There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #50: Hundreds more!

Every method of nonviolent action can be a method of participating in democracy. Gene Sharp, in his 1973 opus, listed 198 methods[1]. As a major update, Michael Beer produced a greatly expanded list of essentially double that in his monograph Civil Resistance Tactics in the 21st Century[2]. 

Just a few of those additional tactics since 1973, from the Beer collection (2021, pp. 87-88): 

·       Expressive Tactics Using Medium of Electronic Communication

·       RECORDING & DISTRIBUTING NEWS OF NVA

·       Livestreaming: The live public broadcasting of an event, incident, or protest

·       Short form digital video: A brief video detailing the issue that people are protesting for/against

·       Social media photo campaign: Promoting a particular image through social media platforms (for example, changing profile pictures)

·       Database leaks: Releasing entire digital archives of secret/classified materials in order to educate the public and/or increase awareness

·       CROWDSOURCING INFORMATION

·       Sousveillance: Covert surveillance by citizens, frequently of authorities

·       Maps and maptivism: Using maps, typically digital ones, to crowdsource data or information

·       Digital file sharing applications: Peer-to-peer file-sharing (uTorrent, etc.)

·       CREATING ONLINE DIGITAL CONTENT

·       Blogging/writing/commenting/tweeting: Creating online written content that addresses particular issues, which is especially useful if it is too dangerous to speak out or protest in person

·       Digital video and audio art: Using media forms such as videos, photos, photos of art, digital art, animations, and silent videos to protest/appeal

·       Digital games: Digital games that are used to criticize opponents and their ideas or to model a new behavior or institution

·       FALSE, IMAGINARY INFORMATION

·       Creating faux identities, websites, videos:

·       Creating some kind of hoax or fake information that is intended to mock opponents and/or shock the public

·       Mockumentaries: A documentary that uses humor and parody to mock an opponent or issue

·       Mock documents (government forms): Constructing mock documents or forms for use by the public

·       Deliberately fake money: Creating false currency that can be used to combat corruption, spread awareness about the issue, etc.

·       MASS ACTION

·       SMS/email/social media bombing: Using text messaging, email, or social media functions to send messages en masse to a target

·       Forwarding information, retweeting, re-posting, sharing: Sharing information and raising awareness through social media or other messaging systems

·       Trend a hashtag: Using a social media platform’s hashtag feature to call attention to an issue or event (#)

·       Influencing Internet search engines: Changing the results of a search engine for a specific term/person 

·       “Nonviolently ‘hijacking’ social media”: Hacking, posting on, exposing, and/or disabling the social media accounts of an opponent

·       Social media “challenges”: Using social media to call others to action on a mass scale

·       Solidarity telethon: Mass calls to spread information and solidarity 

·       Product review hijacking: Negatively or positively mass-reviewing a product

One perspective of all these ways to participate in democracy is that if there are hundreds of ways to do so and many more waiting some creative innovative activist to develop, it negates the entire Just War Doctrine because one of the criteria for engaging in war is that it must be the last resort. No war in human history was preceded by 198 different attempts to resolve a conflict or defend a people, let alone more than 300 of them. Peace, nonviolence, and democracy are all woven together much more advantageously than violence and democracy. In effect, creative, strategic nonviolence is the new arsenal of democracy.

References

Beer, Michael A. (2021). Civil resistance tactics in the 21st century. ICNC. 

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[1] https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/resource/198-methods-of-nonviolent-action/

[2] https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/resource/civil-resistance-tactics-in-the-21st-century/