Book review: Civil Resistance and Conflict Transformation: Transitions from armed to nonviolent struggle
| Date | 01 December 2016 |
| Author | Isak Svensson |
| DOI | 10.1177/0010836716640830 |
| Published date | 01 December 2016 |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
560 Cooperation and Conflict 51(4)
cooperation that NATO members have experienced? Secondly, making one possible
causal effect of the mechanism under study – that internationalization enhances the sig-
nificance of international organizations – part of the definition is slightly problematic,
especially since one of the aspects under scrutiny is the actual ability of institutional
changes to affect security provision.
But the terminology aside, the empirical and theoretical analysis that comes out makes
for a hugely relevant contribution. Its timing also allows for an interesting hypothesis. If
the more multifaceted and less territory-bound tasks of post-Cold War NATO have
increased the influence of its bureaucracy, will the current u-turn towards collective
defense and focus on European territorial integrity revise this trend? Will we see ‘rena-
tionalization’ instead of internationalization with member states regaining control as the
organization – at least in the short term – goes ‘back to basics’?
The book also holds relevance for current political debates. The costs and benefits of
alliance membership are today debated among members as well as partners. Sovereignty
costs, in particular, are too often discussed in overly simplistic terms: either they are
negligible due to the unanimity rule or they are pervasive due to US dominance. The
insights that this volume offers on the nuanced and multifaceted ways in which modern
international security organizations translate state preferences into action would be much
welcomed to the political discussion.
Bjorn Fägersten
Swedish Institute of International Affairs
Email: bjorn.fagersten@ui.se
VÉRONIQUE DUDOUET (ed.), Civil Resistance and Conflict Transformation: Transitions from
armed to nonviolent struggle. London and New York: Routledge, 2015.
Armed conflicts (that do not end in military victory or that just continue to linger on) can
transform in three basic ways. First, they can be mediated and resolved through political
dialogue, ultimately resulting in negotiated agreements usually assisted by international
and diplomatic interventions. This is the shift ‘from the battlefield to the negotiation
table’. Second, armed conflicts can change their focus from the battlefield to the political
realm, implying that armed actors, such as rebel groups, can be transformed into political
parties. This is the shift from ‘rebels to parties’. Third and finally, armed conflicts can
transform strategically from the use of armed to unarmed tactics. This is the shift ‘from
bombs to banners’. Yet, whereas quite extensive research has been done on the first two
forms of transformations, the shift from armed to unarmed strategies of contention is
substantially less examined and understood. A new book on this theme, Civil Resistance
and Conflict Transformation, is a very welcome contribution, which sheds new light on
a clearly under-studied field of research.
Theoretically, we might expect this shift from violence to nonviolence to occur at one
decisive moment: substitution of means by unified strategic actors. Yet empirically, as
pointed out by Véronique Dudouet in this study, ‘few groups (if any)’ make such complete
and decisive shifts. Interestingly, the transformation processes seem to be both
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