141 civil disobedience of illegitimate laws
"Civil disobedience is a deliberate, open and peaceful violation of particular laws, decrees, regulations, ordinances, military or police instructions, and the like which are believed to be illegitimate for some reason. One of the most drastic forms of political noncooperation, civil disobedience is an expression of the doctrine that there are times when men have a moral responsibility to disobey “man-made” laws in obedience to “higher” laws. At least since Socrates,144 members of religious and political groups have often experienced a conflict of loyalties in which they had to choose between obeying the laws of the established government, thus violating their own beliefs, and disobeying such laws, thus remaining true to their deeper convictions."...
Potentially awesome partners
High scoring campaigns using this method
Historical cases from the Nonviolent Action Database that used this method
Madagascar general strike in support of Marc Ravolomanana, 2002
Madagascar was officially proclaimed a colony of France in 1896, and gained independence in June 1960. For the first couple decades following independence, one-party rule and political turmoil, including violent and nonviolent struggle, characterized...
African Americans boycott buses for integration in Montgomery, Alabama, U.S., 1955-1956
The yearlong boycott of Montgomery, Alabama’s city buses by between 40,000 and 50,000 African American residents was in the works for years before it began in December 1955. At that time in Montgomery, as well as in many cities across the southern Un...
German wives win the release of their Jewish husbands (Rosenstrasse Protest), 1943
On Saturday, February 27, 1943, the Gestapo in Nazi Germany began the “Final Roundup of Berlin Jews,” arresting all Jews in the city of Berlin. Many of these Jews were in intermarriages with non-Jewish spouses or were the children of such intermarria...
Hungarians campaign for independence from Austrian Empire, 1859-1867
In the 1840’s there were high tensions between Hungary and the Austrian Empire. Hungary, a part of the larger Austrian Empire, was characterized by nationalistic fervor and that feeling erupted in a violent insurgency in 1848. Franz Josef, the empero...
Irish republican prisoners campaign for special status, 1976—1981
Hunger strikes have a long history in Ireland dating back to the medieval periods when Cealachan, a method of gaining justice for some perceived offense through starvation, was codified in the civil code called the Senchus Mor. This starvation tactic...
Kansas miners strike and women march for industrial freedom, 1921-22
In the early twentieth century, Kansas was the third largest coal producing state in the United States, with more than 8,000 unionized miners concentrated in the two southwestern counties of Crawford and Cherokee. In January 1920, the Kansas legislat...
Kumaon villagers campaign against British forest regulations, 1916-1921
From 1916 to 1921, villagers in Kumaon in northern India set hundreds of forest fires to protest the colonial British state’s increasing regulations of the natural environment.\n\nRural residents of Kumaon depended on forests as a source of firewood ...
Lithuanians campaign for national independence, 1988-1991
Russia first occupied Lithuania and introduced a program of “Russification,” an attempt to eliminate Lithuanian language and culture in favor of Russian culture, in the mid-19th century. After 22 years of independence from Russia, the Molotov-Ribbent...
Milanese Catholics and Bishop Ambrose defend their Basilica, 385-386 CE
Early Christendom was rife with sectarian conflicts between competing theologians and their interpretations of the life of Jesus. One of these conflicts was between mainstream (Nicene) Catholicism, which emphasized the Holy Trinity, and Arianism, whi...
Egyptians bring down dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak, 2011
Beginning in 1981, Hosni Mubarak ruled Egypt for over twenty-nine years. Though he ran for presidential reelection several times, elections were marked by widespread fraud, and opposing politicians were legally prohibited from running against Mubarak...
Low scoring campaigns using this method
Historical cases from the Nonviolent Action Database that used this method
Montgomery, Alabama students sit-in for U.S. Civil Rights, 1960
The Montgomery, Alabama sit-ins took place during the era of Jim Crow laws in the southern United States. The first of the Supreme Court rulings against these laws – which are symbolized by the phrase “Separate but Equal” – took place in 1954, in the...
Belarusian citizens protest presidential election, 2006
On 19 March 2006, Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko won his third term in office. The citizens of Belarus, however, did not meet the announcement of Lukashenko’s 82.6% majority win with cheers. Rather, immediately after the Sunday election, opp...
Gambian students protest killing of student and rape of 13-year-old, 2000
Between 1965 and 1994, The Gambia was ruled over by Sir Dawda Jawara, who had allowed the IMF and World Bank to introduce Structural Adjustment Plans (SAPs) that sapped The Gambia of prosperity and fostered widespread discontent. There was initial ce...
Manchester workers campaign for economic equality and political representation (Peterloo Massacre), 1817-1820
The economic plight of the people of Manchester in the early eighteenth century was rooted in three major historical developments: the Industrial Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and the Corn Laws of 1804. The first solidified an enormous and conspic...
Maori resistance to British land seizure at Parihaka, New Zealand, 1879-81
The Taranaki region of present day New Zealand spreads from the central plateau of the North Island to the western coast. The Maori people, indigenous to the region, once inhabited it and the surrounding areas. By 1860, New Zealand had been a colony ...
Naga campaign for leader to return to the Manipur Region, 2010
The Naga people have been entrenched in a largely violent struggle with the Indian government since the 19th century in an attempt to unify and secure the independence of areas in northeast India that are primarily populated by members of the Naga co...
Palestinians wage nonviolent campaign during First Intifada, 1987-1988
EDITOR'S NOTE: Regarding the First Intifada as "nonviolent" is controversial because of the violence that accompanied the campaign. Aden Tedla's narrative does not try to hide the violent dimension. Three considerations lead us to include the case in...
Pastors and students lead campaign to desegregate Danville, VA, 1963
The Civil Rights Movement in the United States gained momentum in the 1960’s with campaigns and demonstrations taking place throughout the country. Following the success of the 1963 campaign in Birmingham, Alabama, and the strong leadership of that s...
Prison officers strike in England and Wales, 2007
In 1996, there were 204 reported attacks on prison staff in English prisons. Ten years later, the number of attacks soared to 1,050 attacks. After a 400% increase in attacks, prison officers were more than outraged with their apparently dangerous wor...
Pro-Settlement advocates protest Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and West Bank, 2004-2005
The Jewish and Palestinian territorial claim to the same area of land has resulted in one of the most protracted conflicts in recent history. Stemming from the Zionist demand for a Jewish homeland in the historic state of Israel, a homeland that woul...