The Video Game “People Power” as a Means of Training Organizers of a Campaign of Nonviolent Struggle

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to assess the potential of the video game “People Power” as a means of training civil society activists for the deployment of political campaigns involving the use of the technology of nonviolent struggle. The article’s methodological research is based on the use of descriptive political analysis. The theoretical basis of the work is a synthesis of elements of the concepts of relative deprivation (T. R. Gurr), social identity (Henri Tajfel and John Turner) and the model of mass consciousness (D. V. Olshansky). The authors conclude from analysis of the use of the game that “People Power” has great potential as a means of training civil society activists for the deployment of nonviolent struggle campaigns. It serves simultaneously as an interactive textbook, an instrument for reformatting consciousness, a means of recruiting civil activists potentially capable of forming the core of protest, and the basis for the formation of a constantly functioning “brainstorming” center aimed at improving the technology of nonviolent struggle.

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