Evaluate how individuals and organizations work within or outside established systems of power to influence security

Learning goal: Explain how individuals and organizations work within, or outside of, established systems of power, authority and governance to influence their own security and the security of others, distinguish the two approaches with documented examples, and evaluate the methods by their legitimacy, their risks and their results.

Key terms. Power is the ability to make others act as you wish. Authority is power that people accept as rightful, usually because it comes from law or custom. Governance is the set of institutions and rules by which decisions are made and carried out: legislatures, courts, elections, agencies, treaties and international bodies. An established system is one already in place and recognized. The standard's central distinction is between working within such a system (using its own rules and channels) and working outside it (acting without, or against, those channels).

Working within established systems. Individuals and organizations can vote, petition, lobby legislators, bring lawsuits, run for office, testify before committees, serve in government and use the complaint or reporting procedures of international bodies. These methods accept the system's authority and try to change what it decides.

A documented example is the Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program. After the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, thousands of nuclear weapons and large stocks of weapons materials sat in newly independent states with weak finances. Two U.S. senators from different parties, Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar, sponsored legislation that year to fund the securing and dismantling of those weapons. Working within Congress, two individuals influenced the security of their own country and of others, because loose weapons materials were a danger to many states. Other within-system examples include a citizen group lobbying for a treaty, a non-governmental organization submitting evidence to a United Nations human rights body, or a state bringing a case to the International Court of Justice.

Working outside established systems. When people believe the system is closed to them, unjust or itself the threat, they may act outside it. Outside methods range widely, and the difference matters. Nonviolent methods include unauthorized strikes, boycotts, demonstrations, underground publishing and civil disobedience (openly breaking a law one considers unjust and accepting the penalty). Violent methods include armed rebellion, insurgency and terrorism (violence against civilians to achieve political aims). The standard does not say outside action is good or bad; it says it is one way people seek to influence security, and students must evaluate each case.

A documented example of nonviolent outside action is Solidarity in Poland. In 1980, shipyard workers in Gdańsk led strikes that forced the communist government to accept an independent trade union, something the one-party system did not allow. Solidarity, led by the electrician Lech Wałęsa, grew to millions of members. Martial law was declared in December 1981 and the union was suspended, then formally banned in 1982, but it continued underground. Wałęsa received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, while the union was still banned. In 1989 the government negotiated with Solidarity at the "Round Table," and partly free elections that June brought Solidarity candidates into parliament. An organization that began outside the system ended by entering and changing it. The security at stake was personal (workers' freedom from arrest) and national (Poland's political institutions).

Outside action can also threaten the security of others. Terrorist organizations deliberately endanger civilians, usually from outside established systems (though some also take part in politics). States usually respond by working within systems, through police, courts, intelligence cooperation and treaties, though some responses have gone outside the law, which shows that one group's outside action often prompts others to strengthen established systems.

Moving between the two. Many movements use both. A group may protest in the streets (outside) while also filing lawsuits and lobbying (within). A system may also change what counts as "within": after 1989, activities that had been illegal in Poland became lawful politics.

How to evaluate a method. Ask four questions. (1) Legitimacy: is the method lawful, and if not, is it defensible, for example because the system allows no lawful channel? (2) Whose security: does it protect the actor, others, or both, and does it endanger anyone? (3) Risk: what might the actor lose (freedom, life, credibility)? (4) Result: what actually changed, according to evidence?

A fully worked model. Hypothetical case: in the country of Corvel, the government proposes to build a weapons storage site next to a town. Residents fear accidents. Option A (within): residents petition their legislator, request public hearings and sue under an environmental law. Option B (outside, nonviolent): residents block the access road in a sit-in and accept arrest. Option C (outside, violent): a few residents sabotage equipment. Evaluate. A uses channels the system provides, carries low personal risk where, as in Corvel, petitioning and lawsuits are protected, and may succeed if the law protects them. B draws attention and may shift opinion; it carries arrest risk, and one common ethical test holds it defensible only if lawful channels have failed or are closed (others also weigh urgency, proportionality and harm). C endangers workers and residents, loses public support and invites a security crackdown that reduces everyone's security. The model is hypothetical; it shows how the four evaluation questions produce a reasoned judgment rather than a slogan.

The misconception. Students sometimes think only governments influence security, or that acting outside the system always means violence. Senators Nunn and Lugar were individuals working within the system; Solidarity began as a trade union acting outside it, largely without violence. Individuals and organizations shape security, for themselves and for others, through a range of methods.

Worked example 1 — classify methods: Classify: (a) an organization submits a report to a United Nations human rights body; (b) workers hold a strike that the law forbids; (c) a senator sponsors a bill to fund the dismantling of weapons abroad; (d) an armed group deliberately attacks a crowded market to frighten a population into accepting its political demands. Answer: (a) within; (b) outside, nonviolent; (c) within; (d) outside, violent, and terrorism because it deliberately targets civilians for a political aim. For each, note whose security is influenced: (a) the people in the report; (b) the workers and possibly the government; (c) the sponsor's country and others; (d) the attacked civilians, whose security is harmed.

Worked example 2 — trace a movement across the line: Solidarity, Poland. 1980: strikes outside the system win recognition of an independent union. December 1981: martial law; the union is suspended (formally banned in 1982) and works underground, outside the system. 1989: Round Table negotiations with the government; partly free elections in June bring Solidarity into parliament, within a system it helped change. Conclusion: the within/outside distinction describes methods at a given moment, and an organization can move between them.

Worked example 3 — evaluate a within-system action: The Nunn–Lugar program, begun in 1991. Legitimacy: passed by Congress, so fully within the system. Whose security: the United States and the states where weapons stood, and anyone who might have been harmed by stolen material. Risk: political cost of spending money abroad. Result: it funded the securing and dismantling of weapons in former Soviet states over the following years. Judgment: an example of individuals using established authority to improve their own and others' security.

Methods chart: Draw a two-column chart headed "Within established systems" and "Outside established systems." Under each, list at least four methods, marking outside methods as nonviolent or violent. Then place two documented examples you have read about in the correct column, with the actor, the date and whose security was affected.

Independent performance: Write a one-page evaluation of how one individual or organization tried to influence its own security or the security of others. Success criteria: you identify the actor and the system of power, authority and governance it faced; you state whether it worked within, outside, or both, with evidence; you apply the four evaluation questions (legitimacy, whose security, risk, result); you date events from a source; and you distinguish what the evidence shows from your own judgment. Before submitting, trade drafts with a classmate, check each date against a source, and mark any sentence where a judgment is presented as if it were a fact.