Direct action is a term for economic and political behavior in which participants use agency—for example economic or physical power—to achieve their goals. The aim of direct action is to either obstruct a certain practice (such as a government's laws or actions) or to solve perceived problems (such as social inequality).
Direct action may include activities, often nonviolent but possibly violent, targeting people, groups, institutions, actions, or property that its participants deem offensive. Nonviolent direct action may include civil disobedience, sit-ins, strikes, and counter-economics. Violent direct action may include political violence, assault, arson, sabotage, and property destruction.
Activities such as electoral politics, diplomacy, negotiation, and arbitration are not considered direct action because participants are elected or nominated, while practitioners of direct action operate with no public mandate.
Terminology and definitions
It is not known when the term direct action first appeared. Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset wrote that the term and concept of direct action originated in fin de siècle France. The Industrial Workers of the World union first mentioned the term "direct action" in a publication about the 1910 Chicago strike. American anarchist Voltairine de Cleyre wrote the essay "Direct Action" in 1912, offering historical examples such as the Boston Tea Party and the American anti-slavery movement, and writing that "direct action has always been used, and has the historical sanction of the very people now reprobating it."
In his 1920 book Direct Action, William Mellor categorized direct action with the struggle between worker and employer for economic control. Mellor defined it "as the use of some form of economic power for securing of ends desired by those who possess that power." He considered it a tool of both owners and workers, and for this reason he included lockouts and cartels, as well as strikes and sabotage.
By the middle of the 20th century, direct action expanded, and the term's meaning became more specific.
Canadian anarchist Ann Hansen, one of the Squamish Five, wrote in her book Direct Action that "the essence of direct action [...] is people fighting for themselves, rejecting those who claim to represent their true interests, whether they be revolutionaries or government officials".
History
20th century
Some sections of the anti-nuclear movement have used direct action, particularly during the 1980s. Groups opposing the introduction of cruise missiles into the United Kingdom employed tactics such as entering and occupying United States air bases and blocking roads to prevent the movement of military convoys and to disrupt projects.
Especially in the late 1980s and early 1990s, anti-abortion groups in the United States, particularly Operation Rescue, took direct actions.
Anti-globalization activists forced the Seattle WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 to end early via direct action tactics and prefigurative politics. Activists placed debris and their bodies between the WTO delegates and the building they were meant to meet in. Activists also engaged in property destruction to express their opposition to corporate culture.
21st century
On April 28, 2009, Greenpeace activists, including Phil Radford, scaled a crane across the street from the Department of State, calling on world leaders to address climate change. Soon thereafter, they dropped a banner from Mount Rushmore, placing President Obama's face next to other historic presidents. The banner read: "History honors leaders. Stop global warming." Also in 2009, following the Power Shift conference in Washington, D.C., hundreds blocked the gates of the coal-fired plant that powers the US Congress building.
Human rights activists have used direct action in the campaign to close the School of the Americas (SOA). 245 SOA Watch protestors have collectively spent almost 100 years in prison, and more than 50 people have served probation sentences.
In the United States, direct action is increasingly used to oppose the fossil fuel industry, oil drilling, pipelines, and gas power plant projects.
