Letters of Opposition or Support
Summary
Letters of opposition or support are method 2 in Gene Sharp’s 198 methods of nonviolent action — written communications sent by individuals or groups to officials, the press, or a target to register dissent or endorsement [source: commons-198-methods].
Body
Sharp listed letters of opposition or support as method 2 of the 198 Methods, under the Formal Statements cluster of nonviolent protest and persuasion [source: commons-198-methods]. The form is cheap, cumulative, and low-risk: each letter is a small act, but a coordinated flood of letters on a single recipient produces the public-record effect of an organised constituency. The method is most useful for campaigns with deep mailing lists, established supporter networks, or a target sensitive to public legitimacy. See methods-of-nonviolent-action for the broader method library and group-or-mass-petitions for the related petition form.
Use it for
Letters sent by individuals or groups to officials, the press, or the target — to register opposition or support, build the public record, and put the recipient on notice. Cheap and cumulative; useful for campaigns with deep mailing lists.
Worked examples
- argentine-workers-campaign-for-human-rights-semana-roja-1909 — Semana Roja coordinated mass letter-writing campaigns to government and press.
- indigenous-peoples-in-bangladesh-protest-to-stop-open-pit-coal — Bangladeshi indigenous communities sent coordinated letters to international finance institutions.
- czechoslovak-resistance-to-soviet-occupation-1968 — 1968 Czechoslovak citizens sent letters and petitions to international organisations and Western embassies during the brief opening.
Learn more
- On Wikipedia: Iranian opposition — CC BY-SA 4.0
Related
FAQ
What are letters of opposition or support?
Letters of opposition or support are method 2 in Gene Sharp’s 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action — written communications sent by individuals or groups to officials, the press, or a target to register dissent or endorsement [source: commons-198-methods]. Sharp listed letters of opposition or support as method 2 of the 198 Methods, under the Formal Statements cluster of nonviolent protest and persuasion.
How does a coordinated letter-writing campaign produce its effect?
Each letter is a small act, but a coordinated flood of letters on a single recipient produces the public-record effect of an organised constituency. The form is cheap, cumulative, and low-risk: the cumulative effect comes from the volume on a single desk at the same moment, with the same ask, from a recognisable mass of constituents — which is what makes the method useful beyond the individual letter.
When is the letter-writing method most useful?
The method is most useful for campaigns with deep mailing lists, established supporter networks, or a target sensitive to public legitimacy. The form puts the recipient on notice and builds the public record of the campaign — without requiring permission, physical risk, or budget beyond mail.
How do letters relate to the petition form?
See methods-of-nonviolent-action for the broader method library and group-or-mass-petitions for the related petition form. Letters and petitions are both Sharp Formal Statements, with letters being the individually-signed form and petitions the co-signed form — letter-writing campaigns shift the recipient’s reading burden onto the desk, petitions shift the counting onto the front page.
Open Questions
- Page relies only on the Commons 198-methods pointer. Grounded source content (Sharp’s The Politics of Nonviolent Action; case-study literature on letter-writing campaigns) would strengthen the rationale above.