Getting Gene Sharp Wrong
The legendary nonviolence theorist Gene Sharp wasn’t just a lonely scholar studying how political change happens. He was a Cold War defense intellectual whose ideas left a profound imprint on the way America wields power in the world.
Gene Sharp was a political scientist, a theorist on nonviolence, and the founder of the Albert Einstein Institution. Photo via The Right Livelihood Foundation
In an article at Waging Nonviolence, George Lakey, friend and mentee of the late founding theorist of nonviolent action Gene Sharp, took issue with my article “Change Agent: Gene Sharp’s Neoliberal Nonviolence,” and my follow up interview in Jacobin.
In “Change Agent,” I show that Sharp had lifelong connections to the US defense establishment, associations with US regime change operations, and neoliberal politics that shaped his revolutionary theory. Lakey says I miss Sharp “by a mile” and suggests my conclusions are based merely on a “guess.”
Lakey asserts I am wrong, but he mischaracterizes my arguments, ignores the bulk of my evidence, and does not offer any new facts that successfully challenge my analysis. Let’s review.
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