Wasp: Paper-War as a Tactic of Civil Resistance

Eric Russell’s science fiction novel, Wasp, is brilliant. It was published in 1957 and weaves civil resistance theory with creative tactics that remain fully relevant half-a-century later. What I want to do here is share some excerpts that describe a very neat civil resistance tactic. Please see my previous post for the context of the story along with the novel’s compelling theory on civil resistance.

One of the tactics that our protagonist James Mowry employs is paper-based. He writes hundreds of letters to Sirian Empire officials threatening more resistance if they continue fighting the war against Earth. This gives the semblance that the fictitious resistance group, Dirac Angestun Gesept, is far more than a one-person show.

In the early evening, he mailed more than two hundred letters to newspaper editors, radio announcers, military leaders, senior civil servants, police chiefs, prominent politicians and key members of the government.

When one is fighting a paper-war, Mowry thought, one uses paper-war tactics that in the long run can be just as lethal as high explosive. And the tactics are not limited in scope by use of one material. Paper can convey a private warning, a public threat, leaflets dropped by the thousands from the rooftops, cards left of seats or slipped into pockets and purses.

For his next paper-based tactic, Mowry choice to mail dozens of small but heavy parcels.

Each held an airtight can containing a cheap clock and a piece of paper, nothing else. The clock emitted a sinister tick—just loud enough to be heard if a suspicious-minded person listened closely.

Paper threats, that was all—but they were effective enough to eat still further into the enemy’s war effort. They’d alarm the recipients and give their forces something more to worry about. Doubtless the military would provide a personal bodyguard for every big wheel on Jaimec; that alone could pin down a regiment.

Mail would be examined, and all suspicious parcels would be taken apart in a blast-proof room. There’d be a city-wide-search with radiation detectors for the component parts of a fission bomb. Civil defense would be alerted in readiness to cope with a mammoth explosion that might or might not take place. Anyone on the streets who walked with a secretive air and wore a slightly mad expression would be arrested and hauled in for questioning.

After disrupting every-day processes for several weeks, the Sirian regime was in a state of panic deploying several thousand additional plain-clothed police officers, carrying out hundreds of random checks a day, erecting hundreds of road blocks, etc; in effect mobilizing considerable resources and time in reaction to major disruption caused by just one person. Could one man pin down an entire army this way?

Mowry wondered […] how many precious man-hours had his presence cost the foe? Thousands, tens of thousands, millions? To what forms of war service would those man-hours have been devoted to if James Mowry had not compelled the enemy to waste them in other directions? Ah, in the answer to that hypothetical question lay the true measure of a wasp’s efficiency.

Another tactic (not included in the story) is to write messages on paper money, as recently happened in Iran.

Patrick Philippe Meier

FSI09: Role of Diplomats & Diasporas in Civil Resistance

The tenth presentation at the Fletcher Summer Institute (FSI) for the Advanced Study of Nonviolent Conflict focused on how diplomats can assist democratic movements and what role the diaspora plays in the democracy movement.

The Diplomats Handbook is designed to give diplomats options regarding what they can do vis-a-vis diplomatic intervention. The golden rules for diplomats include listening, respecting, understanding and sharing. Guidelines are provided on how to demarche governments (like Iran’s currently) and how to inform the media (like in Burma); providing a space for meeting; attending rallies (like Ukraine) to act as a witness; ultimately to protect (like Italian embassy in Tehran).

The diaspora plays 4 important roles in the democratic process:

1. Act as the voice of conscience to the world.
2. Lobby diplomats for internationa support and cooperation.
3. Mobilize activists for grassrooots involvement both inside and outside the country.
4. Provide psychological and financial support to the movement.

In building a partnership with the international community, diasporas call for the:

1. Protecting human rights.
2. Spreading democracy.
3. Building of civil society.

Actions are also needed from foreign diplomats. These include:

1. Promoting the cause within one’s own government.
2. Sending a unifying message regarding human rights and democracy.
3. Exert pressure against human rights violations.
4. Engage democratic groups.
5. Support grassroots independent organizations.

One participant noted that the diaspora can also play a negative role by acting as spoilers in a particular process. Cuba doesn’t really qualify but I’m struck at how different the perspectives of Cubans in Miami are from those of Cubans on the island. Once the Castros are gone, how will the relationship between the diaspora and Cubans on the island be managed?

In the case of Vietnam, the nonviolent opposition groups in the diaspora make a point to go back to Vietnam on a regular place to work side by side with counterparts in country.

Another conversation that ensued was on the role of the US State Department, and specifically how nonviolent movements can manage that relationship. In one case, a participant mentioned that the State Department has been one of the most frustrating impediments. Another participant volunteered guidance: with the State Department, you need to apply a lot of pressure and make friends with the right people in State.

One final observation emphasized the need for the diaspora to be the voice of conscience both outside the country and also within the country.

Patrick Philippe Meier

FSI09: Rechanneling Militancy in Nonviolent Struggle

The ninth presentation at the Fletcher Summer Institute (FSI) for the Advanced Study of Nonviolent Conflict focused on the issue of terrorism. In particular, the talk discussed how terrorism works and why it fails. Is terrorism an effective means at achieving a stated objective?

Terrorism is almost entirely psychological; it is about changing people’s minds and perception. So terrorism always requires an audience.

How terrorism works

• “Propaganda of the Deed” – directed at supporters and potential supporters; action speak louder than words; this is the moment, join the revolution.
• “Provoking repression” – directed at governments, people will turn on their governments when the latter over-react.
• “Asset to liability shift” – directed at populations and governments; increase the perceived “price” (in financial but also political terms) of a policy.

There are two examples of terrorism being successful particularly because the conditions were “right” so to speak. The first is the anti-colonial movement in Algeria. The second is the creation of Israel, i.e., the terrorist activities against the British.

Why terrorism fails

• People are more resilient than terrorist assume. The longer a terrorism campaign goes on, the more people get used to it and become more resilient.
• People rarely blame the government. People do not turn on the government for not preventing the terrorism.
• All governments are not paper tigers. Government do not step down and readily give in to terrorist demands. Governments are not easily dislodged as terrorists sometimes assume.

Terrorists often face dilemmas, they can:

• Carry on but risk losing momentum, such as ETA.
• Escalate and risk turning the people against them, such as Al Qaeda in Iraq.

While this was an interesting presentation, I was hoping to learn more about concrete tactics/actions nonviolent movements can use to dissuade potential new recruits from joining terrorist groups. In any case, here are good reads I recommend on this general topic:

• “Terrorism: Theirs and Ours,” Ahmad, Eqbal and David Barsamian, in Howard and Sawyer, Terrorism and Counterterrorism, Ch. 1.
• “The Logic of Terrorism: Terrorist Behavior as a Product of Strategic Choice,” by Crenshaw, Martha,  in Howard & Sawyer, Terrorism and Counterterrorism, Ch. 2.
• The Demon Lover: The Roots of Terrorism, by Robin Morgan
• Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, by Mark Juegensmeyer

Patrick Philippe Meier

FSI09: Backfire, Legitimacy & Dividing Loyalties in Civil Resistance

The eight presentation at the Fletcher Summer Institute (FSI) for the Advanced Study of Nonviolent Conflict focused on the issue of security forces. One of the guiding questions for this presentation was: In what circumstances can nonviolent movements reduce the legitimacy of security forces in the eyes of the population?

Giving water and food to security forces is a tactic that often works to at least lower tensions and aggression. But one must be very careful about the assumptions made with regards to how security forces might react to various tactics.

Getting repeatedly arrested may provide some advantages, as was noted by colleagues in the Otpor movement. They would start getting know the police officers and wardens, and the building this interpersonal relationships that proved important as the resistance scaled up.

Backfire occurs when an attack creates more support for or attention to what/who is attacked. Any injustice or norm violation can backfire on the perpetrator. This concept relates to Gene Sharp’s “political jiu-jitsu“:

Political jiu-jitsu is one of the special processes by which nonviolent action deals with violent repression. By combining nonviolent discipline with solidarity and persistence in struggle, the nonviolent actionists cause the violence of the opponent’s repression to be exposed in the worst possible light. This, in turn, may lead to shifts in opinion and then to shifts in power relationships favorable to the nonviolent group. These shifts result from withdrawal of support for the opponent and the grant of support to the nonviolent actionists.

What are the real preferences of the security forces? These will never be monolithic and fully in line with the regime, i.e., preferences will be differential.  What are the risks in expressing those preferences if you’re part of the security? Security forces don’t always obey:

• Philippines, 1986
• Serbia, 2000
• Ukraine, 2004

When and how do security forces choose to disobey? Developing relationships (usually covert) with leadership and officers was a tactic used in Serbia. In Egypt, activists told police they understood that they had orders to follow and simply asked that they simply not hit them as hard. Developing relationships with ordinary soldiers/police during action is an area that requires further exploration.

Dividing the oppressor is another tactic. So is campaigning for the end of conscription. In apartheid South Africa, the South Africa Defense Force (SADF) was the last line in the defense of apartheid and the 1983 End the Conscription Campaign (ECC) struck at the heart of this powerful force.

“Conscripts were not our enemy… we should serve their interests, ‘pull’ them away from the SADF rather than antagonize or ‘push’ them.”

The ECC also used branding, logos, posters, T-shirts, music concerts, kite flying, etc. But was the ECC successful? There were no high-level defections and the campaign was banned in 1988. However, it continued in different form and the number of conscripts who refused to serve. They were being flown to fight in Angola and were increasingly resistant to do so.

One participant noted that the gulf between members of a nonviolent movement and security officers are often culture, linguistic, etc. The case of Tibet is an example. When there are similarities, emphasizing those is an appropriate tactic. But when there are only differences, can accentuating those differences help the nonviolent movement?

Patrick Philippe Meier

FSI09: Building a Movement for Civil Resistance

The sixth presentation at the Fletcher Summer Institute (FSI) for the Advanced Study of Nonviolent Conflict focused on the organizational side of civil resistance by drawing on the United Democratic Front’s (UDF) experience in apartheid South Africa.

What is needed for a successful movement?

• A vision
• A trigger
• Leadership
• An organizational base
• A strategy
• Broad unity with a range of allies

I found the trigger factor quite interesting. In the case of the ANC, the positive trigger was the end of the Cold War. Triggers provide windows of opportunity for action. Another example is Milosevic’s decision to call for early elections, which presented Otpor with a window of opportunity. So triggers can be both external and internal.

Elements of the South Africa movement:

• Multi-level and decentralized organizational structure
• Leadership was replaceable
• ‘Branding’ and public presence (e.g., posters)
• Mobilization and spreading of tactics
• Local flexibility and creativity
• National strategy and direction

Organizing outside existing structures is a key feature of the resistance movements that took place in South Africa and Serbia.

One participant noted the parallels often referred to between South Africa and Israel/Palestine. Earlier in the day one presenter argued that if one million unarmed Palestinians got together to march towards Jerusalem, it would be impossible to stop them. Another participant countered and noted the 600+ check-points in the West Bank.

The “final word” by someone else in the room: “You obviously have not seen the power of one million people marching.”

Patrick Philippe Meier

FSI09: Lessons from Serbia’s Civil Resistance

The fifth presentation at the Fletcher Summer Institute (FSI) for the Advanced Study of Nonviolent Conflict addressed the lessons learned by the Otpor student movement in Serbia. This presentation addressed the strategies and tactics that can lead to successful civil resistance.

Unity, Planning and Nonviolent Discipline are three main principles key to nonviolent struggle. These principles have obvious parallels with military principles. Nonviolent discipline is especially critical.

You can have 100,000 people demonstrating nonviolently in the streets but as soon as one person picks up a stone and throws it at the police, this is what the media will focus on and gives the regime the “excuse” to crack down. One participant noted that in their country, the regime sends criminals to pick fights and turn nonviolent protests violent. In this case, one tactic that could help mitigate this issue is to have women be on the front lines because police is less likely to use force against them.

Here are the 10 lessons learned from Otpor’s resistance in Serbia:

1. Taking an offensive approach. The moment you start responding to what the regime does, you are losing your momentum. Keep moving, always, just like sharks.
2. Understanding the concept “power in numbers”. Draw on the multi-level marketing model: “Act, Recruit and Train.”
3. Developing an Effective Communication Strategy. There are typically 4 crucial target audiences: Members and supporters; Wider audience; Potential allies within oppositional parties and NGOs; and International community.
4. Creating a Perception of  a Successful Movement. Pick the battles you can win; know when and where to declare victories.
5. Investing in Skills and Knowledge of Activists. This is always appreciated by your members and helps foster group cohesion.
6. Cultivating External Support. Solicit external support early but be deliberate as to whether you make that support public or not.
7. Inducing Security Force Defections. Security forces are a key pillar of support to the regime. Most are not interested in acting with violence; they have families they need to feed. Those who take pleasure in torture have wives or girlfriends, find out where the latter shop, put pictures of their husbands with the question: “Why is X torturing our sons?” If you have the person’s phone number, add that to the poster and add “To find out, call X at #”.
8. Resisting Oppression. Decentralize leadership and engage in extensive training to prepare activists to avoid surprises and overcome effects of fear. Share motivating messages (e.g., to the police).
9. Using Elections as a Trigger. These create an atmosphere of “social referendum” while creating a wide coalition among political parties and broader consensus with civil society.
10. Enabling Peaceful Transition of Power. Key state stakeholders need to be rapidly restored after “nonviolent revolution” to demonstrate democratic dividends right away.

I’ve found the past two days of conversations at FSI 2009 thought-provoking. There are many parallels between civil resistance tactics/strategies and the study of complexity science and complex systems.

One of the key challenges of nonviolent action is to scale the number of participants in the movement. Numbers matter. So how does one influence micro-motives so that they lead to macro-behavior—or emergent behavior. One way to influence micro-level motives in complex social systems is to create incentive mechanisms.

How does one communicate and synchronize these incentives? Enter the importance of communication technology.

Patrick Philippe Meier

FSI09: Strategic Planning & Tactical Choices in Civil Resistance

This was my favorite presentation yet at the Fletcher Summer Institute (FSI) for the Advanced Study of Nonviolent Conflict 2009. However, WordPress totally wiped my post half-way through the talk when I tried to save the draft. Grrr. Lesson learned, draft blog posts in a text editor first.

Hardy Merriman’s excellent presentation drew from Gene Sharp’s 198 nonviolent tactics, which he classified into three categories: Protest and Persuasion (shift perception); Noncooperation (shift behavior, particularly effective when scaled); and Nonviolent intervention (shift status quo). Tactics can be classified in other ways as well. For example, they can be categorized into intended outcomes; or into concentration and dispersion tactics.

Planning and strategizing is imperative. Many movements fail because they were poorly planned and/or sequenced. In addition, brave actions that get media attention but result in the activist’s arrest are not advised. Tactical innovation is critical such as alternative leadership. This means adapting and keeping the asymmetric advantage.

An interesting conversation ensued regarding the process of defining strategy, operations and tactics in a nonviolent movement.  Unlike the hierarchical, top-down process in the military, resistance movements need to front load the conversation on strategy, to set up a planning committee and de-federalize the decision-making process vis-a-vis operations and tactics. Indeed, these decisions need to be made locally to tap into local knowledge and know-how.

How does one evaluate civil resistance movements? Assess whether tactics advance operational goals and whether the latter converge towards the established strategy. The best case scenario is to devise a series of tactics that don’t appear to be coherent by the adversary but ultimately come together to accomplish the movement’s operational goals and strategy.

The use of technology was also addressed. How does new technology help a civil resistance movement? Does it make tactical decisions easier or more difficult? One participant noted that sometimes one cannot not use these technologies, particularly in countries where physical assembly is illegal.

Another participant cautioned that tactical autonomy is potentially restricted with instant communication between activists engaged in street action and those coordinating the action. He noted a case he was involved in several years ago when he and colleagues took over a police station and secured the police radio equipment. Police officers in the streets who tried to radio for instructions were unable to and were not sure what to do.

One participant also mentioned that activists can use government surveillance to their advantage by spreading misinformation.

The topic of young people came up as well in the context of technology. Young people are often more tech savvy than adults and also early adapters of technology. One participant thus opined that the side with the young people is likely to win over the side without young people.

Another participant referred to the popular book “The Starfish and the Spider” to contrast the organizational structure of repressive regimes versus resistance movements. I’ve got some good notes on this book, so do email me if you’d like a copy of my notes. I’m glad that this book came up as it delves into one of my other passions, the study of complexity science and complex systems.

Patrick Philippe Meier

FSI09: Geopolitical Constraints vs Opportunities in Civil Resistance

This is the second presentation at the Fletcher Summer Institute (FSI) for the Advanced Study of Nonviolent Conflict 2009. The presentation focuses on “The Geopolitical Constraints and Opportunities for Civil Resistance.” Note that you can also follow #FSI09 on Twitter.

The thesis of this talk is that changes in geopolitical forces accelerate the frequency of nonviolent conflict. (My question is whether this claim is even falsifiable?).

The use of nonviolent strategies is ascendant and nonviolent movements are influenced by geopolitical forces. Geopolitics describes international politics in geographic terms, i.e., “the term has applied primarily to the impact of geography on politics.”

The weakened role of the state in international politics may in part explain the rise of civil resistance. (Note that I disagree with the argument that states are less significant actors). Fundamental trends in communication technologies and the global media may also explain this rise. In addition, the notion of “soft power” is in line with the strategies and tactics employed in resistance movements.

Perhaps the most compelling argument for me vis-a-vis the rise of nonviolent resistance is the promotion of democracy via global institutions and norms; the focus on democratic peace theory and civil society networks. That said, I’m still not sure how drawing on geopolitics as a framework to situate and explain civil resistance adds to our understanding of nonviolent conflict.

Moreover, as one participant noted, shouldn’t we frame the question as follows: how do social movements influence geopolitics, rather than vice versa?

In any case, I’m glad to note that much of the conversation generated by the presentation focused on the impact of communication technology on geopolitics while keeping a healthy dose of skepticism. One participant made a comment that I make all the time; namely that networks of activists are more likely to learn and adapt to changes in technology than centralized, hierarchical regimes are.

Somewhat surprisingly, the concept of the dictator’s dilemma was overlooked.

The dictator’s dilemma suggests that globalization has produced a lucrative global information economy that repressive regimes are interested in exploiting. However, as they gear the domestic economy to take advantage of the information economy, they give up some control on how technology is used within their borders.

One final note, I think there is an evolutionary dynamic at play, just like there is with warfare. We describe Al Qaeda’s approach as fourth generation warfare, i.e., decentralized tactics, since this give the group an asymmetric advantage over a more centrlaized military power such as the US.

In other words, Al Qaeda’s approach make logical sense. In this same way, perhaps more movements recognize that nonviolent civil resistance is indeed a Force More Powerful.

Patrick Philippe Meier

FIS09: Introduction to Civil Resistance

My notes on the opening presentation at the Fletcher Summer Institute (FSI) for the Advanced Study of Nonviolent Conflict 2009. You can also follow #FSI09 on Twitter.

Using the term “nonviolence” is often unhelpful and counterproductive. The term denotes an ethical stance that opens up all kinds of philosophical debates. Instead of using this adjective, we should use the verb “civil resistance” which denotes the use of highly disruptive actions by the many against the few.

Some quotes

“Power concedes nothing and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to, and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them,  and these will continue until they are resisted.” – Frederick Douglass

“Any people anywhere, being inclined and having hte power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better.” – Abrahm Lincon

Leo Tolstoy predicted that “public opinion” would change the “whole structure of life” making violence “superfluous”.

“England can hold India only by consent. We can’t rule it by the sword.” – Sir Charles Innes

“The sudden dramatic breakdown of power that ushers in  revolutions reveals in a flash how civil obedience-to laws, to rulers, to institutions – is but the outward manifestation of support and consent.” – Hannah Arendt

Gandhi was not shy about using direct analogies to violent conflict, he referred to “nonviolent weapons” such as active interference, protests and resignations. Gene Sharp added the following categories: Protest/Persuasion; Noncooperation; Intervention.

Depriving the oppressor of consent reduces his legitimacy. The refusal to cooperate increases the costs of holding control. The legitimacy of the system drops while costs of maintaining the status quo increases, which prompts enforcers of the system to doubt its endurance (and possibly switch sides).

Nonviolent force was a key factor in 50 of the 67 political transitions between 1970-2005. However, there have been failures in nonviolent action, the most spectacular of which was Tienanmen. Nonviolent action often fails when it has not been planned.

Emergent properties of civil resistance

The following are key emergent properties that each activist should understand and practice.

• Consent
  • Confers legitimacy
  • Recasts the idea of power
  • Creates space to resist.

• Reason
  • Respect the citizen’s mind
  • Stimulates creative thinking
  • Persuasion, not coercion
  • Signals honestly, credibility
  • Instills “reason to believe”.

• Self-Rule
  • Swaraj (ruling yourself)
  • “Constructive work”
  • Self-organization
  • Planning
  • Nonviolent discipline.

• Representation
  • Acertaining and presenting people’s grievances
  • Listening, delegating and inviting participation
  • Humility, not hierarchy
  • Solidarity of all, not heroism of the few.

• Resilience
  • Tactical mobilization, strategic sustainability
  • Momentum-driving action
  • Existential stakes: identifying with the cause
  • Certitude of faith in eventual success.

• Force
  • Strategic/tactical skills
  • Target foe’s capacities
  • Disperse initiative
  • Divide loyalty structure

• Transformation
  • No monolithic enemies
  • From destruction to debate
  • Justice only by rule of law
  • Everyone as stakeholder
  • Ends reflected in means

There are still those who argue for political violence. These arguments boil down to two points:

• Necessary as a means to an end. “Oppression cannot be demolished except in a hail of bullets.” Bin Laden

• Virtuous, as redemption or apotheosis. “Death is truth.” Bin Laden

Proponents of violence always have to find ways to justify death. But death is simply not popular. Nevertheless, there is a market for terror. However, a new study of 323 violent and nonviolent campaigns, 1900 to 2006: violence campaigns succeeded in 26% of cases; Nonviolent campaigns succeeded in 53% of cases.

Questions & Answers

One participant from a repressive country emphasized how important it is to make friends with the security forces, they are not the real enemy, they are simply following orders. If you prevent them from following orders, they get into trouble. So let them know you understand that and simply ask that they do not hit, push, beat as hard as they can. On the contrary, ask them to beat lightly and even pretend.

Nonviolent tactics are also being adopted by groups that do not seek to advance democratic principles and human rights. Does this pose a problem for the future of nonviolent action if repressive regimes begin using nonviolent tactics to repress? Not necessarily since a  repressive regime would not be able to scale these tactics. For these tactics to have impact, they must be viewed by the majority as legitimate and necessary.

In a case like Gaza, how does one increase the appeal of nonviolent action when everyone is armed? The mainstream media and citizen journalists can change the frame of the “logic” of violence. In my opinion, we need more gendered analysis of armed violence. Clearly, the concepts of masculinity and violence are closely tied. Perhaps nonviolence is perceived as more feminine? How do we change this?

A participant emphasized the need to equate civil resistance as guerrilla warfare without the violence. In other words, military discipline is integral to the success of nonviolent action.

One participant countered the argument that violence is attractive. People often turn to violence because they’ve witnessed violence, because they are driven by vengeance. However, fear also drives fear and paralysis. I would add a cost-benefit angle to this. Some groups in the Sudan have turned to organized violence because their options vis-a-vis other livelihoods have virtually vanished, in part because of the ecological crisis.

Patrick Philippe Meier

Peer Producing Human Rights

Molly Land at New York Law School has written an excellent paper on peer producing human rights, which will appear in the Alberta Law Review, 2009. This is one of the best pieces of research that I have come across on the topic. I highly recommend reading her article when published.

Molly considers Wikipedia, YouTube and Witness.org in her excellent research but somewhat surprisingly does not reference Ushahidi. I thus summarize her main points below and draw on the case study of Ushahidi—particularly Swift River—to compare and contrast her analysis with my own research and experience.

Introduction

Funding for human rights monitoring and advocacy is particularly limited, which is why “amateur involvement in human rights activities has the potential to have a significant impact on the field.” At the same time, Molly recognizes that peer producing human rights may “present as many problems as it solves.”

Human rights reporting is the most professionalized activity of human rights organizations. This professionalization exists “not because of an inherent desire to control the process, but rather as a practical response to the demands of reporting-namely, the need to ensure accuracy of the information contained in the report.” The question is whether peer-produced human rights reporting can achieve the same degree of accuracy without a comparable centralized hierarchy.

Accurate documentation of human rights abuses is very important for building up a reputation as a credible human rights organization. Accuracy is also important to counter challenges by repressive regimes that question the validity of certain human rights reports. Moreover, “inaccurate reporting risks injury not only to the organization’s credibility and influence but also to those whose behalf the organization advocates.”

Control vs Participation

A successful model for peer producing human rights monitoring would represent an important leap forward in the human rights community. Such a model would enable us to process a lot more information in a timelier manner and would also “increase the extent to which ordinary individuals connect to human rights issues, thus fostering the ability of the movement to mobilize broad constituencies and influence public opinion in support of human rights.”

Increased participation is often associated with an increased risk of inaccuracy. In fact, “even the perception of unreliability can be enough to provide [...] a basis for critiquing the information as invalid.” Clearly, ensuring the trustworthiness of information in any peer-reviewed project is a continuing challenge.

Wikipedia uses corrective editing as the primary mechanism to evaluate the accuracy of crowdsourced information. Molly argues that this may not work well in the human rights context because direct observation, interviews and interpretation are central to human rights research.

To this end, “if the researcher contributes this information to a collaboratively-edited report, other contributors will be unable to verify the statements because they do not have access to either the witness’s statement or the information that led the researcher to conclude it was reliable.” Even if they were able to verify statements, much of human rights reporting is interpretive, which means that even experienced human rights professionals disagree about interpretive conclusions.

Models for Peer Production

Molly presents three potential models to outline how human rights reporting and advocacy might be democratized. The first two models focus on secondary and primary information respectively, while the third proposes certification by local NGOs. Molly outlines the advantages and challenges that each model presents. Below is a summary with my critiques. I do not address the third model because as noted by Molly it is not entirely participatory.

Model 1. This approach would limit peer-production to collecting, synthesizing and verifying secondary information. Examples include “portals or spin-offs of existing portals, such as Wikipedia,” which could “allow participants to write about human rights issues but require them to rely only on sources that are verifiable [...].” Accuracy challenges could be handled in the same way that Wikipedia does; namely through a “combination of collaborative editing and policies; all versions of the page are saved and it is easy for editors who notice gaming or vandalism to revert to the earlier version.”

The two central limitations of this approach are that (1) the model would be limited to a subset of available information restricted to online or print media; and (2) even limiting the subset of information might be insufficient to ensure reliability. To this end, this model might be best used to complement, not substitute, existing fact-finding efforts.

Model 2. This approach would limit the peer-production of human rights report to those with first-hand knowledge. While Molly doesn’t reference Ushahidi in her research, she does mention the possibility of using a website that would allow witnesses to report human rights abuses that they saw or experienced. Molly argues that this first-hand information on human rights violations could be particularly useful for human rights organizations that seek to “augment their capacity to collect primary information.”

This model still presents accuracy problems, however. “There would be no way to verify the information contributed and it would be easy for individuals to manipulate the system.” I don’t agree. The statement: “there would be no way to verify the information” is an exaggeration. There multiple methods that could be employed to determine the probability that the contributed information is reliable, which is the motivation behind our Swift River project at Ushahidi, which seeks to use crowdsourcing to filter human rights information.

Since Swift River deserves an entire blog post to itself, I won’t describe the project. I’d just like to mention that the Ushahidi team just spent two days brainstorming creative ways that crowdsourced information could be verified. Stay tuned for more on Swift River.

We can still address Molly’s concerns without reference to Ushahidi’s Swift River.

Individuals who wanted to spread false allegations about a particular government or group, or to falsely refute such allegations, might make multiple entries (which would therefore corroborate each other) regarding a specific incident. Once picked up by other sources, such allegations ‘may take on a life of their own.’ NGOs using such information may feel compelled to verify this information, thus undermining some of the advantages that might otherwise be provided by peer production.

Unlike Molly, I don’t see the challenge of crowdsourced human rights data as first and foremost a problem of accuracy but rather volume. Accuracy, in many instances, is a function of how many data points exist in our dataset.

To be sure, more crowdsourced information can provide an ideal basis for triangulation and validation of peer produced human rights reporting-particularly if we embrace multimedia in addition to simply text. In addition, more information allows us to use probability analysis to determine the potential reliability of incoming reports. This would not undermine the advantages of peer-production.

Of course, this method also faces some challenges since the success of triangulating crowdsourced human rights reports is dependent on volume. I’m not suggesting this is a perfect fix, but I do argue that this method will become increasingly tenable since we are only going to see more user-generated content, not less. For more on crowdsourcing and data validation, please see my previous posts here.

Molly is concerned that a website allowing peer-production based on primary information may “become nothing more than an opinion site.” However, a crowdsourcing platform like Ushahidi is not an efficient platform for interactive opinion sharing. Witnesses simply report on events, when they took place and where. Unlike blogs, the platform does not provide a way for users to comment on individual reports.

Capacity Building

Molly does raise an excellent point vis-à-vis the second model, however. The challenges of accuracy and opinion competition might be resolved by “shifting the purpose for which the information is used from identifying violations to capacity building.” As we all know, “most policy makers and members of the political elite know the facts already; what they want to know is what they should do about them.”

To this end, “the purpose of reporting in the context of capacity building is not to establish what happened, but rather to collect information about particular problems and generate solutions. As a result, the information collected is more often in the form of opinion testimony from key informants rather than the kind of primary material that needs to be verified for accuracy.”

This means that the peer produced reporting does not “purport to represent a kind of verifiable ‘truth’ about the existence or non-existence of a particular set of facts,” so the issue of “accuracy is somewhat less acute.” Molly suggests that accuracy might be further improved by “requiring participants to register and identify themselves when they post information,” which would “help minimize the risk of manipulation of the system.” Moreover, this would allow participants to view each other’s contributions and enable a contributor to build a reputation for credible contributions.

However, Molly points out that these potential solutions don’t change the fact that only those with Internet access would be able to contribute human right reports, which could “introduce significant bias considering that most victims and eyewitnesses of human rights violations are members of vulnerable populations with limited, if any, such access.” I agree with this general observation, but I’m surprised that Molly doesn’t reference the use of mobile phones (and other mobile technologies) as a way to collect testimony from individuals without access to the Internet or in inaccessible areas.

Finally, Molly is concerned that Model 2 by itself “lacks the deep participation that can help mobilize ordinary individuals to become involved in human rights advocacy.” This is increasingly problematic since “traditional  ‘naming and shaming’ may, by itself, be increasingly less effective in its ability to achieve changes state conduct regarding human rights.” So Molly rightly encourages the human rights community to “investigate ways to mobilize the public to become involved in human rights advocacy.”

In my opinion, peer produced advocacy faces the same challenges as traditional human rights advocacy. It is therefore important that the human rights community adopt a more tactical approach to human rights monitoring. At Ushahidi, for example, we’re working to add a “subscribe-to-alerts” feature, which will allow anyone to receive SMS alerts for specific locations.

P2P Human Rights

The point is to improve the situational awareness of those who find themselves at risk so they can get out of harm’s way and not become another human rights statistic. For more on tactical human rights, please see my previous blog post.

Human rights organizations that are engaged in intervening to prevent human rights violations would also benefit from subscribing to Ushahidi. More importantly, the average person on the street would have the option of intervening as well. I, for one, am optimistic about the possibility of P2P human rights protection.

Patrick Philippe Meier