Four Takeaways on the Intersection of Nonviolent Action and Peace Processes usip.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from usip.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Many nonviolent action movements struggle with how to engage with their opponents. Mediation can help prevent an escalation toward violence and resolve a movement’s underlying issues. Mediators can help facilitate the active participation of movements in peace processes and bridge divides between movements, governments, and other stakeholders to ultimately foster durable democratic development.
How do major social transformations happen? And how can transformation happen without violence? The examples of iconic leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speak to the power of nonviolent action to achieve these transformations. Yet nonviolent action on its own is no guarantee of long-term sustainable change. Achieving this kind of change often requires not just nonviolent action, but peacebuilding processes of dialogue, negotiation, and mediation between the various constituencies within movements and their opponents.