This 3-week summer course examines the power and dynamics of civil resistance movements around the world. The course will analyze key elements that determine the success or failure of nonviolent campaigns and how civilians have used nonviolent tactics to enact political change in countries like Egypt, Burma, Zimbabwe, and West Papua. Historically, violent revolution was seen as necessary to overcome oppression, but civil resistance has led to impressive results through a variety of nonviolent actions. Recent events in North Africa and the Middle East provide new evidence of how civil resistance can drive political change and lead to more successful democratic transitions than armed conflict or elite negotiations. The course runs from July 9-13, 2012 in Budapest, Hungary and is open

1. The CEU Summer University announces the course on
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Organized by and in partnership with the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), Washington DC, USA
Course Director:
Maciej Bartkowski, International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC) Washington DC, USA
Faculty:
Stephen Zunes, University of San Francisco, USA
Kurt Schock, Rutgers University, USA
Matteo Fumagalli, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary
BRIEF COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course is designed to provide an in-depth and multi-disciplinary perspective on civilian-based movements and
campaigns that defend and obtain basic rights and justice around the world - from Egypt to Burma, from Zimbabwe
to West Papua. The course will examine such questions as: What is civil resistance? What determines the success or
failure of a civil resistance movement? How can educators, scholars and professionals better understand and analyze
what elements are at work when civilians use nonviolent tactics? How and when should external agents –
governments, non-state actors – act or not act when civil resistance is gaining momentum? How can the dynamics
and history of civil resistance better inform the understanding of political contention, negotiations, transitions, and
violent and nonviolent conflicts?
Historically, political change in countries that curtail freedom and ignore international human rights norms has been
difficult to achieve. Violent revolution or the use of armed force by external actors is typically seen as the necessary
means of overcoming oppression. Yet civil resistance, relying on a variety of methods of nonviolent action, has
been used for this purpose for well over a century in different parts of the world, by different peoples and societies,
in different cultures and political systems, and with impressive results as well as some apparent failures.
This phenomenon has only recently started gaining greater recognition as a potentially formidable strategic force by
policy makers, political observers and scholars. Often this recognition has been spurred by the spectacle of
dictatorships and undemocratic rulers succumbing, not to armed insurrections, but to the coercive nonviolent
pressure of mass civic movements, as in countries such as the Philippines, Chile, Poland, South Africa, Serbia,
Ukraine or Egypt. The sweeping political ferment taking place in North Africa and the Middle East since the end of
2010 provides new, dramatic evidence of how civil resistance can drive political change. Furthermore, countries that
experience bottom-up, civilian-based resistance are known to have a better track record of successful democratic
transitions than the states that initiated their systemic transformation after a protracted civil war, or due to top-down,
elite-to-elite negotiations or external military interventions.
Central European University's summer school (CEU SUN), established in 1996, is a program in English for graduate students, junior or post-doctoral
researchers, teachers and professionals. It offers high-level, research-oriented, interdisciplinary academic courses as well as workshops on policy issues for
professional development, taught by internationally renowned scholars and policy experts (including CEU faculty). Application from all over the world is
encouraged. Financial aid is available.
Application deadline: February 15, 2012
Online application: https://apply.embark.com/NonDegree/CEU/
For further academic information on the course and on eligibility criteria and funding options
please visit the web site at http://www.summer.ceu.hu/power-2012
Non-discrimination policy statement
Central European University does not discriminate on the basis of – including, but not limited to – race, color, national and ethnic origin, religion, gender or
sexual orientation in administering its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school-administered
programs.
CEU Summer University
P.O. Box: Budapest 5, P.f.: 1082, H-1245
(36 1) 327 3811, Fax: (36-1) 327-3124
E-mail: summeru@ceu.hu
Skype: ceu-sun