Canvasopedia contains the information divided into four main areas:
1) Sources of Power
2) Pillars of Support
3) Methods of Non-Violent Action
4) Non-violent Action Dictionary
1) SOURCES OF POWER
http://www.canvasopedia.org/content/...ia/sources.htm
Power in the Society, models and sources of power
To conduct the nonviolent struggle, we must understand the nature of political power, because the objective of any struggle is either to achieve the political power, or to deny it to somebody else.
You cannot change the society, without having the political powers to pursue the reforms. It is not the fighting for ideals, but fighting for political power to make that ideals true.
There are two models in explaining the political power.
Monolithic Model
Monolithic system (drawing) is the system dictatorships want you the understand. Solid and unmovable as the rocky mountain. Power is fixed, nothing can change, except the people on the top. Whoever is on the top, controls the power on the society. You can change the guy on the top, which is called the revolution. But model stays the same - One who is sitting on the top of the mountain, controls the power in the society.
You can attack the rock with your actions or the campaigns, breaking the small pieces away. But the mountain of power is still there.
You can have the achievements in the society, if you have good guy on the top.. says the regime!
There is only one problem with this model. IT IS NOT TRUE! Power is not functioning this way, no matters how many times your dictator told you that it functions this way, reality learns you something else.
Pluralistic model
However monolithic or fixed it may see, through previous model, the nature of power is completely different. Power is changing very swiftly in the society; it is fragile, and dispersed.
Although society. It is everywhere, where the people are, because the power in the society is coming from the people.
And those people, the small, individual sources of political power can change their minds. The ruler only has the power that people provide them. God is not giving political power, people are providing it. That power can be given to the ruler willingly, like in democratic societies, or they can be coerced to give it, against their own will, or they can just be apathetic, and give that power because they don't care, they don't think that their vote can make the change. And that is why nonviolent campaigns are so important / to make people aware that their vote and personal action CAN make the change.
According to this model, the power is located throughout society.
There are six sources of Power in the society:
1. Authority (or legitimacy) of the ruler, defined as the position to give orders , combined with the obligation of the people to obey to those orders.
2. Human resources , the persons and groups that obey, cooperate with, or assist the rulers; commonly seen as the people in the pyramid of authority (including different institutions) who co-operate with the ruler voluntarily or under pressure, transferring his authority to the masses .
3. Skills and knowledge of those who cooperate with ruler, needed by the regime and supplied by the cooperating persons and groups;
4. Material resources - control of or access to property, natural resources, financial resources, the economic system, and means of communication and transportation;
The ruler's power lies in the fact of how much of material resources are under ruler's control.. For example, how many people who are disobedient and willing to act against the ruler are materially dependent, and controlled by regime.
5. Intangible factor , psychological and ideological factors which may induce people to obey and assist the rulers; Those factors usually owe their existence to tradition and custom, such as the tradition of obeying people in uniforms, representatives of the church, gerontocratic (listening to the elders in the society) phenomena etc.
6. Sanctions - punishments, threatened or applied, to ensure the submission and cooperation that are needed for the regime to carry out its policies and to exist.
Fear of sanctions is the model of applying this source of power in individual societies. Examples of this last source are even the possibility of being fired for disobedience, arrested, or physically abused, not the sanctions itself.
Power can shift from one group to another
All sources of power are dependant on people. Although the ruler would like to be seen as "God-given" the sources of power listed above depend on the will of the people to obey.
Repressive mechanisms such as sanctions (being fired, arrested, trailed, and brutalized) are completely dependent on those who carry them out (judges, police, bureaucrats, etc.) and the regime has taken care of this so that the apparatus listens to their orders without question. However strong the regime actually is or just acts to be, one shouldn't forget that there is no power without the obedience of the people.
Key to shift the power from one social group (regime) to another (opposition) is to apply mechanisms of Conversion, Accommodation and Coercion, in order to get support from the individual people (or groups) inside social institutions, or make them withdraw their support from your opponent.
Understand the pillars of support