Michael Beer's Review of Steve Chase's Book

How Agent Provocateurs Harm Our Movements by Steve Chase, Published by the International Center on Nonviolence Conflict, 2021

Steve Chase has produced a 45 page book on government supported agent provocateurs. He begins by providing a short snapshot of examples of agent provocateurs from Guatemala, Thailand, Syria, Sudan, Poland, Britain, Canada, United States, and Tibet. He then shares a deeply disturbing story of US government sabotage and use of agent provocateurs in weakening the US Black Liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s. This story has been made possible because of a daring citizen initiative to raid an FBI office for its documents that were then the basis for a legislative branch investigation that exposed much information about the COINTELPRO program supporting provocateurs. He then explains important research from Omar Wasow, Sharon Erickson, and Erica Chenoweth that debunk the myth that “diversity of tactics” is a successful campaign strategy. Diversity of Tactics is a term which encourages the simultaneous or parallel use of nonviolent and violent tactics, particularly in street protests. Chase also criticizes nonviolent campaigners who fail to confront those who seek to use violence to accomplish goals on strategic or principled grounds.

He concludes with a short chapter on Responding Effectively, suggesting ways to deal with agent provocateurs. Some of these ideas include prompting more evidence-based social science research, deploying tactics that are less susceptible to agent provocateur incitement, provide trainings in nonviolent discipline, and staying focused on clear goals among other recommendations.

Some additional recommendations that Nonviolence International has given over the years includes:

a) Don’t always expose agent provocateurs, because they may send replacements who you don’t know. “The agent provocateur that you know is better than the one you don’t know.”
b) Killing or harming agents does not deter governments from sending in replacements. Very often, these are people with criminal records or poor and have limited choices but to cooperate with the authorities.
c) Folks are often sent in pairs or teams for security reasons. So if you uncover one, look to see if they are working alone.
d) Develop a policy on agent provocateurs and informants. Some groups open up meetings welcoming all to attend and participate as long as they follow the NV guidelines. For example, "if anyone at this meeting is being paid to be here by government, media, or outside groups, please disclose that publicly now.”
e) Feeding misinformation or omitting information to agent provocateurs or informants is an option.
f) Gandhi operated in complete transparency making it very difficult for agent provocateurs to cause problems or have an impact.
g) Do reference checks. Even asking newcomers for additional information can be enough to chase away infilitrators. Simple questions. Where are you from? How did you find out about us? Why are you motivated to join this action/group?
h) Infiltrators can be flipped. At the very least, they add 1 more person to your action/crowd.
i) Never let an agent provocateur seize the microphone or the bullhorn.
j) Maskless actions and daytime actions reduce the risk of sabotage.

His book reveals the need for more research based on government documents and whistleblowers with stories to tell on social movement sabotage. This sabotage goes well beyond what we typically think of as agent provocateurs including informers, kidnappers, quiet intimidators, and assassins. This book also shows the need for a more comprehensive look at agent provocateurs that are also sponsored by corporations and non-state political actors.

This book’s most important contribution is to challenge those advocating for diversity of tactics and violent revolutionary flanks.

Chase concludes with his finest observation that “I find it painfully telling that no agent provocateur has even been documented encouraging a movement to adopt a disciplined civil resistance strategy.”

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Nonlinear Leadership Development Training

“The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.“

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“To be outstanding leaders and achieve exceptional results, we have to change the way we think about the world and about what is possible.”

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“We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.”

Albert Einstein

Sami Awad giving a NLD training in Palestine, 2010

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Are you seeking to achieve greater results in your life and for those around you?

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It is a deep personal development program to enhance inner skills of leadership. The purpose of the program is to provide leaders with the tools that help them make the impossible possible at the level of their personal life, their work, community, and for their country.

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The training will be provided by our co-director, Sami Awad.

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Deal effectively with breakdowns and problems on the personal, professional, community and national levels.
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You will ask yourself: “what allows for self responsibility?”
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Leaders committed to a future founded on the principles of nonviolence, justice, equality and peace within society and in relation to others.
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Webinar: Syria Today - Stories of Return, Resistance, and Renewal

David Hartsough: Presente! A Shining Light for a Nonviolent World

David Hartsough on left, along with Laurence Henry face down neo-Nazis at Arlington Virginia desegregation sit-in in 1961. Photo by Gene Abbott. Courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.

We share the passing of David Hartsough, a long-time supporter of Nonviolence International and the global nonviolence movement. David died at the age of 84 after a battle with cancer. He was a loving husband of Jan and of 2 children. He co-founded Nonviolent Peaceforce, Nonviolent Peaceworks, and World Beyond War, David was a Quaker who dedicated his life to nonviolence and a just world. His vision and commitment to nonviolence shaped countless movements. His memoir, Waging Peace: Global Adventures of a Lifelong Activist, tells the remarkable story of his decades spent on the front lines of nonviolent action. Can you believe he drove to Red Square in 1961 in a VW Bug from Berlin and protested against nuclear weapons?

Col. Ann Wright called him the “Forrest Gump” of the US Peace Movement implying that he had a knack for being present at so many historic anti-war events for 70 years. In addition to ubiquitous protesting he actively worked on numerous campaigns for peace and justice. In the late 1950’s, he was arrested for nuclear & chemical weapons ban protests, in the 1960’s, he was among the earliest to oppose the Vietnam War, through the then newly created Washington Peace Center and the Friends Committee on National Legislation. In the 1970’s he worked for the American Friends Service Committee where he opposed US wars in Central America and supported the pioneering use of nonviolence intervention by Peace Brigades and Witness for Peace. He became so enamored with nonviolent intervention that In 1996 he presented his idea of a large scale nonviolent army to intervene in conflicts around the world at NVI’s global conference Mainstreaming Peace Teams. His dream later came to fruition at the 1999 Hague Appeal for Peace where he met Michael Beer, Mel Duncan and Timmon Wallis and Nonviolent Peaceforce was provisionally born.

In 1996, he traveled to Kosovo to support and train the nonviolent student movement in its resistance to Serbian rule and repression. He then encouraged NVI Director, Michael Beer to follow to provide more coaching and training on nonviolent resistance. In the 2000’s, he was repeatedly arrested for opposing US wars against Muslim countries and co-led a peace delegation to Iran. He then helped David Swanson start the World Beyond War, for which NVI, through David’s suggestion, served briefly as a fiscal sponsor. He was a life-long war-tax resister and supporter of the Fellowship of Reconciliation.

But his legacy was not just about ending war. He met Dr. King in Alabama as a young teenager and was a courageous activist in the sit-in movement that ended segregation in the DC area. He was arrested uncountable times for environmental, poverty alleviation, anti-racism, and social justice issues. In 2011, he was one of the co-founders of the Occupy Movement in Washington DC. Although not a wealthy man, he was a generous financial supporter of all NVI initiatives including our projects in Russia, Iran, Kosovo, Tibet, Palestine, Burma, and Western Sahara. He donated his massive nonviolent training collection that has been partially digitized and uploaded to NVI’s Nonviolence Training Archives.

NVI is sad to see him leave us but grateful for his relentless support and encouragement. What a remarkable nonviolent life!

Job Fair at the US Senate Victory

Job Fair at the US Senate Victory: Some Workers Getting Jobs Restored...

Co-Director Michael Beer helped lead some of the initial protests by Federal Workers in the Senate. Much work remains to reinstate workers and to challenge the illegal firings of tens of thousands of government workers and contractors. NVI remains committed to nonviolently mobilizing public support in the US and globally against criminal actions by the Trump administration.

Article on reinstating fired workers

https://www.reuters.com/legal/trump-administration-reinstating-24500-fired-workers-after-court-order-2025-03-18/

Job Fair at the US Senate to Protest Illegal Firings

This week, NVI Director Michael Beer, helped launch a “Job Fair” at the US Senate. Each day this week, illegally fired federal workers have walked into senate offices with resumes asking for jobs. These federal workers meet with Senators and staff and tell their stories of being fired from US Aid for International Development, Social Security, National Institutes of Health, and Department of Energy and many others.

Many of them had worked in the government for less than 2 years. Many have worked for decades and had strong job performance evaluations. All were highly skilled and some had previously worked for much higher salaries in the private sector. They fear that the vital work of their agencies will be dismantled and that people around the world will suffer because of the damage done to health and energy research or a sudden halt in humanitarian aid.

Here are some articles about the unconventional lobbying.

Here is a Washington Post Article.

You can hear some of these workers in their own words.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DGV7h1Gx2sR/

https://www.instagram.com/p/DGdvjVExh0L/

Most of these folks have never lobbied before. But they are angry and want to do something. Hopefully they can persuade/pressure Senators to stand up to Musk and Trump and stop these attacks on federal workers and on these congressionally funded agencies.

These firings are an attempt to cripple government services and force them to be privatized. Other agencies like the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau are cops who prevent and reverse financial fraud perpetrated by big firms and the oligarchs.

Others are doing a sit-in as we do this write-up.

Here is a good primer for those looking for something to do.

https://choosedemocracy.us/what-can-i-do/

Also, take a look at NVI’s huge database of 346 nonviolent tactics and get inspired and the number of things you can do.

Michael Beer's Review of Steve Chase's Book on Agent Provocateurs