Peace activists also try to apply pressure to political leaders through letter-writing, rallies, mobilisation of voters and civil disobedience. This has a much greater impact than just logical arguments. Nevertheless, there are limitations in the strategy of applying pressure. Political leaders are subject to other pressures, such as lobbying by supporters of the military. Promises are easy to make and easy to break. When community activists seek to get the government to take action, they do not take control of the agenda themselves. Their effort is to get someone else (the government) to take action, not to take action themselves.
Finally, even when governments do take action, they are not likely to promote a process of community mobilisation. They are more likely to sponsor research, which may just delay the day when action occurs. They are likely to provide support for figureheads — such as prominent investigators — rather than for community-level activists.
The experiences with government sponsorship of research into social defence illustrate the above generalisations. Supporters of nonviolent action have devoted much effort to persuading governments to investigate social defence. Occasionally there have been successes. The governments of Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands have sponsored studies.
The experience in the Netherlands is instructive.[4] In the late 1970s, a small radical party was part of a coalition government. A member of this party was made science minister, and Johan Niezing, Professor of Peace Research at the Free University of Brussels, was his chief scientific adviser. Niezing has long been committed to social defence, not for idealistic reasons but because it seems to him to be the most pragmatic alternative to the horrors of military methods.[5] As a result of Niezing’s influence, one of the conditions for continuing the coalition was the acceptance of proposals to fund ten social defence research projects. A committee, chaired by Niezing, was set up to oversee the ten projects. But then there was a change of government. Funding was dramatically reduced so that there was enough for just one project.[6]
The one project was a study coordinated by Alex Schmid of Leiden University. Schmid and his collaborators concluded that an invasion by a determined military power (specifically, the Soviet Union) could not be stopped by nonviolent means.[7] In retrospect, now that the Soviet threat to western Europe has collapsed in the wake of the largely nonviolent 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe, this analysis seems quite shortsighted. Thus ended a promising possibility for sustained research on social defence.
(Schmid went on to set up the Interdisciplinary Research Project on Root Causes of Gross Human Rights Violations, with the Dutch acronym PIOOM, at the University of Leiden. This is a vitally important social science enterprise, whose core funding remains precarious.)
The Niezing committee was disbanded in 1987; its original proposals, having been updated and augmented by Giliam de Valk, were published in English in 1993.[8] Niezing himself played a key role in ensuring that this publication took place.
These problems with getting governments to take action serve as a warning. It may be worthwhile to seek government support for nonviolent struggle, but it is wise to be aware of the difficulties. For example, at the United Nations, the most powerful governments obstructed a study of military science and technology at every stage. The study was endorsed by the General Assembly, but hamstrung by committee members (selected by governments) who were military officers or just ignorant. The study was held back by governments’ refusals to provide information or their antagonism to critical comment, and was continually stalled at the publication stage.[9] The difficulties that could confront active efforts to develop technology for nonviolent struggle — which might, after all, be used against government repression — can be imagined.
In summary, government support for nonviolent struggle offers the immense advantages of legitimacy and resources. But in most cases there is likely to be great difficulty in gaining any support in the first place, due to the close connection between the military and the state. Furthermore, seeking government support has the disadvantage of trying to get others to take action rather than doing it oneself. Finally, governments are likely to sponsor research that is removed from the community.
All these features are apparent in the Dutch experience. The Netherlands government had ample resources to investigate and promote social defence, but the major political parties were not interested. It was only by a quirk of politics that government funds were allocated to social defence. The money was cut back at the first opportunity and in any case was devoted to research rather than community action. Even so, the funding gave considerable credibility to social defence and the proposals from the Niezing Committee are a valuable resource for future research and action.
Scientists and Engineers
Many scientists and engineers are in a good position to develop science and technology for nonviolent struggle. There are a number of reasons why they haven’t done so already. As described in chapter 2, most funding for science and technology comes from governments and corporations. Defence is seen as a matter for the military, and military R&D is a key driving force for science and engineering. This emphasis on military priorities filters through to civilian R&D: military priorities influence the disciplines that are most favoured and the technical problems that are seen as most significant. As high-status professionals whose privileges depend on claims to special expertise, scientists and engineers are seldom encouraged to get involved in social movements or, more importantly, to redirect their work so that professional skills become easily taken up by community activists. There is much more prestige to be gained by taking up the most esoteric theoretical challenges or constructing and using highly sophisticated technical apparatus.
If scientists and engineers were to take up practical problems in nonviolent struggle, they could have an enormous impact. They bring two great resources to bear: skills and legitimacy. Their skills are of great practical relevance in some cases, such as designing telecommunications systems or building renewable energy systems. In other cases their skills are not directly relevant to nonviolent struggle in any obvious way, but even so, the involvement of scientists and engineers would have great impact because they are the people with the greatest social legitimacy as experts in science and technology.
The basic ideas of sustainable agriculture or short-wave radio are known to many people. Applying these ideas to nonviolent struggle is not so difficult, at least at the basic level. But if an agricultural researcher or electronics engineer were to get up and say that these approaches have merit for nonviolent struggle, this would have a great impact. Scientists and engineers have credentials and often an institutional affiliation that gives them credibility.
Some scientists and engineers, especially those working at universities, have considerable freedom to choose their research topics. They are in a good position to undertake projects in support of nonviolent struggle.
I have already described some of the reasons why scientists and engineers have not already taken up this sort of work and advocacy. Many of them are heavily funded by the military or respond to research agendas shaped by military priorities. More generally, they are trained to be professionals and discouraged from building links with community groups.
4.
This account, based on discussions with Johan Niezing, is adapted from Brian Martin, “Impressions of the Dutch social defence network,”
5.
Johan Niezing,
6.
One way that this cutback was justified was on the basis of a critique of the Niezing committee proposals by social scientist Koen Koch. For Koch’s views, see Koen Koch, “Civilian defence: an alternative to military defence?”
7.
Alex P. Schmid, in collaboration with Ellen Berends and Luuk Zonneveld,
8.
Giliam de Valk in cooperation with Johan Niezing,
9.
Ulrich Albrecht, “The aborted United Nations study of the military use of research and development: an editorial essay,”