Street Rebellion: Resistance Beyond Violence and Nonviolence

In a style that bridges the divide between academia and activism, Street Rebellion develops a broader and more accurate understanding of how people struggle for liberation.

Discussing violence and nonviolence as a binary--as distinct, mutually exclusive concepts--does not help us understand what is really going on when people riot. We are living in a time of uprisings. Across the world and all around us, movements are taking to the streets and challenging established power. These uprisings routinely involve moments of physical confrontation--burning vehicles and barricades, vandalism, projectiles thrown at police, and scuffles between protestors and authorities. Yet the Left has struggled to incorporate rioting into theories of change, remaining stuck in the recurring debates about violence and nonviolence. Civil resistance studies have popularized the term "strategic nonviolence," spreading the notion that nonviolence is counter-productive.

Street Rebellion argues that strategic nonviolence theory and research are misguided. Using data on protests from around the world and in-depth interviews with rioters, Benjamin S. Case pushes beyond the binary of violence and nonviolence, advancing the conversation and bringing new clarity to the study of resistance. Street Rebellion will be of equal use in the classroom and on the streets.