Introduction

Elected authoritarians are betting on fatigue. They know how to outlast protests, divide coalitions, and make people give up. That's why democratic movements are essential to confront them. Unlike parties, movements combine legitimacy and flexibility—they can speak across differences and move faster than rigid political structures.

What scares authoritarians most isn't a single march—it's a movement people want to belong to. That's why Volume 6 of the Anti-Authoritarian Toolkit focuses on Movement Building. In polarized contexts, where parties often deepen division, movements can do something rare and powerful: redefine polarization around values, not partisan identities.

Movements can draw new lines. Here you'll find plays used by some of the most resilient democratic movements worldwide—from designing strategic roadmaps to turning values into daily practices, from building collective identities to creating spaces of joy and co-creation.

Developed in collaboration with CANVAS (Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies), each play is a reminder: people don't join movements because they're right, but because they matter—because they find in them hope, direction, and community.