In this project I focus on the question, What makes nonviolence an ethical form of political action? The shift to an instrumental understanding of nonviolence in the civil resistance literature has made it difficult to conceptualize nonviolence using a moral framework. Nonviolence is currently theorized and presented to potential activists as an instrumental form of politics. I draw on a number of different literatures to address this question. First, I look at classical explanations for the moral character of nonviolence that come from Gandhi, Clarence Case and Richard Gregg. Then, I dig into the strategic conceptualization of nonviolence that gets developed by Gene Sharp and is being further developed today by authors in the civil resistance literature like Erica Chenoweth and Kurt Schock. In discussing Sharp’s theory of power, I rely on the philosophical literature on power, specifically, Foucault and Steven Lukes. In developing my own conception of nonviolence I draw heavily on Arendt and Habermas. I also carry out a historical analysis of Poland’s nonviolent Solidarity movement (1980-89), which informs my conceptualization of nonviolence. My method has been to investigate what is incomplete about what I call the moral and the strategic paradigms of nonviolence in order to highlight what a more complete theory of nonviolence must do. In my analysis I argue that the moral paradigm, which understands nonviolence through the idea of conversion, lacks a conceptualization of the power inherent to nonviolent acts and is, itself, inconsistent about whether nonviolence operates coercively (Ch 2). Gene Sharp’s strategic reconceptualization argues that nonviolence is a more effective technique for political change than violence and that it actually forces the opposition to change. His theory of nonviolent power, however, relies on a voluntarist notion of consent that is inadequate in the face of contemporary social theory. The civil resistance literature in general focuses on the disruptive acts like strikes and boycotts, but does not have a category for nonviolent action that is not disruptive (Ch 3). Thus, the dissertation argues that nonviolence involves both disruptive acts (between the movement and its opposition) and communicative action (within the movement itself). In order to generate the disruptive capability that is recognized as nonviolent power by the civil resistance literature, I argue that participants within a movement must take a communicative stance toward each other, develop a public sphere, and must participate in developing shared political understandings. The voluntary, collective nature of nonviolent disruptive acts, like strikes, requires public will formation. My analysis of Solidarity shows that disruptive acts both originate in communicative action and are used to protect or expand the space for communicative action against attempts at suppression. For this reason I argue that disruptive acts and communicative action have what I call, a co-generative relationship in nonviolence. (Ch 4) I use Arendt and Habermas’s political theory to argue that nonviolence is a form of communicative power that gets developed outside of constitutionally democratic frameworks. It is ethical because it involves the effective and rational exercise of agency, through discourse alternating with action. Nonviolence makes private and public autonomy possible for movement participants in contexts of irresolvable conflict because it is powerful and can disrupt or replace existing institutions and legislation. (Ch 5) My ethical conception of nonviolence attempts to address the issues that arise from conceptualizing nonviolence in a universalistic moral framework (which fails to incorporate power) and in a purely instrumentalist framework (which fails to distinguish violence from nonviolence).
Read
