Introduction
What is noncooperation? Here is a collection of resources curated by the Commons librarians about what noncooperation is, how to do noncooperation and examples from around the world.
What is Noncooperation and what can it achieve?
Noncooperation is when we deliberately and strategically do not cooperate with our opponent. When we do this, we make it harder for our opponent to maintain a smooth hold on power.
One of the reasons noncooperation can be such an effective tactic is that it helps us to demonstrate that our opponent’s power is not absolute – but relies on our continued cooperation and support – remove enough of that support and we remove their power.
This is because power is essentially relational. Regimes and powerholders often rely on the cooperation and support of citizens, institutions, and infrastructure in order to maintain power and control. Known as the pillars of support, these institutions (such as the media, courts, military, citizens, government bureaucracy, and so on) prop up powerholders and ensure that they can sustain a smoothly running regime.
If we understand that power is a relational force, maintained through cooperation and support, noncooperation is a strategic tool for removing an opponent’s power and toppling the pillars of support.
…noncooperation involves the deliberate discontinuance, withholding, or defiance of certain existing relationships – social, economic or political. – Gene Sharp, 1973, p. 183
Types of Noncooperation
Noncooperation can take a variety of forms. Workers can withhold their labour through a strike, citizens can refuse to comply with unjust laws through acts of civil disobedience, consumers can boycott particular goods and services, members of the judicial system (judges, jurors) might refuse to convict a political prisoner, police and soldiers might be deliberately inefficient in carrying out their duties. Importantly, while noncooperation can occur at an individual level, often these acts are practiced by groups en masse (citizens, consumers, judiciary, police, etc.).
This helps to increase the impact noncooperation has on the ruling body. Governments themselves can also engage in noncooperation at an international scale by, for example, removing diplomatic relation with a country or withdrawing from international organisations.
In The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Gene Sharp outlines three distinct forms of noncooperation:
- Social noncooperation (social boycotts)
Refusal to carry on normal social relations with individuals or groups, or to comply with certain social practices. For example, through ostracism, noncooperation with social events, customs and institutions, or withdrawal from social systems. - Economic noncooperation (economic boycotts and strikes)
Refusal to continue economic relationships. For example, through economic boycotts: refusing to continue buying, selling or handling goods and services, or through strikes: the restriction or suspension of labour. - Political noncooperation (political boycotts)
Refusal to continue usual forms of political participation, sometimes practiced by individuals but usually practiced by large numbers of people in concert.
Within these categories Sharp lists numbers 55 through to 157 of his methods of nonviolent action:
1. The Methods of Social Noncooperation
Ostracism of Persons
55. Social boycott
56. Selective social boycott
57. Lysistratic nonaction
58. Excommunication
59. Interdict
Noncooperation with Social Events, Customs, and Institutions
60. Suspension of social and sports activities
61. Boycott of social affairs
62. Student strike
63. Social disobedience
64. Withdrawal from social institutions
Withdrawal from the Social System
65. Stay-at-home
66. Total personal noncooperation
67. “Flight” of workers
68. Sanctuary
69. Collective disappearance
70. Protest emigration (hijrat)
2. The Methods of Economic Noncooperation
Economic Boycotts
Actions by Consumers
71. Consumers’ boycott
72. Nonconsumption of boycotted goods
73. Policy of austerity
74. Rent withholding
75. Refusal to rent
76. National consumers’ boycott
77. International consumers’ boycott
Action by Workers and Producers
78. Workmen’s boycott
79. Producers’ boycott
Action by Middlemen
80. Suppliers’ and handlers’ boycott
Action by Owners and Management
81. Traders’ boycott
82. Refusal to let or sell property
83. Lockout
84. Refusal of industrial assistance
85. Merchants’ “general strike”
Action by Holders of Financial Resources
86. Withdrawal of bank deposits
87. Refusal to pay fees, dues, and assessments
88. Refusal to pay debts or interest
89. Severance of funds and credit
90. Revenue refusal
91. Refusal of a government’s money
Action by Governments
92. Domestic embargo
93. Blacklisting of traders
94. International sellers’ embargo
95. International buyers’ embargo
96. International trade embargo
The Strike
Symbolic Strikes
97. Protest strike
98. Quickie walkout (lightning strike)
Agricultural Strikes
99. Peasant strike
100. Farm Workers’ strike
Strikes by Special Groups
101. Refusal of impressed labor
102. Prisoners’ strike
103. Craft strike
104. Professional strike
Ordinary Industrial Strikes
105. Establishment strike
106. Industry strike
107. Sympathetic strike
Restricted Strikes
108. Detailed strike
109. Bumper strike
110. Slowdown strike
111. Working-to-rule strike
112. Reporting “sick” (sick-in)
113. Strike by resignation
114. Limited strike
115. Selective strike
Multi-Industry Strikes
116. Generalized strike
117. General strike
Combination of Strikes and Economic Closures
118. Hartal
119. Economic shutdown
3. The Methods of Political Noncooperation
Rejection of Authority
120. Withholding or withdrawal of allegiance
121. Refusal of public support
122. Literature and speeches advocating resistance
Citizens’ Noncooperation with Government
123. Boycott of legislative bodies
124. Boycott of elections
125. Boycott of government employment and positions
126. Boycott of government depts., agencies, and other bodies
127. Withdrawal from government educational institutions
128. Boycott of government-supported organizations
129. Refusal of assistance to enforcement agents
130. Removal of own signs and placemarks
131. Refusal to accept appointed officials
132. Refusal to dissolve existing institutions
Citizens’ Alternatives to Obedience
133. Reluctant and slow compliance
134. Nonobedience in absence of direct supervision
135. Popular nonobedience
136. Disguised disobedience
137. Refusal of an assemblage or meeting to disperse
138. Sitdown
139. Noncooperation with conscription and deportation
140. Hiding, escape, and false identities
141. Civil disobedience of “illegitimate” laws
Action by Government Personnel
142. Selective refusal of assistance by government aides
143. Blocking of lines of command and information
144. Stalling and obstruction
145. General administrative noncooperation
146. Judicial noncooperation
147. Deliberate inefficiency and selective noncooperation by enforcement agents
148. Mutiny
Domestic Governmental Action
149. Quasi-legal evasions and delays
150. Noncooperation by constituent governmental units
International Governmental Action
151. Changes in diplomatic and other representations
152. Delay and cancellation of diplomatic events
153. Withholding of diplomatic recognition
154. Severance of diplomatic relations
155. Withdrawal from international organizations
156. Refusal of membership in international bodies
157. Expulsion from international organizations
How To
Because noncooperation can take so many different forms, it is important to match up the form of noncooperation being used with the specific conditions of power being opposed.
You might begin this process by identifying the institutions that your opposition relies on to maintain power, these institutions will be where noncooperation tactics could be most effective at disrupting your opposition.
- Where do you and your supporters fit within these institutions?
- How can you use your collective power and refuse to cooperate with your opposition?
- If you and your supporters don’t fit within these institutions, can you bring members of the institutions (for example, judiciary, workers in a particular industry, police, journalists, religious leaders, school administrators, government workers) in as allies?
Noncooperation Tactics to Make a Redlines Backfire provides an example of how to plan noncooperation tactics to oppose Trump.
Once you’ve identified which noncooperation tactics will have the biggest impact on your opposition, the Commons Library has many resources and examples to support specific tactics. For example:
Civil Disobedience
Social boycotts and ostracism
Economic strikes and boycotts
Resources for Trainers
Explore Further
- 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action by Gene Sharp
- The Methods of Social Noncooperation by Gene Sharp
- The Methods of Economic Noncooperation: Economic boycotts by Gene Sharp
- The Methods of Economic Noncooperation: The Strike by Gene Sharp
- Methods of Political Noncooperation by Gene Sharp
- Noncooperation Tactics to Make a Redlines Backfire
- Civil Resistance Tactics in the 21st Century
- The Tactic Star
- Tactics Resources in the Commons Library
- A Tactic Typology
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