Weapons of the Weak or The Culture of Everyday Resistance to Power Relations

Abstract

Who is responsible for the downfall of “bad” regimes throughout history? Are they the “brave”, the small number of dissidents who can be found in every political system, turning openly against it, while endangering themselves, often even their lives, because they are tired of living in a lie? Or are they rather the “cowards,” those millions of subject-citizens who, though unwilling to risk their lives, engage in daily, small, yet fully conscious acts of subversion against a hated government, and slowly but surely undermine it from within, until its downfall? This question will be discussed in this paper. Its final attitude is based on the pioneering work of the American political scientist and anthropologist James Scott over the last 45 years, and his theory of the “weapons of the weak,” or what is at the center of his thought, namely the culture of everyday resistance to power relations.