How to transform autocracy to democracy: Learn the inside game/outside game strategy

When I consider the interplay between nonviolent civil resistance and a negotiated end to a most foul regime, I think about several luminaries and their wisdom. 

First, Dr. King, who wrote in his canonical Letter from Birmingham jail: 

"You may well ask, "Why direct action, why sit-ins, marches, and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are exactly right in your call for negotiation. Indeed, this is the purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has consistently refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. I just referred to the creation of tension as a part of the work of the nonviolent resister. This may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly worked and preached against violent tension, but there is a type of constructive nonviolent tension that is necessary for growth."

Then, I turn to Bill Ury and the authors of Getting to Yes, who first taught me about the BATNA, the best alternative to a negotiated agreement. It's something a party to a conflict should be quite transparent about. For example, "Okay, ruler, we need you to either honor all human rights and civil rights or step down, and if you cannot manage to do one of those two things within the next four weeks, we are going to begin a deep national nonviolent resistance campaign that will impose some serious costs. This is your choice." In other words, Ury and Fisher might have called what Dr. King wrote about as a perfect example of the use of a BATNA. Dr. King and the movement didn't stop nonviolent civil resistance until they were invited to the White House to negotiate, which ultimately resulted first in the 1964 Civil Rights Act and then the 1965 Voting Rights Act. 

The third scholar activist who comes to mind in this is Mary Frances Berry, especially her 2018 book, History Teaches Us to Resist, in which she cogently explains all this as the inside game/outside game. The synthesis of them can look exactly like the above Civil Rights Movement example or any number of other uses of nonviolent civil resistance (the outside game) to drive actual policy or even regime change (inside game). 

Nonviolent resistance is not necessarily working outside the system, in other words. It is a legitimate tool for the goals that have temporarily exhausted all the available legal inside game avenues.

How to transform autocracy to democracy: Build an active website

How many times have you missed an event because no notice of it came to you? How many other people also had no notice and missed it?

Your website should have a notification list sign-up pop-up so that any visitor can easily enter their email or text # and get advance notices of all your events. A passive website with announcements for those who take the time to visit is utterly inadequate. 

As all the research shows, numbers matter. Recruitment via active outreach is a big help. 

If you have a complex array of events, published reports, and other possibilities for outreach, it may help to allow people to choose what categories of notices they want. For instance, if you are ramping up event after event, a list of types of notifications that subscribers can choose might be only events, not analysis, reports, interviews with experts, etc. Making it possible to tailor what they receive might make them more inclined to sign up and to read all messages you send them. If they are deluged by you with all the other categories, they may skip reading most or even all of your outreach. 

A brilliant and dedicated web manager is a massive key component these days in successful organizing against an autocrat. As we found in Arab Spring, they can make all the difference, even devising workarounds when the government attempts to block access or outreach capacity. Techies are as crucial as anyone to your leadership and effectiveness. 

In a somewhat dated, but still valuable, analysis[1] of the value of tech, Dan Shannon notes: 

"Today’s technology strengthens the powers of networks in three important ways: 

·       It allows for networks that are global in nature. Online or mobile-based organizing is not limited by geography, only by access, which even in developing countries is increasing rapidly.

·       It allows for networks with fewer barriers to entry. Lowering the entry point from attending a meeting to signing an online petition opens up networks to exponentially more people.

·       It allows for networks with more decentralized power. Today, a movement entrepreneur with a vision and an internet connection has the tools to create networks, launch campaigns, and organize millions."

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[1] https://www.bsr.org/en/blog/how-can-new-technologies-strengthen-social-movements

How to transform autocracy to democracy: Maintain fierce nonviolent discipline

During the Vietnam War many of the protests turned to violence, factions of the antiwar movement identified or fetishized Che Guevara, Ho Chi Minh, the Black Panthers, and even, God help us, Mao Tse Dong. This strand of the antiwar movement was pathetically easy for agents provocateurs to infiltrate and promote violence. 

Why would an agent of the police seek to convince a campaign to commit acts of violence?

Every time a campaign throws things at cops, or roughs up a corporate official of a war profiteering company, or tosses a brick through a war-voting politician's office, the media of course covers it. When the public sees such destructive actions they react in these understandable ways: 

·       They fear for their safety and decide not to participate in any public displays of opposition to the leaders or policies they don't like.

·       They begin to shift their point of view away from whatever the protesters advocate. 

·       They stop trusting the word of the protesters. 

·       They begin to shift toward understanding of, and even support for, the violent crackdown on the protesters. 

These reactions, of course, are exactly what hawkish politicians, war profiteers, and any police in league with them, want. This is how you destroy a campaign. It is how the Black Panthers were destroyed. It is how the peace movement failed for years to make progress to end the brutal slog of war in Vietnam. 

This is a predictable sequence of negative outcomes of campaign violence or what the public feels is violent.

My question to those who advocate violence is, "Since you should know that these are the actions conducted by agents provocateurs, why would you advocate for them?"

The late Rev. James Lawson referred to the Civil Rights Movement discipline as "fierce." He was America's first nonviolence trainer, and Dr. King called him the "architect" of the Civil Rights Movement. There is no substitute for that fierce discipline.

How to transform autocracy to democracy: Establish momentum

Rising up against dictators, autocrats, and aspiring authoritarians is virtually impossible when all organizing and focus is on achieving a primary goal in a huge outpouring. The birchbark fire is bright with blazing flames--and quickly dies out. A movement to overthrow a wannabe dictator needs a sequence of events over time, each aiming to achieve as much as possible in a few weeks so the victories can be felt and lauded--even as the next goal along the path to the final overarching goal is announced. 

Essentially, the message after the first success is, "Wow! We did it--great work, everyone! We won! That sets us up to do some wider work--join the movement if you've only been admiring it and pivot now to this next campaign if you have been one of the winners today!"

This doesn't mean choose easily done interim goals; they should be all you can accomplish in a few weeks, using your wisest hive mind. Some know history; some are intuitive social movement winners, some feel the state of the available media, some know the influencers and what mood they are in. Everyone is an expert in some facet and a strategic planning group attempts to incorporate the wisest intersectional thinking.

Like any plan, it needs reëvaluation periodically and adjustments as necessary--speed up, slow down, alter a subgoal, change the frame, or any other adaptation needed.

How to transform autocracy to democracy: Reject authoritarian's claim of "unity"

When aspiring autocrats seek power they frequently claim to be working to unite citizens, whereas once they have consolidated power that "unity" becomes an imposed set of practices that often exclude self-determination for the people who are now subjects, no longer citizens. This is clearly the case in dictatorships, such as the Karimov regime in Uzbekistan (Tutumlu, Önemli & Rustemov, 2025). Karimov's assertions are not unlike those that used to come from dictators like Saddam Hussein and Moammar Qaddafi, claiming a cultural indigenization of democracy even while ruling by brutal oppression and fear.

Academics and activists sometimes analyze such claims of a special form of democracy as anti-neocolonial, seeming to justify repression in the name of rejecting "Western" models of governance. Other academics and activists hew to a more benign indigenization paradigm that, for example, stresses indigenous concepts such as African ubuntu, a variant of empathic humanism that has a much more unconditional positive regard for all.

To promote a kinder gentler form of governance, be very aware of the duplicitous claim of unity that is leading toward a unity based on giving more power to the leader and none except forced obeisance to subjects of that leader. 

For instance, claims that it was liberating to strike down Roe v Wade and return the power to make laws about reproductive rights back to the states is a false unity assertion, not one that frees people or bolsters self-determination--ask women in states where abortion is basically outlawed. 

Clarity on claims of democracy as an aspiring autocrat defines it are either roundly rejected or that leader takes another step toward being a ruler.

Reference

Tutumlu, A., Önemli, B., & Rustemov, I. (2025). Deciphering dictators’ discourse on Indigenous democracy: a case of Karimov’s Uzbekistan. Central Asian Survey, 44(1), 64–84. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1080/02634937.2024.2393386

How to transform autocracy to democracy: Fight fraudulent electoral processes

There are generally two forms of fraudulent electoral practices: blatant fraud and electoral engineering (Szmolka, 2024).

Blatant fraud includes the easily identifiable abuses such as lying about "dead voters," ballot theft or destruction, obvious gerrymandering, targeted voter disqualification, polling place intimidation, and more.

Electoral engineering is less visible and includes more subtle but equally fraudulent practices such as patronage (which can burst into occasional high visibility and blatant fraud when a campaign donor is awarded an unelected government position, e.g. Elon Musk clearly linking his massive financial support for Trump's election to his desired DOGE). Some of the less visible but ethically dubious practices also include rewards for opposition party members remaining the loyal opposition, that is, nominally opposed but not fighting for much.

Pushing everyone who is elected to get much more active and effective is one way to fight the fraud and prevent, take down, or roll back autocracy.

References

Szmolka, I. (2024). Electoral engineering in autocracies: Effects of the 2021 electoral reform on Morocco’s parliamentary elections. Mediterranean Politics, 29(5), 700–728. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1080/13629395.2023.2194153 

How to transform autocracy to democracy: Protect refugees

How does protecting refugees help defend democracy? After all, research shows[1] that, in most cases, democracies permit the fewest entrance of refugees and autocracies permit the most.

However, as the International Refugee Assistance Project[2] and others point out, when refugees are denied due process and can be simply deported by autocratic fiat, the rights of all are correspondingly threatened, which means democracy itself is under direct threat.

How does a coup relate to forced migration in most cases? It depends. 

A coup that results in autocracy or a coup by democratic parties that fails to overturn an autocracy will likely send people fleeing the country. 

A coup that results in democracy, whether by a successful coup overthrowing an autocracy or a failed coup attempt to overthrow a democracy by autocrats, tends to produce no forced migration (Celestino, Lee & Kivimaki, 2025).

Protecting democracy is protecting refugees and protecting democracy prevents the emergence of a flight of refugees.

Reference

Celestino, M. R., Lee, S., & Kivimaki, T. (2025). Coups and refugee flows in autocracies and democracies. Journal of Ethnic & Migration Studies, 51(1), 159–178. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1080/1369183X.2024.2410775

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[1] https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/democracy-and-its-paradox-forced-displacement-reimagining-us-refugee-resettlement-program

[2] https://refugeerights.org/news-resources/100-days-of-defending-refuge

How to transform autocracy to democracy: Women's rights are primary

From Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale to the Rivera Sun Ari Ara series and in many more fictional examples, we come across the idea that women who have rights tend to enter into social struggle more and likely more effectively. 

In reality, researcher Susanne Schauftenaar (2017) finds that fiction to be fact, in general, citing previous research in her study of women's rights as a factor in the onset of civil society struggle. The previous examinations focused largely on outbreak of violent insurgency; she included nonviolent struggle, using data from the groundbreaking Chenoweth and Stephan study that produced the Nonviolent and Violent Campaigns and Outcomes (NAVCO) data set. 

Indeed, she found, great rights for women tended to be associated with more likelihood of the launch of a nonviolent campaign to achieve a maximal goal--overthrowing an autocrat, driving a foreign armed forces out, or seceding and founding a new sovereign nation.

Overthrowing an aspiring autocrat is going to be more often associated with a country with greater rights for women. Women's rights are drivers toward freedom for all.

References

Schaftenaar, S. (2017). How (wo)men rebel. Journal of Peace Research, 54(6), 762–776. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022343317722699

How to transform autocracy to democracy: Respect all identities in how you frame your messaging

In her 2023 analysis of the case of Thailand campaigns to rise up against the brutal defense of the Thai monarchy, researcher Janjira Sombatpoonsiri found a clear correlation between frames that seemed to inflame and the likelihood of mass countervailing civil society campaigns. Carefully crafting messaging to avoid the appearance of attacking another ethnicity, religion, political party, or cultural identity group is a crucial factor for any campaign hoping to dislodge an autocrat of any stripe.

References

Sombatpoonsiri, J. (2023). “A lot of people still love and worship the monarchy”: How polarizing frames trigger countermobilization in Thailand. Journal of Peace Research, 60(1), 88–106. https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433221142932

How to transform autocracy to democracy: Build teams

Looking at the history of nonviolent campaigns we often presume a charismatic leader is enough; once we have our golden guy it's a done deal. There are two problems with that assumption. 

One, some of the most successful takedown campaigns in history have no charismatic leader. 

Two, a charismatic leader is not an expert at everything; there must be experts leading the necessary work teams in order to accelerate the pace of gain and move it swiftly to victory. Assessing is crucial and assessing about who is expert enough to assess is the work before the work. Identify team leaders: 

·       adaptive management, that is, evaluating steps taken and adjusting to improve next steps

·       logistics--event planners, team support and care

·       finances and fundraising, keeping the organization "street legal"

·       media--develop contacts and strategies, when to broadcast, when to narrowcast, how to incentivize best coverage

·       legal--organize both civil (lawsuit) and criminal (defending nonviolent resisters, develop stable of both lawyers and germane expert witnesses

Develop teams as needed and do not miss out on expertise that sometimes is modest and not visible. Inquire, negotiate, and coordinate. Teams can both bond--almost become foxhole buddies--and bridge--connect between and amongst teams. New campaign members can self-direct toward an existing team or be recruited once a skill-set inventory mechanism indicates valued expertise.

How to transform autocracy to democracy: Inoculate against violent flanks

Many campaigns put little focus on preventing outbreaks of violence or the sorts of actions that the public would generally classify as violent. Therefore, they are susceptible to random acts of violence or unsanctioned property destruction or screaming matches. When the image of a campaign is one likely to snap from peaceful to unpredictable skirmishes, such as someone throwing a soda can at a cop, it tends to disincentivize the average observer who might otherwise be open to joining the next action.

All the research suggests that numbers matter a great deal. Old tired theories such as the Che Guevara triggering notion--a violent action done at the right time can trigger the revolution--are generally ahistorical and unhelpful. Empirical research indicates that if just a small percentage of the population can participate in civil resistance on a sustained basis--roughly 3.5-4 percent--the campaign will succeed. 

When violent flanks alienate far more than they attract, it is clear that the effective campaigns will do all possible to set themselves up to resist and even repel violent actors. 

When some organizers, who often mean well, say that we shouldn't reject anyone who is "on our side" and "wants the same thing" no matter what they do to try to get it, the smart organizer will help them understand that a so-called "diversity of tactics" will diminish the movement, alienating the general populace, and render the campaign far less effective. When someone who is generally sympathetic to a campaign turns on their tv and sees pepperspray, instances of physical clash, and even rubber bullets, they are far less likely to come into the next one.

Indeed, every decision made by the campaign should be run through the filtering question, "How will this affect recruitment?" There may well be some circumstances that are more crucial than recruitment numbers, but that prioritization should be accepted by the organizers and at least considered in deliberative discussions.

The recommended components of preventing the harm inflicted by the actions of a violent flank: 

·       Decide on a strict nonviolence code of conduct.

·       Form a peace team dedicated to nonviolently enforcing that nonviolent code.

·       Publicize that each event will be nonviolent (family-friendly, peaceful).

·       Announce that the peace team is there to remind everyone of the code of conduct.

·       Liaise with media and law enforcement to reinforce the image of the campaign as absolutely nonviolent.

·       If there are dedicated groups insisting on a diversity of tactics, meet with them. Negotiate, insisting on mutual respect as a baseline, and let them know you will not renounce them in general unless they come into your event and disrupt it, at which point you will indeed denounce them and let everyone know they are not part of the campaign. Let them know they are quite welcome to your events when they can abide by your code of conduct. Let them know they may riot on a different day or on the other side of town and you will make no comment, only reserving that for any time when they act out in your event. This works. What does not work are philosophical arguments, or even strategy arguments. Focus on mutual respect and clear boundaries with predictable outcomes.

How to transform autocracy to democracy: Be transparent

There are so many reasons for any campaign to be as transparent as possible (but not more so--if Anita and her child Jorge are living in sanctuary in your weekend woodlands cabin to keep them safe from ICE you are obviously not going to be transparent about that): 

·       Being forthright with media, opponents, law enforcement, and others is the only path to trust.

·       Being honest about the meta-goal (e.g., ending racism, transforming the government, seeing the autocrat resign) makes it harder to accuse a campaign of something else, of just promoting smaller goals to convert to oppressive communism or to seize power to make fortunes.

·       Being truthful can reduce the number of times the armed agents of the state commit violence against members of the campaign because the combination of openness and nonviolent conduct even in the face of violent oppression opens a sympathy gap more and more in favor of the campaign.

This commitment to truth, trust, honesty, and transparency enhances the reputation of the campaign even as it erodes how the populace views the aspiring autocrat. This can affect power dynamics and even help lead to a willingness to negotiate, especially as the sympathy gap helps a burgeoning recruitment to both supporting ranks and participating numbers.

How to transform autocracy to democracy: Decide how to decide and stick with it

One of the most dysfunctional approaches to campaign success is revisiting basic functional decisions again and again, relitigating tired arguments for one method or another, so that membership gets confused, stays confused, and becomes increasingly alienated and begins to drop out. 

Make this decision about decision-making early on, stick with it, and do not entertain amendments or revisions to it for quite some time.

Of course, this means the relatively small group of original organizers should be quite deliberate and consensus-driven (even if consensus is not the final choice of making decisions as the campaign grows). Deciding without such deliberations can result in a capricious decision that leads to internal strife and movement stagnation.

Deliberate, employ curiosity about alternatives, visualize ranges of presenting problems, barriers both necessary and unnecessary, and outcomes that propel or inhibit your campaign. Once serious consideration has been given to all suggested modes, choose on and commit. That will save grief and time and keep the focus where it belongs: solutionary tracks.

How to transform autocracy to democracy: Liaise with everyone

There are so many reasons to be in regular communication with all parties from the entire spectrum of players in the realm of your campaign: 

·       Be in dialog with potential coalitional partners to work on overcoming any barriers to building your coalition (John, we are hosting a weekly lunch at the church on 9th Street, for all coalition partners and potential partners. We would value you or someone you can send at these conversations. Your views are very important to us.)

·       Liaise with police at every level--local, state, federal--in order to build trust by demonstrating transparency, even in the aftermath of not being transparent at times (Commander, we didn't let you know ahead of time that we were going to occupy the hearing room because you naturally would be duty-bound to prevent us from that. Please know that nothing we did was in any spirit of disrespect toward you or your officers. This was a strategic move, not meant to embarrass your authority in any way. I hope you noticed that we offered a respectful reference to your officers in our publicity.)

·       Don't simply send out press releases. Follow up and get to know editors, reporters, photographers, and videographers personally. Ask questions in those conversations (Hi Deborah, can you give me some guidance from your perspective as editor on best practices when working with you? I noticed that you sent a crew to cover our demonstration two weeks ago, but not anyone for our demonstration yesterday. What am I missing and what advice can you offer?)

·       Stay in talks with deciders and influencers (Joyce, as the Congresswoman's Chief of Staff, can you help us understand what we can do to help the Congresswoman feel empowered to act to prevent the President from imposing his diktats that are hurting so many, including the Congresswoman's own constituents?)

Listen to everyone. When they stop talking to you, ask why. Your campaign is one of action and even deeper than that is a learning project done by a learning community.

How to transform autocracy to democracy: Nonviolent code of conduct

Whether you are stopping an aspiring autocrat from taking power or bringing down an autocrat already in power, nonviolence works better than all alternatives--more often and with far fewer costs than violence and, of course, better than apathy or fantasizing, no matter how fervent.

Part of the key to creating a movement that sticks to nonviolent conduct is to develop a code of conduct, preferably one that can be printed up and carried by all participants. Gandhi had one, Martin Luther King Jr and the Civil Rights movement had theirs, and so have other successful nonviolent movements. 

I personally feel the Einstein adage applies best: Make it as simple as possible, but not simpler. In other words, there really isn't any need for an elaborate code covering all possible permutations of scenarios, so it should be simpler than that. However, a code that is too simple may be seen as, well, simplistic. Either problem can make it seem unrealistic.

Once your relatively small original core leadership agrees on the code of conduct, it may used as a filter for joining the movement, whether for individuals or for groups. Here is one sample: 

Code of conduct

·       We will harm no one physically

·       We will treat all with respect

·       We will express no hatred for any person 

·       If we are attacked, we will respond only with nonviolence

signed_______________________

Some codes of conduct include points that deal with property destruction and some do not. Some codes of conduct include points that deal with scrupulously following the law and some don't. Some include faith-based points, some include loyalty to leadership, and some include state of mind promises. The important job of the code of conduct is that it starts as a promise and develops into a tool to defend participants in the media, to armed agents of the state, in courts, and to their neighbors. Carrying a signed copy on your person is a surprisingly valuable tool in your nonviolent toolkit.