Nonviolent Action Lab Producing and disseminating knowledge on nonviolent action

Producing and disseminating knowledge on nonviolent action The Nonviolent Action Lab produces and disseminates up-to-date knowledge on nonviolent action, how it works, and global trends in success and failure. The world is facing numerous crises that demand urgent and effective nonviolent action. Movements worldwide are fighting global inaction on climate change, discrimination against refugee and immigrant communities fleeing war and hardship, and rising global inequality. At the same time, the very institution of democracy is under threat. Over the past decade, authoritarian backsliding has occurred in Hungary, Poland, Turkey, Brazil, India, the United States, and elsewhere. The rise of digital authoritarianism has created more opportunities for more sophisticated forms of repression, which has disrupted and undermined nonviolent movements that have relied on digital organizing and online activism to build their movements. Movements are fighting back against corruption, injustice, and violence in almost every country of the world. What remains to be seen is how effective they will be in challenging entrenched power in increasingly complex environments. Existing research shows that nonviolent resistance can be a highly effective pathway to defend democratic values and institutions, while also creating transformative change in many domains. Yet many people remain skeptical about the power of nonviolent resistance to effect change. Part of the reason for this skepticism is that information about the power of nonviolent resistance—and up-to-date data demonstrating its power—is inaccessible to many people in the world. By systematically studying and amplifying nonviolent resistance, and synthesizing lessons learned from global movements worldwide, the lab will make it easier for the public and practitioners to embrace nonviolent action as a means of transforming injustice.