Direct action is strategic political activity in which users seek redress by targeting the peo- ple, institutions, and practices that they wish to change. In contrast, indirect political action uses intermediaries, such as elected representa- tives, to effect change. Direct action is not only an instrument to force others to change. Par- ticipants in direct action often see themselves as enacting the values that are important to them, such as fellowship and nonhierarchical relations. It is used by revolutionaries, religious groups, and many others. Groups on the left, right, and center of the political spectrum have used direct action. Direct action is most com- mon among groups that are prohibited from or have limited access to legal participation in institutionalized politics. These include, for example, prisoners, members of ethnic, sex- ual, and religious minorities, women in some places and times, and students and other young people. Examples of direct action include block- ades, encampments, occupations, vigils, and street theater, refusal to pay taxes or salute of- cials and royalty, and violence against people and property. Adistinguishing quality of direct action is that it is often reinvented rather than being routinized for long periods of time. It is distinct from retreatism and from immediate, unplanned actions such as spontaneous riots. Direct action can have immediate effects on power relations, force a rethinking of those relations, and symbolize and express newkinds of relationships. TYPES OF DIRECT ACTION One of the hallmarks of direct action is that it is often specic to a time, place, and prob- lem. While some forms of direct action are The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements, Edited by David A. Snow, Donatella della Porta, Bert Klandermans, and Doug McAdam. 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/9781405198431.wbespm431 modular, spreading from place to place and across different contexts and users, many forms of direct action are quickly defeated by oppo- nents. Activists engage inwhat McAdam(1983) calls tactical innovation, or efforts to develop new techniques that opponents cannot quickly counter. Yet direct action can be categorized in some general but overlapping categories, including occupations and blockades, sabotage and slow-downs, play and mockery, witnessing, and violence against people and material things. Occupations andblockades encompass the use of spaces for purposes other than for what they were intended in order to disrupt routine prac- tices and draw attention to their immorality. Examples include sailing into nuclear testing zones, sit-ins, human chains, marches, ash- mobs, parades, landoccupations, andattaching people to objects using locks and other tools. Sabotage and slow-downs include actions that make routine action more difcult by making it costly and time-consuming to continue in a routine manner. Tree spiking, changing images on advertisements such as billboards, pouring blood on draft card les, hacking or disrupt- ing computer systems, destroying or hobbling machinery, and working at a very slow pace are some important examples of sabotage and slow downs. Not all forms of direct action are confrontational or angry. Play and mockery are oftenlled with humor that canencourage par- ticipants andaudiences torethinkwhat kinds of social and political relations are possible, and give participants a feeling of power. Efgies, clowning, guerilla theater, street parties, and humor used in sight of targets are examples of this type of direct action. Witnessing is the sharing of ones moral convictions. While often associated with religious groups, espe- ciallyChristians, witnessingis the act of publicly identifying ones moral commitments, partic- ularly in the face of arrest or repression, as a means of convincing others of ones seriousness and intentions. Vigils, hunger strikes, refusal to 2 di rect acti on pay taxes, self-immolation, andaccepting arrest or beatings are examples of witnessing. Finally, violence against people and things can destroy what participants see as the causes or visible representations of the power relationships they wish to end. Violence can take the form of assassinations, bombings, kidnapping, arson, hijacking, torture, and prison breaks that are organized by individuals or by groups such as militias. IMPORTANT HISTORICAL SOURCES OF DIRECT ACTION Direct action is perhaps one of the oldest and most universal forms of political action. It is not specic toany formof government, appear- ing in totalitarian systems, liberal democracies, feudal systems, and nearly every other form of governance. One early example is described in Aristophanes play Lysistrata (c. 411 bce) in which Greek women, who were not by law Greek citizens and could not vote, withheld sex to force their husbands to end the Pelo- ponnesian War. Other early forms of direct action include medieval peasants refusal to plow elds or tender what they owed to their rulers unless their demands were met; soldiers in nearly every country and time period who collectively refuse to ght; and public mock- ery of ofcials. Some forms of direct action are modular, that is, they move from place to place and time period to time period. Other forms, such as the eighteenth- and nineteenth- century English tradition of rough music, or the practice of publicly humiliating community wrongdoers through boisterous, noisy, the- atrical processions using musical instruments, bones, efgies, and other props in front of the targets home or business, are shorter-lived. Although ubiquitous, direct action was not self-consciously theorized and codied as a form of political action until the late nine- teenth century. Labor activists and revolution- aries, especially anarchists in Western Europe, Russia, and the United States, called for the use of direct action rather than the ballot box to challenge the state. Anarchists rejected the moral legitimacy and utility of the state, and advocated the organization of individu- als into self-governing groups and federations. Important theorists of direct action include the Russian Peter Kropotkin (18421921), and the Americans Emma Goldman (18691940) and Voltairine De Cleyre (18661912). All three advocated that workers refuse to participate in exploitative labor. De Cleyre and Goldman called for strikes, for work slowdowns, and vio- lence against property, as well as advocating for an end to marriage, which they saw as a form of economic oppression. Another important source of direct action is religion. Many religious traditions have strict injunctions against certain forms of action and require others. These injunctions have served as the basis for resistance to politi- cal, social, and economic rules. In the West, Christian Anabaptist traditions have served as a basis for resistance to slavery and warfare; Hinduism, Catholicism, Islam, and Buddhism have also served as theological bases for direct action. Indian political leader Mohandas K. Gandhi (18691948) joined religious practices with anarchist calls for refusal to participate in unjust systems. His method, called Satya- graha, or the way of truth, greatly inu- enced other uses of direct action in the twen- tieth and twenty-rst centuries. Satyagraha was inspired by the writings of Leo Tolstoy (18281910) and John Ruskin (18191900) and by Gandhis Hindu religious beliefs. The core principle of Satyagraha was the appeal to the moral goodness of opponents, accept- ing the consequences including violence and incarceration of refusing to participate in unjust systems (Diwakar 1948). Users of Satya- graha were required to make sacrices, such as fasting, and to morally prepare themselves for disobeying unjust systems. Between 1904 and 1913, Gandhi worked for equal rights for Indians in South Africa. Thousands of people went to jail for refusing to pay an annual tax levied on former indentured servants, and for refusing to carry identication papers that the government required of Indians. He later used di rect acti on 3 this same method to help Indians in India to win freedom from British rule in 1947. Gandhis methods inspired religiously based peace and civil rights activists in the United States in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. Men who refused to ght during World War II were given conscientious objector status, and assigned to work camps. At the end of the war, some conscientious objectors helped to generate direct actions against the cold war weapons buildup occurring in Europe, the United States, and in the Soviet Union. These actions included peace marches, boats sailed into nuclear test zones, and refusal to partici- pate in civil defense drills. Civil rights activists in the United States, including the Reverend MartinLuther King Jr, Rosa Parks, James Bevel, Septima Clark, and Myles Horton, learned and taught about Satyagraha-based civil disobedi- ence techniques. These were used in a series of campaigns to end segregation in the South- ern United States between 1954 and 1965 that includedsit-ins, freedomrides, andmass arrest. Direct action took a more carnival-like and celebratory form when it was used by antiwar and counterculture activists. The French Situa- tionists International, inspired by Dadaismand surrealism were a major inuence on this kind of direct action. The Situationists advocated the overthrowof capitalismby undermining its key means of reproduction, including adver- tising. The Situationists and other anarchistic art community groups in the United States, such as the Diggers, the Yippies, and the San Francisco Mime Troupe, used carnivalesque forms of action, including distributing free food, putting on street theater, and mocking traditional culture through new styles of dress. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, violent direct action reemerged as the mass-based political movements of the previous decade dissolved. In the United States, Japan, Ger- many, Italy, and other countries, small, armed, underground clandestine groups such as the Weather Underground, the Republic of New Africa, and the Red Army Faction used rob- bery, kidnapping, and murder to try to start a revolution. In the southwestern United States and in Great Britain, monkey wrenching, or the destruction of machinery and other equip- ment, was used by ecological activists. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, antinu- clear activists followed their Christian faith to oppose the creation of nuclear weapons. Renowned campaigns targeted the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, and Pacic Gas and Electrics Dia- blo Canyon energy plant near San Luis Obispo, California. Here, a diverse group of activists used a wide range of tactics to block the con- struction of the plants, creating carnivals as well as experiments in direct democracy, to both pregure a better world and to persuade others toabandonnuclear technologies (Eptein 1991). Among the more important recent devel- opments are the combination of celebratory and confrontational action used across places and times in quasi-modular forms. Global jus- tice groups such as the Peoples Global Action, for example, use festivity as well as more seri- ous demonstrations to draw attention to their claims and to build solidarity among them- selves. WHY USE DIRECT ACTION? A major reason for the use of direct action is that groups believe that targets hold power illegitimately, so routine means of inuence, such as voting to inuence governments, will not address their grievances. Anarchists, for example, believe that states are illegitimate, and therefore use political tools outside the states control to achieve their goal of small-group, relatively autonomous governance. Similarly, groups use direct action to change the practices or existence of universities, police forces, reli- gious hierarchies, or prisons. They may view the existence of these institutions, not just their policies, as detrimental. Direct action is also used by groups who deem a problem in need of immediate remedy. Like a reghter who must destroy property in order to save a life, some activists see direct 4 di rect acti on action not as a choice, but a moral necessity to prevent greater and signicant harm from being done. AIDS activists have looked to this logic in passing out syringes to drug users to prevent disease transmission, and urban gardening activists have built gardens in roads while existing community gardens were being destroyed. In these cases, groups use direct action to prevent imminent harm. Yet, some groups, such as Operation Rescue, turned away from a commitment to nonvi- olence. Here, American antiabortion activists sought to prevent what they saw as imma- nent harm in blockading abortion clinics or shooting abortion providers (Lovell 2009). In 1991, Operation Rescue started the Summer of Mercy, a wave of direct actions to block access to an abortion clinic in Wichita, Kansas. They rejected Gandhis principles of nonvio- lence and, 18 years later, Dr George Tiller, a doctor who was the target of this direct action, was shot and killed by a man in contact with Operation Rescue. Some groups use direct action because the other political and cultural tools available to them, such as violence, petitioning, or voting, are themselves morally objectionable or are seen as futile. Direct action is, for many users, an expression of who they are and what kind of relationships they have with co-participants and targets and want to have with them in the future. Actions such as street parties, vigils, and humor are expressions of emotional, moral, and social ties as much as means to an end. Particularly in highly repressive systems where there are limited or no formal ways of affecting groups who are in power, challengers have little choice but to use direct action to acquire new benets. People who are imprisoned or enslaved, for example, may use work slow downs or strategic incompetence to force opponents to concede in some way. The less power groups have, the more likely they are to face serious repression for using subterfuge to gain power. Finally, direct action exemplies new ways of living. Playful actions, such as clowning and wearing costumes, dancing and playing music, for example, exemplify a celebratory and joy- ful life. Refusing to participate in an activity, such as conscription or degrading or danger- ous work and accepting the consequences can exemplify a moral commitment to living a just and humane life. In practice, many motivations are often blended together, and not all motivations are equally salient for all users of direct action. STUDYING DIRECT ACTION Direct action is studied using a variety of methods. There are many studies of individual groups and techniques, which are also widely available in electronic form on blogs and web sites. Systematic studies of direct action typ- ically use eld observation and interviews, surveys of actions, users, and consequences of actions, and historical comparisons. Evidence often comes from newspapers and other mass media, personal and organizational correspon- dence and records, images, police reports, and interviews. The goals of most research studies are to understand the meanings of direct action for participants and observers, to understand its effectiveness in changing relations of power among users and targets, to understand its moral and political sources, and to understand how repression shapes the development and effectiveness of direct action. Exemplary studies include Gamsons (1975) study of the relation- ship between tactics, organizational character, and outcomes. In a study of direct action in the United States between World War II and 1968, Tracy (1996) showed that users consid- ered direct action to be politically important not only because of its instrumental value, but because it revealed the power of users beliefs. Zwerman and Steinhoff (2005) studied armed underground, clandestine groups in the United States and Japan and showed that such groups were likely to develop at the end of cycles of mass-based protest and attendant increases in repression. Earl (2006) and McAdam (1983) also document the effects of repression. Shep- ard (2011) documents the origins and mean- ings of ludic, or playful direct action. di rect acti on 5 SEE ALSO: Everyday activism; Gandhi, Mahatma (18691948); King, Martin Luther, Jr (19281968); Nonviolence/nonviolent action; Religion and social movements; Tactical interac- tion and innovation; Tactics; Violence and social movements. REFERENCES ANDSUGGESTEDREADINGS Diwakar, R.R. (1948) Satyagraha: The Power of Truth. H. Regnery, Hinsdale, IL. Earl, J. (2006) Introduction: Repression and the social control of protest. Mobilization 11(2), 129143. Earl, J. (2011) Protest arrests and future protest par- ticipation: The 2004 Republican National Con- vention arrestees and the effects of repression. In: Sarat, A. (ed.), Special Issue Social Move- ments/Legal Possibilities Studies in Law, Politics, and Society 54, 141173. Eptein, B. (1991) Political Protest and Cultural Rev- olution: Nonviolent Direct Action in the 1970s and 1980s. University of California Press, Berkeley. Gamson, W.A. (1990) The Strategy of Social Protest, 2nd edn. Wadsworthy, Belmont, CA. (Orig. pub. 1975.) Lovell, J.S. (2009) Crimes of Dissent: Civil Disobe- dience, Criminal Justice, and the Politics of Con- science. New York University Press, New York. McAdam, D. (1983) Tactical innovation and the pace of insurgency. American Sociological Review 48, 735754. Shepard, B. (2011) Play, Creativity, and Social Move- ments: If I Cant Dance its not my Revolution. Routledge, New York and London. Tracy, J.A. (1996) Radical Pacism From the Union Eight to the Chicago Seven. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Zwerman, G., and Steinhoff, P. (2005). When activists ask for trouble: State-dissident inter- actions and the New Left. In: Davenport, C., Johnston, H., and Mueller, C. (eds), Repression and Mobilization. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, pp. 85107.