The Limits of Strategic Nonviolence

Patrick Van Inwegen

Department of Political Science Whitworth College
300 W. Hawthorne Dr.
Spokane, WA 99251

Presented at the International Studies Association Annual Conference San Diego 24 March 2006

Abstract
This study attempts to reconnect with the core concept of nonviolent action – power relationships – and analyzes the power relationships of several foreign policy and civil conflict scenarios. By contrasting these relationships, the paper argues that nonviolence is an appropriate tool in only limited foreign policy situations (characterized by human rights issues or reversing certain types of foreign occupations) and civil conflicts where extreme tactics are unlikely. Nonviolent action is not likely to be a successful tactic in third party action to halt an aggressive power, regime change, and intervention in civil wars at the international level and domestically when a group is too small, poor or targeted for ethnic cleansing or genocide.

	The Limits of Nonviolence The literature on nonviolent action takes great care to show that nonviolent action is not a product of democratic societies, Christian values, or economically developed peoples. The standard lesson from the more pragmatically oriented advocates of nonviolent action is that it is a tactic that can be used anywhere as an alternative to violence. While this perception has led to the extensive expansion of the study of diverse cases, it has also retained the ideological predisposition of the more spiritually inclined advocates of nonviolence – i.e. that there is always a better way than violence. This paper takes that assumption to task by reconnecting with the core concept of nonviolent action – power differentials – and analyzing the power relationships of several foreign policy and civil conflict scenarios. I will begin by briefly summarizing the pragmatic and principled versions of nonviolent action and then develop the core concept of power as it relates to a variety of relationships. That conception is then applied to various current conflict scenarios to clarify where nonviolence is most and least likely to work. By contrasting these relationships, nonviolence is most appropriate in only limited foreign policy situations (characterized by human rights issues and repelling certain types of foreign occupation) and civil conflicts where extreme tactics (e.g. genocide and ethnic cleansing) are unlikely.
	Before arguing where it is appropriate, we must first understand what nonviolence entails. To be more precise, I will follow Gene Sharp and others and use the term, nonviolent action to refer to action that does not use physical force to intentionally damage or destroy an opponent or an opponent’s property and is directed at creating political change that is motivated by conflicts of such significance that compromise is not possible within existing structures (1984). Nonviolent action differs from a number of similar phrases that are used when studying similar phenomenon. Nonviolent action is not nonviolence more broadly. Nonviolence incorporates much of the philosophical justification for engaging in nonviolent action. Similarly, pacifism is more of a philosophical or even spiritual statement about the way people should behave. Nonviolent action makes no such assumption. In fact, we can assume that people may be self-interested, greedy and conniving and still find much use for the tactic of nonviolent action. It is also not the same as peacebuilding or conflict resolution. These terms are often used in the context of rebuilding after a conflict. Both aim at restructuring the larger system that lead to a conflict in the first place. Nonviolent action is explicitly concerned with the context of conflict, not necessarily the process afterwards. Finally, and most importantly, nonviolent action is not simply a lack of violence. Most of human activity is fundamentally nonviolent. Sleeping, eating, socializing and most work are likely to be considered activities devoid of violence, but that does not make them nonviolent actions. These activities are assumed to be the norm of most societies. Nonviolent action, by definition, is an exceptional tactic taken during exceptional times. The element that it takes place outside of existing institutional structures highlights this aspect. The reason for investigating nonviolent action as it is here defined is to understand how alternatives to violence can be effectively utilized when violence is likely. Violence is not likely during the normal course of most human activities, including those within the political realm. Thus, most acts of diplomacy, governing, and even applying sanctions by a government (on its own people) are assumed to be the normal business of government, and thus accepted as legitimate within the existing institutions.
	This definition of nonviolent action clearly places this work within the body of pragmatic literature. Before continuing with the argument, it is useful to distinguish this body of literature.

Pragmatic and Principled Literature 	There are two primary types of literature that focus exclusively on nonviolence: pragmatic and principled. Works like Ackerman and Krueger (1994), Sharp (1984), Zunes, Kurtz and Asher (1999), and Ackerman and Duvall (2000) adopt what Robert J. Burrowes (1996) has called a “pragmatic” orientation of nonviolence. This approach views nonviolence as just one of many possible tactics (other tactics for engaging in combat include terrorism, guerrilla warfare and conventional warfare). There is no attachment to any philosophical or religious beliefs. The principled branch of the nonviolence literature focuses more on the belief system involved in those who adopt nonviolence as a way of life or guiding philosophy. For these scholars, nonviolence encompasses such religious traditions as Gandhi’s notion of ahimsa, which eschews harboring ill will to others. This is a state of mind, belief, or thought – not an action. Further, these works generally view nonviolence as part of larger social justice issues; violence is a fundamental element of many social structures. Because nonviolence is not a tactic, there is no debate about when it is likely to be more or less effective – it is always better than violence (Lipsitz and Kritzer 1975, Rigby 1995, Martin 1990, and Fellman 1998). While this distinction into two bodies of nonviolence literature is useful, it is by no means rigid as some authors and activists fluidly pass through and develop concepts in each area (e.g. Gandhi is often viewed as the guiding role model of each).
	The problem with this fluidity is that some assumptions pass from one area to another. The most troubling and enduring assumption that has come from the principled perspective is the notion that nonviolence can work anywhere and is always better than violence. Recent literature on nonviolent responses to terrorism highlights this dilemma. In his book outlining nonviolent responses to terrorism, Hastings argues, “Nonviolence may be ineffective… but it is more effective than any other mode of response to violent attack” (2004, 13). Hastings outlines several short- and long-term nonviolent strategies to combat terrorism. Similarly, Martin asks and answers the question: “what is a supporter of nonviolence to do in the aftermath of 11 September? Possibilities mentioned here include supporting technologies that are less vulnerable to attack, supporting nonviolent intelligence operations, documenting and promoting the advantages of nonviolent action compared to terrorism, and using nonviolent action against repression and oppression” (2002). The long-term or fundamental structural changes needed to implement the strategies posed by Hastings and Martin suggest that they draw more from the principled perspective than the pragmatic. The problem is that confusing the two by suggesting that these are strategies significantly dilutes the potential impact of the pragmatic arguments.
	The strength of the pragmatic literature is that it clearly illustrates that nonviolence can be an effective strategy for exercising real power (without saying anything about the belief perspective of the activist). When this message is combined with the principled arguments, much of the argument is dismissed as being overly idealistic or utopian. The intent of this essay is to attempt to regain the focus on the key concept of power in various situations to support the argument that nonviolent action can be the most effective conflict strategy in certain situations.

Power as the key concept of nonviolent action	The pluralist conception of power is well developed in a long literary tradition stretching back at least as far as ancient Greece. Within this tradition, power can be defined as the ability of one to get others to do what the one wants. Studies of power have traditionally focused on the relationship between rulers and the ruled, where the state requires compliance from citizens. There are a wide variety of ways to achieve compliance. Sharp has argued that citizens comply out of habit, fear of sanctions, moral obligation, self-interest, psychological identification with leadership, indifference, and absence of self-confidence (1984, 19-24). Despite these reasons for compliance, if citizens do not comply with the state in sufficient numbers, the state no longer exercises power over its citizens. This noncompliance is the heart of nonviolent action, more typically known as civil disobedience or noncooperation. Sharp concludes, “When people refuse their cooperation, withhold their help, and persist in their disobedience and defiance, they are denying their opponent the basic human assistance and cooperation which any government or hierarchical system requires. If they do this in sufficient numbers for long enough, that government or hierarchical system will no longer have power” (64). The problem of disobedience is getting people to participate in sufficient numbers for long enough.
	The fundamental way to generate noncooperation is by provoking the state into reaction. This is typically done by a public demonstration where dissidents challenge the legitimacy of the state or specific laws. The most effective way to do this is through civil disobedience. This involves purposefully breaking laws that the activist perceives as unjust. This forces the government to decide whether to punish the activist or to allow them to break the law. If the law is widely viewed as unjust, then repression will spur others to oppose the government. This is what Lee Smithey and Lester Kurtz have called the “paradox of repression” (1999). The more the state represses to enforce unjust laws, the less legitimacy it retains and thus the less willing people are to comply with the state’s authority. As each new action spurs more people to challenge the state, the movement becomes self-sustaining in what Timur Kuran (1991) has termed “revolutionary bandwagoning” and others have discussed as “tipping models” (Granovetter 1978, Schelling 1985, Karklins and Petersen 1993, Moore 1995, and Ginkel and Smith 1999). In this way, activists can spur massive noncooperation that shakes the foundation of the state.
	The logic of the pluralist theory of power and its relation to nonviolence is best illustrated through a brief historical example. One of the clearest examples of the power of nonviolence comes from Mohandas Gandhi’s extended Indian campaign to expel British rule. The highlight of this campaign was the push to repeal Salt Tax laws in 1930-31. The British Salt Acts provided a government monopoly of salt, whose revenue constituted about three percent of the government’s revenue (Bondurant 1988). “The Salt Acts were chosen by Gandhi for contravention in a general civil disobedience movement because they not only appeared to be basically unjust themselves, but also because they symbolized an unpopular, unrepresentative, and alien government. British official sources described the object of the [nonviolent campaign] as ‘nothing less than to cause a complete paralysis of the administrative machinery’” (89). The rotesters defied the law by making their own salt in contravention of the Acts. The government responded by jailing those who violated the law, but soon the prisons overflowed. Highlighting the paradox of repression, prison sentences soon became a badge of honor. Unable to enforce the law, British officials made key changes, effectively eliminating the government monopoly. While the Salt Campaign “did not force out the British in 1930-1931… The old order, in which British control rested comfortably on Indian acquiescence, had been sundered. In the midst of civil disobedience, Sir Charles Innes, a provincial governor, circulated his analysis of events to his colleagues. ‘England can hold India only by consent,’ he conceded. ‘We can’t rule it by the sword’” (Ackerman and DuVall 2000, 109). The laws of the British were irrelevant if they were not followed. This highlights the fundamental aspect of the pluralist notion of power.

The Power Relationship
	Because power is dependent upon relationships, it is crucial to first identify the actors. I will begin with a simple division of actors into the international and state levels, as this has a profound impact on the power relations of various actors and thus is crucial for understanding when nonviolence is likely to be effective. At the international level, the relevant actors are states and the international community. The states that are most likely to matter to other states are neighbors and hegemonic powers. The international community is a generic term for key international bodies such as the United Nations, World Trade Organization, World Bank, prominent NGOs and the governments and individuals who shape them. At the state, or domestic level, the relevant actors can be divided into the government and the mass public. The domestic division largely mirrors that assumed by pragmatic scholars of nonviolence that there is a division between the rulers and the ruled. There is no such assumption at the international level – no state or international organization is ruled by or rules over another state.
	Theoretically every actor has a power relationship with the others. These power relations are summarized in Table 1. As the table shows, a government is strongly dependent upon its populace for power (reflecting the pragmatic literature). If the mass public withdraws its consent to be governed, the state cannot continue to exist. Similarly, the international community is often perceived as strongly dependent upon hegemonic or great powers for its continued existence. Another way of saying this is that the power of the UN, WTO, and many other international organizations would be greatly diminished if the U.S., E.U. or other key states withdrew. Comparing these strongly dependent relationships (Government-Mass Public and International Community-Hegemon) also illustrates the fluid nature of power. Governments do not depend upon their citizens in the same way that the international community depends on the support of hegemonic powers.

TABLE 1: Ranking of Power Relationships

Column A 										Column B
						Strong Dependence links
Government					Depends on			Mass Public
International Community			Depends on			Hegemon

						Variable Dependence links
Government					depends on			Hegemon
Government					depends on			Neighbor
Hegemon						depends on			Neighbor
International Community			depends on			Government
Mass Public					depends on			Government
Government					depends on			International Community

						Weak Dependence Links
Mass Public					depends on			International Community
Mass Public					depends on			Hegemon
Mass Public					depends on			Neighbor
International Community			depends on			Mass Public
Hegemon						depends on			Government
Hegemon						depends on			Mass Public

	In addition to arranging all of the possible power relationships, Table 1 also ranks them according to the strength of the dependence. Only two dyads are strongly dependent (noted above). The rest are variable or weak. The variable ones can be strongly dependent on the other or not, depending on the case and the context. A government may be very dependent upon a hegemon, or not. For example, Czechoslovakia was very dependent upon the Soviet Union during much of the cold war, as exemplified by the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion that overturned the existing government. The Czech Republic, in contrast, is no longer dependent upon Russia because of economic and cultural ties, while Slovakia, another neighbor, has considerably less power over it. A hegemonic power is unlikely to be very dependent upon its neighbor, unless of course it borders another potential hegemon, as was the case throughout much of the past 200 years with France and Germany. The international community is rarely likely to be dependent upon any one government, because it is international in its membership. The obvious caveat to this is its dependence upon hegemons. Thus the withdrawal from the WTO by Mexico would not threaten its existence, but a WTO without the United States would be a very different institution.
	There is great variability in the dependence of mass publics upon their governments. Many lesser developed countries do not provide much in the way of support to their citizens, who in turn live largely independent lives. These weak states often have little power over most people’s lives and sometimes only control certain geographic areas such as the capital and its environs. In contrast, stronger states can have significant power over the lives of their citizens, for good or bad. Most economically developed countries have a significant welfare system that relies on taxing to redistribute wealth. This encroachment into the lives of the mass public means that the state has significant power over the mass public. Strong military governments with limited civil liberties protections have destructive power over the lives of their citizens by being able to throw opponents in jail, censor the media, and repress dissent. The weaker in general a government is, the more likely it is to be dependent upon the international community. Thus, most economically developed countries do not depend upon the international community and can even oppose it. Only very poor countries or countries in crisis are likely to be heavily dependent upon the international community (when for example they may be particularly dependent upon IMF loans, military aid or continued export markets). In those rare cases where there is almost universal reaction to an issue, the international community also may have substantial power over a country. The continued Indonesian occupation of East Timor and the apartheid regime of South Africa are the two best known of these exceptional cases. The international community was so united against the government in each case that it was able to exercise significant power to effect change in government policy. The variable dependency situations all illustrate that the power relationship varies according to context and case.
	The last category of power relations is where one actor is only weakly dependent upon the other. Because of the nature of international relations, the mass public’s relationship with foreign actors is necessarily limited; the government is the key actor at the international level. Thus, the mass public is typically very weakly dependent upon the international community, hegemonic powers and even neighboring countries. Only in rare circumstances do individuals have any interaction with the international community, for example, when aid is provided by international agencies such as Doctors Without Borders. Similarly, the United States government does not typically interact with civilians in Costa Rica, or even Mexico and Canada (neighbors). As a result, the mass public is not dependent upon the international community, hegemons, or neighboring countries for power. What power they have largely exists in relation to the state. The power of the international community and hegemons also does not depend upon the mass public. Most of the dominant international organizations’ members are states, not individuals, and thus there is no direct dependence upon the mass public for support. Finally, almost by definition, hegemons are not dependent upon other governments. A hegemon is a state that is more powerful than most others and thus while there may be many linkages, a hegemon does not depend upon others for its power. For example, while the U.S. has an extensive dependency on foreign countries for such vital resources as oil and capital (in the form of buying treasury bonds), no one individual country has a monopoly on these resources (though obviously Canada, Venezuela, China and Japan are individually important, respectively). Having described the actors and their power relations to each other, we can now turn to the effect this has on the ability to utilize nonviolent action to exercise this power.

The Power Relationship and Potential for Success
	Nonviolent action assumes the exercise of power; without power there cannot be success in a nonviolent struggle. This is a realist depiction of nonviolence, though it is somewhat paradoxical, as many embrace nonviolence because of its idealistic elements. Many assume that it is a more just way of dealing with conflict, a fundamental solution to the cycle of violence that has characterized history. In reality, nonviolent action is simply an exercise of power. Winners and losers are determined primarily by their ability to exercise power. Only in very rare cases will the weak be able to conquer the strong. To move beyond a simple description of power determining the outcome of conflicts, there are several typical scenarios where nonviolence is likely to be effective, and several where it is unlikely to succeed.
	Nonviolent action is most likely to succeed where there is a strong power relationship. This is reflected in the literature of nonviolence, as most of it deals with the domestic arena in conflicts between the state and the mass public. Two categories of this domestic interaction are particularly well developed in the literature: reforming the legal and political system, and overthrowing the government.
	The U.S. Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s is probably the best example of a successful nonviolent action at reforming a legal system. The replacement of regionalized legal systems that allowed Jim Crow laws of the Southern U.S. with a more nationalized protection of civil liberties represented a fundamental shift in the U.S. legal system. Up to the 1960s, Blacks were systematically excluded from voting, many economic sectors, fair trials, and even free movement. Through many nonviolent campaigns that made incremental steps in calling national attention to this injustice, the civil rights activists were able to bring the issue to the forefront of the national agenda. While each campaign depended upon the particulars of the situation, whether it was a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, or freedom rides throughout Mississippi, the larger movement succeeded in pressuring the 1964 Civil Rights Act which guaranteed an end to many of the Jim Crow laws. This, coupled with federal enforcement of the Act and several related Supreme Court rulings, provided for real change.
	The key to the nonviolent campaigns in the U.S. Civil Rights movement was that Blacks constituted a significant power base in most of the areas they were active. The busses of Montgomery depended on black ridership; the downtown merchants of Nashville depended on Black’s buying their goods; and the jail cells of Mississippi were not sufficient to hold all of the marchers across Selma. In each of these campaigns, the white establishment was forced to change its policies because it depended upon Blacks for their continued existence. 	Beyond reforming a legal system, nonviolent action can also be very effective at overthrowing the entire system. The case of Milosevic’s removal from power is one of the clearest recent nonviolent campaigns that succeeded in overthrowing the government. Following the 1999 NATO bombing campaign that strengthened Milosevic’s hold on power over Yugoslavia, democratic opposition began to resurge as state repression of dissent accelerated. In July of 2000, Milosevic announced plans for an early election in September. Because of suspicions of fraud, activists monitor polls on the September 24 election. Their highly organized tally indicated that Milosevic has been beaten by the umbrella party Democratic Opposition of Serbia candidate Vojislav Kostunica. However, the government declared that neither candidate won a majority and thus called a run-off. In response, the opposition called for a general strike, kicked off by a coal-miner’s strike that effectively shut off power to Belgrade. Within a week hundreds of thousands of citizens swarmed the streets of Belgrade, demanding Milosevic step down. On October 5, the masses seized the parliament building and state controlled media. The next day Milosevic conceded defeat. Early the next year, Milosevic was arrested by state police for crimes committed while in office and in June of 2001, he was extradited to the Hague (York Zimmerman 2002). 	The Milosevic regime was toppled because it no longer retained support of the mass public. This case is particularly interesting because of the fact that the combined might of NATO bombing the country for over a month did not topple Milosevic’s hold on power. Rather, it was the massive noncooperation of the people of Serbia that finally forced the dictator from the seat of government. When the people took to the streets, the police and military were unwilling to arrest them or maintain the barricades they had erected. The refusal of these security forces cemented Milosevic’s demise. This story is an echo of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the fall of Marcos in the Philippines. 	In addition to these domestic scenarios, nonviolent action is also able to succeed in two very specific international relations scenarios. If the conditions are right, the international community may shape foreign dependent policies and in certain types of occupations, a foreign force may be expelled. In both of these circumstances, several conditions must be in place, otherwise, nonviolent action is not likely to succeed.
	The international community may be able to significantly change the policies of a government in some circumstances. The only area where this has been effective is in getting governments to fundamentally alter gross violations of human rights. The clearest example of this is the East Timorese independence movement. Nonviolent action was used as it typically is by the mass public to challenge the state; however, the state was supported by foreign actors or was strong enough to resist the withdrawal of support. Thus, the tactic shifted to utilizing nonviolent action within a country, but aiming it at an international audience. In this way, the activists could influence state policies by getting foreign actors to withdraw support (Smith, Chatfield and Pagnucco 1997, and Risse and Ropp 1999). Keck and Sikkink (1998) refer to this as the boomerang pattern. However, for boomerang nonviolence to work, there are thee essential components. First, the international situation must be ripe for the internationalizing of nonviolent action. For this to be the case, justice becomes equally or more important than national security. It was not until the end of the cold war that human rights and self-determination issues – those issues most likely to be successful at generating the boomerang support – became important to the U.S. when security issues were not involved. Second, the oppressing country must be heavily dependent upon international actors. Finally, the state needs to be significantly weakened and thus prone to pressure from the international actors.
	The independence of East Timor exemplifies the extent to which conditions must be favorable for the international community to be able to force a government to stop a massive human rights violation with nonviolent action. East Timor, a Portuguese colony for three hundred years, was invaded by Indonesian in 1975, aborting Portuguese efforts to successfully transition the half island to independence. Despite a guerrilla insurgency, within three years it was clear that it had no chance of militarily removing the fourth most populous country in the world. Allan Nairn, an American journalist and long-time East Timorese activist, argued that Suharto wanted East Timor because “he and his army seemed to worry that if the old Portuguese colony won independence, the example of freedom next door might prove subversive in Indonesia” (1997, xiii). This was a very real concern for Indonesia as it was a collection of thousands of islands spread over thousands of miles. Indonesia occupied East Timor until 1998 when Suharto was brought down by demonstrations in Jakarta and his successor agreed to a referendum on autonomy. The reason Habibie agreed to this, as well as the motivating force behind the student demonstrations that ended Suharto’s decades-long rule, was the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-8. The crisis had crippled the Indonesian economy and left it heavily dependent upon International Monetary Fund loans to halt its balance of payments crisis. Western powers took the opportunity to pressure Habibie to allow the referendum in return for the loans. Because all three conditions were met, East Timor was able to achieve independence. The overriding issue in this case was a humanitarian one – the continued occupation of a small island that had historical claims to independence. Further, with the end of the cold war, western powers were not preoccupied with communist movements as they had throughout most of the occupation. But it was not until the Asian Financial Crisis weakened the Indonesian government and made it heavily dependent upon the international community for loans that western powers could force a change in policy.
	The Chechnyan struggle for independence exhibits the more typical pattern of why nonviolent action (or its boomerang variant) are difficult to utilize. Chechens are an ethnic group who were deported from Southern Russia by Stalin in 1944, and allowed to return to it in 1956. In 1991, following the breakup of the Soviet Union, Chechnya tried to separate itself from Russia, however it was not allowed to cede. The area has rich oil reserves, which Russia did not want to loose control over. Equally important, Russia did not want to let the pattern of dissolution of the Soviet Union to continue to the Russian Republic with its many different administrative regions (similar to Indonesia’s efforts to keep the vast collection of islands together). Nonviolent action is unlikely to succeed in this case because Russia is not dependant upon the Chechen people. They are a small group in comparison to the resources of the Russian armed forces. Further, their biggest asset, oil, can be extracted without help from the local population. Despite accusations of brutal repression and massacres, Chechens have been unable to grab the attention of the international community in a way that can influence Russian policy. This is largely because Russian power is so strong in the Chechnya region that it has been able to censor almost all media access to the area and its alleged atrocities (Meier 2003). Furthermore, the international situation is not primed to receive such information. Chechnya’s nationalism has been linked with the growth of Wahhabism, a radical form of Islam, which has become increasingly popular since the early 1990s and was imported largely through contact with Afghanistan. This makes Chechnya an unpopular underdog, not likely to generate sympathy in a war-on-terrorism world. More importantly, Russia is not dependant on other countries, nor weakened enough to be pressured by international opinion. The Russian government is neither dependant on the Chechen people, nor on any foreign actors that might become involved on their behalf, leaving them little power to leverage through nonviolence.
	The second type of international relations where nonviolent action may be utilized is in certain types of foreign occupation, where the aggressor may be effectively repelled with nonviolent action. In general terms, foreign occupation is where one country invades another. However, attention must be paid to the nature of the occupation. One form of foreign occupation can be successfully dealt with through nonviolent action. Where an occupying force depends on the local population for compliance, nonviolent action is a viable strategy. A number of Eastern European states under Nazi control during World War II were in this position. What Germany needed from these states was recruits for fighting, working and supporting the war effort. While there was some geo-strategic value to occupying the territories, the main reason was to capture the productivity of these lands. This depended upon the active compliance of the people in these lands. Thus, if the goal of the invading country is to take over a productive population and gain from that productivity, concepts like nonviolent defense are possible. If, however there are other reasons for the occupation, it may be impossible to successfully utilize nonviolent action to defend against foreign occupation.
	Some types of foreign occupation do not rely upon the consent of those who live there for continued control. Foreign occupation of land for colonization, geostrategic control, and natural resources are examples of this type of foreign domination. The European colonization of North America is an example of several powers removing existing peoples from their land. Unlike the case of India, the people living on the colonized land were not needed to get what the land was acquired for. Colonists were not interested in trading goods produced in the colony by the natives, but rather were interested in the land itself. The indigenous population was an obstacle to attaining the desired commodity. Occupation because of geostrategic importance is where a foreign power is interested in controlling an area simply because of its location. Island outposts are particularly important in history as they have been the key to controlling waterways that secure trade and naval routes. Many European colonies in Southeast Asia were established for this purpose alone. Finally, foreign occupation of land to extract some types of resources can also lead to a lack of the pluralist power relationship. For example, if known reserves of oil exist in a country and an invading country has the technical and financial resources to extract the oil, the indigenous population has no power to withhold. This was clearly the case of Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Each of these cases illustrate the fact that if the subjected people do not have some power over the occupying force, their noncooperation is meaningless. In most of the cases, their noncooperation would actually make occupation easier. As the European colonization of North America best illustrates, the indigenous population could be exterminated and it would not affect the power of the occupying state. This is a key indication that control of the territory did not rely upon the consent of its occupants. In these types of foreign occupation, then, nonviolent action was unlikely to be an effective tactic in expelling the invading forces.
	While the likelihood of successfully utilizing nonviolent action is largely confined to domestic struggles between a sizeable group and the state and limited foreign policy situations, there are many conflict situations were nonviolent action is unlikely to be a successful tactic. Rather than generate an exhaustive list of the contexts in which nonviolent action is unrealistic, it is more productive to group the limits of nonviolent action into two areas: the international (where one country or the international community tries to influence another) and the domestic (the classic struggle between rulers and ruled). To highlight the limits of nonviolent action I will focus on some recent conflicts to show how a pluralist power relationship does not exist between two of the key actors and thus why nonviolent action is unlikely. The types of situations are unfortunately where much of the current conflict in the world exists today.
	The first category of limits deals with the prospect of a third party influencing a conflict situation. This entails a neighbor, hegemon, or even the international community acting to stop an aggressive power, change a government, or stop a civil war. A scenario where an external force seeks to limit an aggressive power is the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. We can apply the logic above to suggest that Kuwaitis could not successfully resist the occupation because what Iraq wanted was the oil in Kuwait, not the submission of Kuwaitis. Further, because of Iraq’s own oil program, it is likely that it did not need the support of Kuwaiti oil workers. They could not exert influence over Iraq by withholding compliance. If they did not cooperate, Iraq could just as easily bring in its own oil workers (which would probably be easier for Iraq). Thus, the power relationship between Iraq and Kuwait made nonviolent action unlikely to be as successful defense. Add to this the power relationship between Iraq and the international community and especially the United States. The only real power that the international community could exercise over Iraq was to stop buying its oil. However, it was clear that an embargo of Iraqi oil was not likely to force Iraq out of Kuwait. Despite their being widespread agreement that the Iraqi invasion was unlawful, there was not a consensus that any kind of economic sanction would reverse the policy. Further, it was very likely that such an embargo would not have been sustained given the dependence of industrialized countries on oil and the quantities of oil in Iraq and Kuwait combined. This case represents the larger point that third party nonviolent intervention is very unlikely to be successful.
	Nonviolent action is not likely to be successful in externally creating regime change. Third party nonviolent regime change is as unlikely as third party nonviolent intervention. Similar to the debate about how to respond to the September 11 attacks, there has been much searching for nonviolent solutions to overthrowing hostile governments. After the attacks, most people in the U.S. wanted to hold Afghanistan responsible and there was overwhelming support to overthrow the Taliban regime. However, there was almost no discussion about doing this through nonviolent means, primarily because of policy-makers understanding that this is not possible. Attempts at encouraging domestically orchestrated revolutions have historically been unsuccessful. The toppling of Milosevic is again instructive in why this was likely the case. The NATO bombing of Belgrade actually strengthened Milosevic domestically. There is often a “rally-round-the-flag” effect of any foreign attacks, regardless of the popularity of a nation’s leaders prior to the conflict. While the intent of the NATO campaign was not to topple Milosevic, but rather to halt further troop movement into Kosovo, the short-term effect was to strengthen him within Serbia. When the student movement against Milosevic regained strength in 2000, it consciously avoided receiving too much aid from western powers, for fear that the government would use this to paint them as tools of foreign countries. They knew if that perception was widely held, they would not be able to gain domestic support. Revolutionary movements are by necessity domestically orchestrated events. While there are many examples of nonviolent action bringing about revolutions, it is only within the domestic context. Foreign powers cannot use nonviolent action to change an existing regime because they simply do not have the power sufficient to force such significant change.
	The final limitation of nonviolent action from the foreign perspective involves the context of a civil war. Just like foreign powers cannot overthrow a government with nonviolent action, they also cannot stop a civil war with nonviolent tactics. Civil wars involve a similar dynamic as revolutionary movements. The prospect of loosing a civil conflict entails loosing a part of the state, if not complete control. Thus, a government engaged in a civil war is not likely to be influenced by economic boycotts or other nonviolent sanctions to stop the war. While sanctions may hurt a government, they do not threaten its very existence as a civil war typically does. Thus, civil wars are unlikely to ever be stopped by an external force without the use of armed intervention. While boomerang nonviolence is potentially an option, the fact that both sides are already fighting is an indication that it is very unlikely. The flip-side of the paradox of repression usually limits the success of generating international condemnation of a government when both sides take up arms. While the paradox of repression suggests that governments become discredited by repressing nonviolent actions, they are behaving to traditional conceptions of what a state is supposed to do when they repress violent movements. A state is supposed to capture, prosecute, or kill those who threaten violence without the authority of the state. Thus, in the context of a civil war, the state is behaving according to its presumed function when it kills violent rebels, guerrillas, or separatist armies.
	The second category of limits deals with the domestic level. The assumption at both the domestic and international level of the pluralist conception of power is that for nonviolent action to work, groups have to have a significant amount of power over their opponent. This relationship does not exist when a group is such a small minority that the government does not rely upon its consent for the state’s continued existence. The reason that noncooperation works is because the governed have the power to affect the ability of the rulers to rule. This pluralist relationship does not exist if most of the governed cooperate and only a small minority withhold compliance. The size of a group is obviously the most important feature in determining its power relationship to the state. For example, the variety of militia movements in the United States in the 1990s were unlikely to create any change in government even though many printed their own money, refused to pay taxes and disobeyed a variety of laws – all hallmarks of noncooperation. The reason change was unlikely was because of the small number of participants. The poverty of a group also impacts the ability to utilize nonviolent action. The poverty factor is not just one of how poor individual people in the group are, but how poor the group is as a collective. While blacks were undoubtedly poor compared to whites in the Southern United States, they had significant economic influence (Morris 1993). Similarly, slaves, peasants and serfs, while individually poor, in some contexts are collectively wealthy in that much of the economy depends upon their continued participation. Examples of poor people who are unlikely to be able to effectively utilize nonviolent action are subsistence farmers, migratory peoples and otherwise self-sufficient groups. They are unlikely to be able to utilize nonviolent action primarily because there is no dependent relationship between them and the state. This explains much of the current situation in Nepal. In February 2005, King Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah removed Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, and dissolved the parliament, claiming that they had been ineffective in dealing with a growing guerrilla insurgency movement. It is unlikely that the people of Nepal could utilize nonviolent action to restore the representative government or remove President Gyanendra because they have little influence over the central government. Eighty percent of the population relies on agriculture for their livelihood and most of them are subsistence farmers. In many ways, the state does not rely upon their compliance.
	The final factor that determines whether or not a domestic group can successfully utilize nonviolent action is the intent of its opponent. This encompasses the cases of genocide and ethnic cleansing. A group may have some regional power or size, but if its opponent would not be significantly harmed if the group were annihilated and if the opponent is willing to engage in this type of repression, nonviolent action is very unlikely to be successful. The premise of noncooperation is that withdrawal of support inflicts a burden on a government that is so extreme that it will change its policies or even structure. In situations where the government seeks to eliminate an opponent, noncooperation is futile. A hunger strike in this context would actually help the state, if taken to its dire end.
	The point of this paper is to refocus attention on the power relationship and how that affects the likelihood of success in a campaign utilizing nonviolent action. The requirements for nonviolent action to be successful are strict, but not impossible to meet. Where the power relationship is such that one actor is dependent upon the other for continued existence, nonviolent action is likely to be a successful tactical option. Where this relationship does not exist, it is unlikely. Fortunately, there are many conflict situations where nonviolent action is likely to be successful, but most of them are in the domestic context. Unfortunately, there are a great many current conflicts where nonviolent action is unlikely to be a successful tactic. Current ongoing conflicts where nonviolent action has the potential for success and where it is unlikely to succeed are summarized in Table 2 below. For those who see nonviolent action as a better way of engaging an opponent in conflict, the latter area is unlikely to be productive until the power relationship changes. As the case of East Timor shows, power relationships can change, but until they do, nonviolent action is unlikely to succeed.


Table 2 Current Conflicts…
…Where Nonviolent Action May be Possible
Afghanistan
Angola
Burundi
Democratic Republic of Congo
Iraq
Ivory Coast
Saudi Arabia


…Where Nonviolent Action is Not Likely to be Effective
Burma		(non-Burmese vs. central government)
Columbia		(narco-guerrillas vs. central government)
Global		(US vs. terrorists)
India			(Kashmiri separatists vs. central government)
Israel		(Palestinians vs. Israelis)
Nepal		(Maoist rebels vs. Central government)
Nigeria		(regional rebels Niger Delta vs. central government)
Philippines	(Mindanao separatists vs. central government)
Russia		(regional rebels Chechnya vs. central government)
Somalia		(warlords vs. warlords)
Sudan		(central government & militia vs. regional group)
Thailand		(Southern border separatists vs. central government)
Turkey		(Kurds in south vs. central government)


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