Fostering a Fourth Democratic Wave

Fostering a Fourth Democratic Wave is a joint project between the Atlantic Council and the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), aimed at catalyzing support for nonviolent pro-democracy movements fighting against authoritarian rule. The project recognizes that civil resistance movements—using tactics such as strikes, boycotts, civil disobedience, and a range of other nonviolent tactics—are one of the most powerful forces for democracy worldwide and therefore central to reversing the last seventeen years of democratic recession. The project produced a three-part report, titled Fostering a Fourth Democratic Wave: A Playbook for Countering the Authoritarian Threat, that: 1) Proposes new approaches and tools to support civil resistance movements; 2) Advances a new international norm — the ‘Right to Assist’ pro-democracy movements; and 3) Develops strategic and tactical options to constrain authoritarian regimes and drive up the cost of their repression.