their identities on the web, in order to avoid detection by the

former regime's cyberpolice”.125 Moreover, they used Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks to bring down

Tunisian government websites.126 In Egypt, “Anonymous worked in collaboration with Telecomix, a

cluster that uses legal means to promote free speech, to restore mirrors and proxies to help maintain

Egyptians' access to sites being censored by the government”. 127 Similarly, during the Internet

blackout in Egypt some MNCs had a similar impact. Indeed, “working with Twitter, Google acquired

SayNow, a start-up specialising in social online voice platforms, to make it possible for anyone to

‘tweet’ by leaving a message at any of three telephone numbers”.128 Clearly the online international

community rallied to the aid of the networked social movements, ensuring that they could continue

to inhabit both online and physical space and mobilising support even in an environment where that

should not have been possible.

124 Anonymous, (3 January 2011) www.anonnews.org/index.php?p=press&a=items&i=133on. 125 Ryan, (19 May 2011) http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/05/201151917634659824.html 126 Ibid., 127 Ibid., 128 Al-Jazeera, (2 February 2011) http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/02/201122113055781707.html

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Finally, non-state actors can also be extremely influential in that they can provide funding for

the training of professional vanguards and their campaigns. Non-state actors are able to provide

significant capital to fund other non-state actors who provide training in civil resistance and fund the

training of individuals in specialised training workshops. The Centre for Applied Non-Violent Actions

and Strategies (CANVAS) is a good example of the former. They run workshops with a network of

international trainers,129 around the world. Indeed, from 2002-2012, CANVAS has held 300 workshops

for 3000 participants from 46 different countries.130 Moreover, non-state actors can fund the training

of activists directly. For Pora! training of activists was supported by small grants provided by the

German Marshall Fund of the United States, Freedom House and the Canadian International

Development Agency (in the overall amount of approx. 130, 000 USD).131 Similarly, the April 6 Youth

Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi,

a youth leader in Yemen, received training and financing from groups like the International Republican

Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House.132

However, there is a crucial caveat to mention. In some cases it is sovereign states that are

surreptitiously providing the funding for these non-state actors. Direct state intervention in the

internal affairs of another state can actually damage the attractiveness of civil resistance. The question

is, how do states overcome this difficulty? How can states increase the attractiveness of civil resistance

if they are seen as a toxic brand or do not wish to be seen to be directly influencing events in another

state? The answer lies with applying their influence through non-state actors, for example non-

governmental organisations (NGOs) and international organisations that have transnational

connections and can operate where the state cannot venture openly. Non-state actors have always

129 CANVAS, http://www.canvasopedia.org/index.php/who-we-are 130 CANVAS, http://www.canvasopedia.org/index.php/what-we-do 131 Kaskiv et al, (2005) under, ‘Campaign’s funding and resource supply’ 132 Nixon, (14 April 2011) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

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been able to influence public opinion. However, with the increasingly prominent role played by the

Internet and social media the flexibility and reach of such non-state actors has increased to the point

that they can now network with a huge range of other organisations and individuals as well as having

the ability to access and distribute huge tracts of information instantaneously. Thus their ability to

influence public opinion is greatly enhanced with modern information communication technologies.

Now obviously, there are non-state actors and international organisations that operate independently

of state government. However, many now rely heavily on private sources of funding meaning that

their impartiality is open to question. Indeed, whilst funding can come from many sources, one vital

source of income is governmental in origin. For example, the National Endowment for Democracy

receives about $100 million annually from Congress.133 Similarly, Freedom House also gets the bulk of

its money from the American government, mainly from the State Department. 134 CANVAS most likely

receives substantial sums from the American government in this fashion too. Their key text, Non-

violent Struggle was funded with a grant from the United States Institute for Peace, 135 therefore

indicating at least some level of funding and support. These non-state actors can therefore very much

be the tools of the states that fund them because, if they do not spend that funding in the manner

that particular government wanted, then that organisation will most likely not receive future funding.

When states fund these organisations, they are able to direct their operations so that they benefit the

interests of that state without direct involvement. When those interests can best be fulfilled by civil

resistance campaigns then states can use non-state actors to fund and support them.

It is also worth noting that the funding of activist training by states is a grey area. It is very

difficult to establish concrete evidence of funding links from a state directly to a civil resistance

133 Nixon, (14 April 2011) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1& 134 Nixon, (14 April 2011) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1& 135 Popovic et al, (2007) 2

46

movement or individual activists. This is due to states seeking to emphasise their distance from such

direct involvement in the internal affairs of another state and non-state actors wishing to maintain a

façade of independence. Vladyslav Kaskiv of Pora! is keen to downplay the role of international

involvement in the funding and support given to the movement. Kaskiv acknowledges that the

international community provided “small grants for the training of activists”, 136 and also that the

“financial support by international donors geared at developing a network of civil society centers in

Ukraine… made it possible for the campaign to draw on considerable material and technical resources

of regional NGOs.137 However, Kaskiv also states that “Pora!, unlike its counterparts in Serbia and

Georgia, received only minimal financial support from the international community”.138 Indeed, he

puts the figure at about $130,000 USD.139 Considering the huge costs of the Pora! information

campaign and costs of preparing for long-term protests which made use of laser lights, plasma screens,

sophisticated sound systems, rock concerts, tents to camp in and huge quantities of orange clothing, 140

this figure seems impossibly low. Indeed, documents released by WikiLeaks from U.S intelligence firm

Stratfor appear to confirm the extensive relationship between the US government and CANVAS.141

However, the veracity of these documents is questionable and therefore they cannot be relied upon

to categorically prove relationships such as this exist. Therefore, the enigma of funding connections

between states, non-state actors, their subsidiaries, social movements and activists is most likely

impossible to substantiate and therefore the influence that states wield through non-state actors will

remain at best an open secret.

136 Kaskiv et al, (2005) under, ‘Campaign’s funding and resource supply’ 137 Ibid., under, ‘Who Created PORA?’ 138 Ibid., under, ‘Campaign’s funding and resource supply’ 139 Kaskiv et al, (2005) under, ‘Campaign’s funding and resource supply’ 140 Laughland, (27 November 2004) http://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/nov/27/pressandpublishing.comment 141 WikiLeaks, (18 June 2012) https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/releasedate/2012-06-18-08-canvas-how-a-us-funded-group-trains-opposition.html

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The above evidence, allows us to draw several conclusions, concerning the effect of

international factors on the attractiveness of civil resistance to networked social movements. Firstly,

states can provide repressive regimes with the very tools that are then used to repress anti-

government forces, therefore escalating the chances of violent clashes whilst also making it more

difficult for social movements to mobilise support. Secondly, where states have given support to

repressive regimes in line with protecting their vital strategic interests in the region, they are unable

to directly intervene to prevent the violent repression of anti -government forces. This is because such

support provides these regimes with the evidence that they are valuable allies to those states and

therefore that they are unlikely to jeopardise their own long-term strategic interests in support of

anti-government forces who, if they took power, may not be as accommodating. This allows these

regimes to ignore both requests not to violently repress protesters and to dismiss the threat of

sanctions if protesters are violently repressed as not credible. Finally, where states have practised

such behaviours as above, that state can becomes a toxic brand to the citizens, making anything

associated with it tainted by association. This is a particular problem for civil resistance since its roots

lay in the work of American, Gene Sharp. Therefore, the origins of civil resistance had to be obscured

so as to prevent potential destabilisation of the movement, whereby the destabilised aspects could

potentially adopt violence. In contrast, non-state actors such as the international media can highlight

a regime’s brutality that can increase international and domestic support. Moreover, other non-state

actors such as hacktivists groups will readily lend technical support to anti-government forces so that

they can overcome regime censorship which improves the ability of the networked social movement

to control the narrative and thus receive the benefits which stem from such control. However, these

influences are minor compared to the role that some non-state actors play in providing both funding

for civil resistance campaigns and the training of revolutionary vanguards. As we observed in chapter

two their influence is considerable, when present, in affecting the choice of civil resistance. However,

48

it must be understood, that many non-state actors are not completely independent, receiving

significant funding from states that utilise them to operate in environment where states dare not.

49

Conclusion.

This paper has examined three factors that may influence why networked social movements

are choosing to adopt civil resistance instead of violence as a strategic option. On the basis of the

evidence presented in this paper, several conclusions can be drawn as to why networked social

movements are choosing to adopt civil resistance instead of violent tactics. Also discussed will be the

limitations of this paper and some areas for further research.

Vanguardism plays a hugely significant role in influencing the choice of civil resistance to

networked social movements. Through information campaigns, initial protest organisation and

coordination, preparations for long-term occupation of protest locations and finally through teaching

and example setting, vanguards guide networked social movements into almost unknowingly

adopting civil resistance. Tentatively, we can side with Lenin and suggest that Ross’s concept that the

movements involved in the recent political turmoil have adopted non-violent tactics spontaneously

without vanguards is debateable. However, it must be noted that societal divisions such as

sectarianism can limit the appeal of a vanguard’s information campaigns . Moreover, teaching and

example setting by vanguards has limitations in emotionally charged environments, where it is difficult

to control large diverse crowds.

Regime type also influences the attractiveness of civil resistance over violence. The evidence

suggests that Sharp was misguided in his contention that civil resistance can be equally attractive in

one context as in another. Liberal democratic regimes tend to limit the scope for any of Sharp’s

mechanisms to actually bring about change. These regimes have built in systems of guaranteed

political change (elections), which civil resistance cannot offer. This makes it more difficult to generate

support as citizens support the established system. Civil resistance is actually a more attractive

prospect in repressive regimes than in liberal ones. The digital sphere provides a free space in which

50

to organise and mobilise. Most importantly, this is a space which repressive regimes neither

understand, nor can effectively control. Before this change, there was little way in which social

movements could openly challenge such regimes aside from using violence. As with liberal regimes,

using violence will delegitimise a movement’s cause. However, movements operating against

repressive regimes have additional incentives to employ non-violence in that, repressive regimes will

use any example of violence as a pretext for violent crackdowns. Unlike in liberal regimes, the use of

violent repression allows networked social movements to highlight the barbarity to the world, thereby

generating domestic and international support, although this is contingent on international support

helping the movement to overcome regime censorship.

When considering international factors, the direct interventions of individual states damages

the attractiveness of civil resistance to networked social movements. This is primarily because they

have strategic interests. These interests can lead to states providing regimes with technical support

and aid that can be used to repress anti-government forces. They also inhibit an individual state’s

ability to intervene to prevent the repression of protesters. We can cautiously argue that Ritter’s

conception of an iron cage of liberalism is questionable, since regimes appear to understand that a

state’s strategic interests override all other concerns. Finally, because states support repressive

regimes, those states can become tainted in the eyes of the population of those states. This evidence

supports the work of Chenoweth and Stephan, in that when individual states do intervene, it can be

seen as politicised and therefore less welcome. Contrastingly, non-state actors play a subtle yet

marked role in increasing the attractiveness of civil resistance. International media organisations help

to highlight the brutality of regimes, which leads to greater international support and domestic

participation in civil resistance campaigns. Hacktivist groups and multi -national corporations, can

provide technical support to anti-government movements allowing them to overcome regime

censorship and reap the mobilisation benefits that controlling the narrative brings. Most importantly,

51

non-state actors such as non-governmental organisations can provide the funding for the training of

revolutionary vanguard members and also the funding for their campaigns. There is however, a

significant caveat in that states often indirectly fund these non-state actors activities. This would

appear to confirm Castells’ argument that states still retain significant influence in the current global

environment if they work though the networks of power. However such links are extremely difficult

to demonstrate due to the indirect and covert nature of such relationships.

This paper, has limitations which must be acknowledged. Most importantly, given the novelty

of this subject, there exists a distinct lack of primary sources concerning the networked social

movements that have adopted civil resistance. This paper has attempted to circumvent this issue

wherever possible. Nevertheless, such scarcity means that it has had to rely mostly upon the

secondary literature which has issues with validity and reliability. Secondly, this paper is limited by the

enormity of the three key themes discussed. These themes could easily be divided into distinct stand-

alone discussions where a greater level of analysis could be applied. Entire discussions could be had

just about the role of hacktivist groups and their relationships to networked social movements’ choice

of civil resistance. On this point of potential research, the conclusions drawn above have made but a

dent into the civil resistance literature. Future research should focus on differentiating between

repressive regime types and how each impacts the choice of civil resistance by networked social

movements. The study found that civil resistance has to be disguised in order for it to be adopted in

certain environments. This links back to the work of Nepstad and Vinthagen and highlights the

importance of local context plays in the acceptance of civil resistance. This is an issue for civil

resistance in particular because it has American origins, hence, wherever the United States has a

negative reputation, civil resistance will be less attractive to social movements unless it is disguised.

Concealing the origins prevents potential destabilisation, which is a situation where more radical

groups could be free to potentially adopt violence. As long as the United States retains its current level

52

of global influence this will remain a problem for the attractiveness of civil resistance. Perhaps future

research should endeavour to discover how best to combat this image problem. The links that exist

between states, non-state actors and vanguards require further examination. As noted, establishing

these links would be extremely difficult, nevertheless, if achieved it would prove that states are

extremely influential actors as to why networked social movements adopt civil resistance. Civil

resistance appears to be one of the most powerful levers for effecting change utilised by networked

social movements and its relative scholarly neglect cannot continue, all things considered much work

remains to be done.

53

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