Stellan Vinthagen

Stellan Vinthagen is associate professor of sociology and a scholar-activist, affiliated with the Departmentof Social and Behavioural Studies, University West, and School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg. He is a Council Member of War Resisters International, academic advisor to the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), and co-founder of the Resistance Studies Network (www.resistancestudies.org). His research is focused on resistance, power, social movements, nonviolent action, conflict transformation and social change. He has since 1980 been an educator, organizer and activist in several countries, and has participated in more than 30 nonviolent civil disobedience actions, for which he has served in total more than one year in prison.

People power and the new global ferment

People power does not lend itself to the geo-strategic interests of empires or warlords, since it is based on collective action and civic unity, as well as the refusal to comply with existing power-holders. Any movement that opts for civil resistance has to encompass and attempt to represent diver

By Stellan Vinthagen

/ 15 Nov 2010