Resistance Studies

Preventing Nonviolent Political Revolutions

jj January 16th, 2010

In recent decades more unarmed than violent revolutions have succeeded in removing regimes in political revolutions. Some of these are well known and others very under-researched. Even more cases has not (yet?) been successful.

Iâ€™m for the moment collecting information for a report on what the authoritarian regimes are doing to prevent masses of unarmed protesters to successfully remove unpopular regimes.

As we have seen in Iran and many other places the old power-holders have closed down internet and mobile phone systems to prevent the opposition from communicating internally and inform the rest of the world on what is going on. In Burma they moved the capital to a remote place in the forest and closed the new city. This was obviously done to prevent demonstrations outside the legislative buildings. In China we have recently seen activists from the opposition disappearing. In Russia NGOs are not allowed to receive money from external donors. In Belarus it is more and more difficult to register NGOs. Curfews, brutal police violence, extensive surveillance,…. The list is very long on actions by governments to prevent the opposition from succeeding.

Iâ€™m trying to get an overview over what is done by governments and other power-holders to reduce the efficiency of oppositional movements. In this work I need help and are asking everyone to send me reliable cases, stories, and reports on these types of activities. Please provide me with sources when possible.

All info could be sent to johansen (dot) jorgen (at) gmail (dot) com

I promise to send each informant a copy of the report when it is done.