From Democracy to Dictatorship by Gene sharp.pdf

Gene Sharp is mostly successful in his essay of how to bring down a dictatorship and how to prevent the emergence of a new one. Readers should note that Mr. Sharp does not aim to tailor his analysis to a specific country living under dictatorship. To his credit, the author does not downplay the costs associated with defying a dictatorship. Freedom is not free as he reminds his audience repeatedly. After weighing the pros and cons of options such as violence, guerrilla warfare, military coups, foreign intervention, elections, negotiations, legal/judicial challenges, and public opinion, Mr. Sharp comes to the conclusion that political defiance is the best option for those who want peace and freedom. As the descendant of political prisoners of Nazi Germany, I cannot subscribe blindly to this recommendation. It depends on how ruthlessly the target dictatorship deals with its opponents. To his credit, Mr. Sharp acknowledges that a high priority for democratic strategists is to subvert the loyalty and obedience of military forces and police to their dictators. To weaken and then destroy dictatorships, democratic resisters have to be cognizant of the dictators' constantly replenished sources of power. Contrary to popular wisdom, even totalitarian dictatorships rely on the population and the societies they rule. Mr. Sharp explores the important sources of power such as moral and political authority, human and material resources, access to specialized skills and knowledge, psychological and ideological influences, and last but not least, punishment. The author observes on this subject that abandonment or control of fear is critical to ending the power of the dictators over their subjects.
This understanding of the sources of power is important in the formulation of what Mr. Sharp calls the grand strategy, strategies, tactics, and methods. The author rightly deplores that most people in democratic opposition groups do not grasp the importance of careful strategic planning before they act. Being always on the defensive is the price to be paid for ignoring this advice. Mr. Sharp invites these opposition groups to ask some fundamental questions about themselves, their non-democratic opponents, and the environment around them for this purpose. To help facilitate this process, the author could have mentioned the use of the SWOT analysis that is widely used in the corporate world. SWOT stands for one's inner strengths and weaknesses and the threats and opportunities existing in the surrounding environment. This planned non-violent struggle is fought by psychological, social, economic, and political weapons applied by the population and the institutions of the repressed society. In the appendix to the essay, Mr. Sharp enumerates about 200 methods of non-violent action.

Political defiance can result into four possible changes: Conversion, accommodation, non-violent coercion, and disintegration. Emotional or rational conversion of the opponents to the democratic cause is the least likely scenario based on Mr. Sharp's extensive research. The author dismisses accommodation as inappropriate because only a shift in power relations in favor of democrats has the potential to bring about peace and freedom down the road. Both non-violent coercion and disintegration have a better chance than the other two possible changes to result into the end of dictatorship. However, non-violent struggle is not enough on its own to successfully make the transition from dictatorship to democracy. Mr. Sharp also emphasizes the importance for the strategists of democratic forces to facilitate the growth of autonomous social, economic, cultural, and political institutions to expand the "democratic space," resulting in the reduced control of the dictatorship. The author invites democratic strategists to plan for a long-term struggle while being prepared to exploit any opportunity to shorten it. Usually, dictatorships do not collapse extremely quickly. The fall of former East Germany in 1989 is clearly an exception to this rule. Mr. Sharp also recommends that democratic resisters celebrate victories and recognize the accomplishments of the victors; doing this without losing sight of their end goal, i.e., peace and freedom. Mr. Sharp learns from his experience that strong political resistance and the growth of independent institutions have a good chance to generate in time widespread international "sympathy" with the aims of the democratic resisters. However, Mr. Sharp bluntly warns democratic strategists that their work is not done with the fall of dictators. The importance of strategic planning comes once more to the forefront in deftly handling the transition from a dictatorship to a sustainable democracy. A total governmental void could bring about either chaos or the emergence of a new dictatorship. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 is one of the examples that Mr. Sharp uses to draw the attention to the fact that the new dictatorship may even be more cruel and total in its control than the old one. Mr. Sharp recommends that democratic forces immediately deny legitimacy to the putschists and resist them with both non-cooperation and defiance before these new tyrants get access to the important sources of power mentioned above.