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Change Agent: Gene Sharp's Neoliberal Nonviolence (Part Two)
Smith, Marcie
http://nonsite.org/change-agent-gene-sharps-neoliberal-nonviolence-part-two/Date Written: 2019-12-29 Publisher: Nonsite Year Published: 2019 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX25366 Gene Sharp (1928-2018), famed theorist of nonviolent action, is known as a "nonviolent warrior" whose ideas have buttressed "nonviolent revolutions" around the world. As The Atlantic put it: "Besides Gandhi, no one in the last century has more systematically laid out the theory of nonviolent power than Sharp." Abstract: - Excerpt: Sharp was no peacenik wilderness-wandering prophet, but one of the most important U.S. defense intellectuals of the latter twentieth century, who furthermore possessed surprisingly neoliberal politics. Sharp developed his core theories about nonviolent action between the 1960s and 1980s, with Department of Defense funding, at the elite Cold War institute, the Center for International Affairs at Harvard. "the CIA at Harvard," as it was cheekily termed, was co-directed by Henry Kissinger and future CIA chief Robert Bowie. The U.S. defense establishment was interested in the weaponization of protest tactics as part of asymmetrical Cold War counterinsurgency strategy. Sharp was based out of this "academic home" for thirty years, and collaborated closely with Nobel prize-winning game theorist, and progenitor of the "madman theory of international affairs," Thomas Schelling. Subject Headings |