IB History Political Participation Key Definitions

The deliberate, non-violent refusal to obey unjust laws or government demands, as a form of political protest. Gandhi's civil disobedience campaigns (1930-1934) involved mass law-breaking, including the Salt March, refusal to pay taxes, and boycotts of British goods and institutions.

To remove rights and privileges, such as the right to vote. In Rhodesia, the white government used property and wealth restrictions to disenfranchise the Black majority.

In Egypt, the State of Emergency law was in effect almost continuously from 1967 to 2012. It gave the president and security forces sweeping powers: suspending constitutional rights, censoring media, restricting public gatherings, detaining people indefinitely without charge and trying civilians in military courts. Its repeal was a key demand of the 2011 revolutionaries.

The granting of the right to vote. In the context of the suffrage movement, it refers to extending voting rights to women. In the Canadian Indigenous context, it had a different meaning: the process by which an Indigenous person gave up their legal status and rights as an Indigenous person in exchange for Canadian citizenship.

A Canadian federal law that governs matters relating to First Nations peoples and their reserves. It defined who qualified as "Indian," imposed the band council system, restricted cultural practices and controlled nearly every aspect of Indigenous life. It has been amended many times but remains in force.

Founded in 1885, the INC was the main political organisation leading India's independence movement. Initially moderate and dominated by educated elites, it became a mass movement under Gandhi's leadership in the 1920s. After independence in 1947, it became India's dominant political party.

Founded in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters in Manchester, the WSPU was the most militant wing of the British suffrage movement. Its members, known as "suffragettes", used tactics ranging from disruption and civil disobedience to arson and window-smashing. Its motto was "Deeds, not words."