International Conference on Civil Resistance and Power Politics

International Conference on Civil Resistance and Power Politics took place from 15 to 18 March 2007 at St Antony’s College in the University of Oxford. The conference brought together leading academic experts and prominent participants in and observers of the principal cases of civil resistance since 1945...

"The conference was generously supported by the British Academy; the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office Conflict Issues Group and Research Analysts; the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Human Security Program; the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict; the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the Rockefeller Brothers Fund; the United States Institute of Peace; and the Zeit Foundation."

Conference Program

Thursday 15 March 2007

Asterisks indicate those who have submitted a paper but cannot be present in person.

• Session 1: Civil resistance and power politics: the questions

Chair: Timothy Garton Ash (Professor of European Studies, University of Oxford)

Paper-giver: Adam Roberts (Montague Burton Professor of International Relations, University of Oxford)

Respondent: Jacques Semelin (Research Director, CERI/CNRS, Paris)

• Session 2: Gandhi and civil resistance in India: some key questions

Chair: David Washbrook (Reader in Modern South Asian History, University of Oxford)

Paper-giver: Judith Brown (Beit Professor of the History of the British Commonwealth, University of Oxford)

Respondent: Bhikhu Parekh (Professor of Political Philosophy, University of Westminster)

• Session 3: The Politics of Nonviolent Action and the spread of ideas about civil resistance

Chair: Adam Roberts (Montague Burton Professor of International Relations, University of Oxford)

Paper-giver: Gene Sharp (Senior Scholar, Albert Einstein Institution)

Respondents: April Carter (formerly Politics Lecturer at Somerville College, Oxford), Mary King (Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, University for Peace), and Steve York (Senior Producer, York Zimmerman Inc.)

• Session 4: The US civil rights movement: power from below and above

Chair: Rana Mitter (Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford)

Paper-giver: Doug McAdam (Professor of Sociology, Stanford University)

Respondent: Harris Wofford (former senator and civil rights lawyer)

Friday 16 March 2007

• Session 5: Interplay of non-violence and violence in Ireland, 1967-72

Chair: Adrian Guelke (Professor of Comparative Politics, Queen’s University, Belfast)

Paper-giver: Richard English (Professor of Politics, Queen’s University, Belfast)

Respondents: Kenneth Bloomfield (formerly Northern Ireland Victims Commissioner) and Bob Purdie (Tutor in Politics and History, Ruskin College, Oxford)

• Session 6: Interplay of non-violence and violence in South Africa, 1983-94

Chair: William Beinart (Rhodes Professor of Race Relations, University of Oxford)

Paper-giver: Tom Lodge (Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Limerick)

Respondents: Mkhuseli Jack (South African businessman and anti-apartheid activist) and Adrian Guelke (Professor of Comparative Politics, Queen’s University, Belfast)

• Session 7: Portugal: ‘Revolution of Carnations,’ 1974

Chair: Laurence Whitehead (Official Fellow in Politics, Nuffield College, Oxford)

Paper by: Kenneth Maxwell* (Director, Brazil Studies Program, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University)

Respondent: Zita Seabra (Publisher, Social Democratic Parliamentarian, and former member of the Political Commission of the Portuguese Communist Party)

Written comment by: Carlos Gaspar* (Director, Portuguese Institute of International Relations and advisor to Presidents Soares and Sampaio)

• Session 8: Iranian resistance to the Shah, 1963-79

Chair: Judith Brown (Beit Professor of the History of the British Commonwealth, University of Oxford)

Paper-giver: Ervand Abrahamian (CUNY Distinguished Professor of History, Baruch College)

Respondent: Abbas Milani (Hamid & Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies, Stanford University)

• Session 9: Philippines: ‘People Power,’ 1983-7

Chair: Peter Carey (Laithwaite Fellow and Tutor in Modern History, Trinity College, Oxford)

Paper-giver: Amado Mendoza (Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of the Philippines)

Respondents: Ed de la Torre* (former leader of the National Democratic Front), Stephen Bosworth (Dean, Fletcher School, Tufts University) and James Fenton (journalist and former Professor of Poetry, University of Oxford)

• Session 10: China: Tiananmen, 1989: defeat of civil resistance

Chair: Rana Mitter (University Lecturer in Modern Chinese History and Politics, University of Oxford, and Fellow of St Cross College)

Paper by: Merle Goldman* (Professor Emerita of History at Boston University)

Respondents: Wang Juntao (co-founder, Beijing Social and Economic Sciences Research Institute), Minxin Pei (Director, China Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) and Frank Pieke (Director, Institute for Chinese Studies, University of Oxford)

• Session 11: Peace & green movements in the 1980s in West Germany & other western European countries: intended & unintended consequences

Chair: Martin Ceadel (Professor of Politics, University of Oxford, and Fellow of New College)

Paper-giver: Konrad Jarausch (Lurcy Professor of European Civilization, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

Respondents: Mient Jan Faber (Professor, Department of Political Science, Free University Amsterdam) and Mary Kaldor (Professor of Global Governance, London School of Economics and Political Science)

Saturday 17 March 2007

• Session 12: The Soviet response to civil resistance within the bloc, 1968-91

Chair: Timothy Garton Ash (Professor of European Studies, University of Oxford)

Paper-giver: Mark Kramer (Professor and Director of Cold War Studies, Harvard University)

• Session 13: Civil resistance in Czechoslovakia, 1968-89

Chair: Timothy Garton Ash (Professor of European Studies, University of Oxford)

Paper-giver: Kieran Williams (Instructor in Politics, Drake University)

Respondent: Monika MacDonagh-Pajerova (Chairperson, ANO pro Evropu; spokesperson for the University Strike Committee during the Velvet Revolution)

• Session 14: Civil resistance in Poland, 1970-89

Chair: Timothy Garton Ash (Professor of European Studies, University of Oxford)

Paper by: Aleksander Smolar* (President, Stefan Batory Foundation, Warsaw)

Respondent: Janusz Reykowski (Professor, Polish Academy of Science and Warsaw School of Social Psychology; former co-chair, political reform table and 1989 Round Table negotiations)

• Session 15: East Germany and the fall of the Wall

Chair: Timothy Garton Ash (Professor of European Studies, University of Oxford)

Paper-giver: Charles Maier (Leverett Saltonstall Professor of History, Harvard University)

• Session 16: The struggle for independence in the Baltic Republics

Chair: Paul Chaisty (University Lecturer in Russian Government, St Antony’s College, Oxford)

Paper-giver: Mark Beissinger (Professor of Politics, Princeton University)

Respondents: Grazina Miniotaite (Professor of Politics, Military Academy of Lithuania) and Lars Freden (Ambassador, Embassy of Sweden, Zagreb, Croatia)

• Session 17: Skills or conditions: what key factors shape the success or failure of civil resistance?

Chair: Adam Roberts (Montague Burton Professor of International Relations, University of Oxford)

Paper-giver: Peter Ackerman (Founding Chair, International Center on Nonviolent Conflict)

Respondents: Zarni (Founder, Free Burma Coalition) and Lucy Nusseibeh (Founder and Director, Middle East Nonviolence and Democracy)

• Session 18: Civil resistance in Chile, 1983-9

Chair: Alan Angell (former Director of the Latin American Centre, St Antony’s College, University of Oxford)

Paper-giver: Carlos Huneeus (Associate Professor of Politics, University of Chile)

Respondents: Patricio Silva (Professor of Modern Latin American History, Leiden University) and Samuel Valenzuela (Professor of Sociology, University of Notre Dame)

Sunday 18 March 2007

• Session 19: Civil resistance in Kosovo to 1999

Chair: Richard Caplan (Professor of International Relations, Oxford University)

Paper-giver: Howard Clark (Chair, War Resisters' International)

Respondent: Hydajet Hyseni (MP, Assembly of Kosova)

• Session 20: Serbia: civil resistance leading to revolution after war, 2000

Chair: Richard Caplan (Professor of International Relations, Oxford University)

Paper-giver: Ivan Vejvoda (Executive Director, Balkan Trust for Democracy)

Respondent: Srdja Popovic (Executive Director, Centre for Applied Non-Violent Action and Strategies)

• Session 21: Georgia, 2003: ‘Rose Revolution’

Chair: Jan Zielonka (Professor of European Politics, Oxford University)

Paper-giver: Stephen Jones (Professor of Russian and Eurasian Studies, Mount Holyoke College)

Respondent: Ghia Nodia (Chairman of the Board, Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development)

• Session 22: Ukraine, 2004-5: ‘Orange Revolution’

Chair: Jan Zielonka (Professor of European Politics, Oxford University)

Paper-giver: Andrew Wilson (Senior Lecturer, Russian and Ukrainian Studies, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London)

Respondent: Dmytro Potekhin* (Director, European Strategy Group)

• Session 23 (panel discussion): Civil resistance and the roles of external actors

Chair: Adam Roberts (Montague Burton Professor of International Relations, University of Oxford)

Panelists: Michael McFaul (Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution), Edward Mortimer (Senior Vice President and Chief Programme Officer, Salzburg Seminar), and Jonathan Steele (Senior Foreign Correspondent, The Guardian)

• Session 24 (panel discussion): Civil resistance in a world of power politics:

Chair: Timothy Garton Ash (Professor of European Studies, University of Oxford)

Panelists: Thomas Richard Davies (Research Associate, Project on Civil Resistance and Power Politics, University of Oxford) and Chris Patten (Chancellor of the University of Oxford)