Global Nonviolent Action Database
Summary
Searchable database of hundreds of historical and contemporary nonviolent campaigns, hosted by Swarthmore College.
Body
The Global Nonviolent Action Database (GVNAD or NV Database) is a research catalogue of historical and contemporary nonviolent campaigns hosted by Swarthmore College [source: nv-database]. Each entry records structured fields - actors, methods, target, outcome, dates, locations, and primary sources - which is what makes it usable as both a campaign precedent lookup and a method-pattern analysis tool [source: nv-database]. Coverage on the homepage reads 1,200+ cases across 100+ countries and 400+ years, leaning toward twentieth- and twenty-first-century civil-rights, anti-colonial, labour, environmental and pro-democracy movements [source: nv-database].
The database was founded in the early 2000s as an academic project hosted at Swarthmore, with editor contributions from partner institutions; it is searchable by country, method, outcome, and actor, and the View Campaigns on the Map feature pivots the catalogue into a geographical view [source: nv-database]. Because the database is itself a synthesis of many primary sources (not a primary source), downstream wiki pages should cite it for case-level claims and link to it for the underlying primary records [source: nv-database]. Compare with global-nonviolent-db, the alternate-label alias slug for the same resource.
A campaigner uses it to find a precedent case to compare against (“has anyone done a rent strike that escalated into a broader movement?”), to build a case-study slide, or to check whether a tactic has been tried in a given context before - the structured fields make it possible to ask cross-cutting questions that narrative sources cannot answer [source: nv-database]. Treat as link-only; paraphrase case write-ups into local campaign write-ups rather than quoting verbatim. [source: nv-database]
Use it for
Finding a precedent case to compare against; building a case-study slide; checking whether a tactic has been tried in a given context.
Related
- boycotts-and-strikes
- civil-resistance
- constructive-programme
- nonviolent-direct-action
- pillars-of-support
- power-mapping
- theory-of-change
- three-and-a-half-percent-rule
Open Questions
None yet.