State Crime and Civil Activism: On the Dialectics of Repression and Resistance

State Crime and Civil Activism explores the work of non-government organisations (NGOs) challenging state violence and corruption in six countries – Colombia, Tunisia, Kenya, Turkey, Myanmar and Papua New Guinea. It discusses the motives and methods of activists, and how they document and criticise wrongdoing by governments.
Drawing on over 350 interviews with activists, this book discusses their motives; the tactics they use to withstand and challenge repression; and the legal and other norms they draw upon to challenge the state, including various forms of law and religious teaching. It analyses the relation between political activism and charitable work, and the often ambivalent views of civil society organisations towards violence. It highlights struggles over land as one of the key areas of state and corporate crime and civil resistance.
Building on the theoretical foundations laid in their previous book State Crime: Governments, Violence and Corruption (Pluto 2004), the book explores the vital part that civil society plays in defining, documenting and denouncing state crime, and documents the dialectical process by which repression stimulates and shapes the forces of resistance against it.