We are thrilled to celebrate the fact that the Global Nonviolent Action Database, housed here in the Peace and Conflict Studies Program at Swarthmore College, reached 1,000 cases this summer!

Even more, we can announce that PEAC 071B. Research Seminar: Strategy and Nonviolent Struggle (Cross-listed as SOAN 071B) will be offered during the Spring Semester 2015.

Professor Smithey will be instructing the course, and Professor Lakey will return in a supporting role during the beginning of the semester.  (Professor Smithey’s course, Gun Violence Prevention, will unfortunately not be offered in the spring).

This one-credit research seminar involves working and updating the Global Nonviolent Action Database which can be accessed by activists and scholars worldwide at http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu. The database was built at Swarthmore College and includes cases of “people power” drawn from dozens of countries. The database contains crucial information on campaigns for human rights, democracy, environmental sustainability, economic justice, national/ethnic identity, and peace.

Students will be expected to research a series of cases and write them up in two ways: within a template of fields (the database proper) and also as a 2-3 page narrative that describes the unfolding struggle.  In addition to research/writing methods, students will also draw on theories in the field.  Strategic implications for today will be drawn from theory and from what the group learns from the documented cases of wins and losses experienced by people’s struggles.

This writing (W) course has a limited enrollment of 12 students.

You can learn more by visiting a collection of posts about the database in the Peace and Conflict Studies blog.

In this video, Professor Lakey introduced the launch of the database in 2011.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRfjprMiySI