Refusal Of Public Support
Summary
Refusal Of Public Support — Sharp’s method 121 (Refusal of public support), one of the 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action: the deliberate withdrawal of public endorsement, recognition or moral backing from a person, institution or government, classified under the Rejection of Authority subcategory of political noncooperation [source: commons-198-methods].
Body
Gene Sharp’s 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action catalogues method 121 as Refusal of public support, classified under Rejection of Authority in the political noncooperation category, immediately following Withholding or withdrawal of allegiance (120) and preceding Literature and speeches advocating resistance (122) [source: commons-198-methods]. In the original Sharp taxonomy, the Rejection of Authority subcategory opens the political noncooperation section, with method 121 among its three named entries [source: commons-198-methods].
The method is the public-disapproval counterpart to private withdrawal of allegiance: people, organisations, professional bodies, religious institutions, or local governments publish or visibly withhold endorsements, recognitions, or moral backing from an opponent’s actions, statements, or office-holders. Sharp’s “Learn more” link to Mesarvot (Hebrew: “refusing to serve”) shows the method’s Israeli instantiation: members of the IDF reserves publishing signed letters refusing to serve in occupied territories as a way of refusing the state’s public support for the occupation [source: commons-198-methods].
Worked examples
- guatemalans-refuse-serve-civil-patrols-1988-1993 — the 1988–1993 Guatemalan refusal to serve in the civil patrols (PAC), a multi-year noncooperation campaign that withdrew public support for the state’s counter-insurgency apparatus.
See methods-of-nonviolent-action for the broader method library.
FAQ
What is refusal of public support?
Refusal of public support is Sharp’s method 121 in the 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action — the deliberate withdrawal of public endorsement, recognition, or moral backing from a person, institution, or government. It sits under Rejection of Authority in the political noncooperation category, between Withholding or withdrawal of allegiance (120) and Literature and speeches advocating resistance (122) [source: commons-198-methods]. Rejection of Authority opens the political noncooperation section of the Sharp taxonomy.
How does refusal of public support differ from private withdrawal?
The method is the public-disapproval counterpart to private withdrawal of allegiance. People, organisations, professional bodies, religious institutions, or local governments publish or visibly withhold endorsements, recognitions, or moral backing from an opponent’s actions, statements, or office-holders. The publication is what converts private refusal into a political act with an audience [source: commons-198-methods]. The opponent now has to answer for the visible loss of standing, not just a quiet individual choice.
What is the Israeli instantiation of the method?
Sharp’s “Learn more” link to Mesarvot (Hebrew: “refusing to serve”) shows the method’s Israeli instantiation. Members of the IDF reserves publish signed letters refusing to serve in occupied territories as a way of refusing the state’s public support for the occupation [source: commons-198-methods]. The signed-letter form is what makes the refusal a public-disapproval method rather than a private one.
What historical example illustrates the method?
The 1988–1993 Guatemalan refusal to serve in the civil patrols (PAC) is the worked example. The multi-year noncooperation campaign withdrew public support for the state’s counter-insurgency apparatus [source: commons-198-methods]. The campaign’s signature was the open refusal of named individuals to be associated with the state’s coercive apparatus, not the secret non-participation of isolated individuals.
Related
Learn more
- On Wikipedia: Mesarvot — CC BY-SA 4.0