Notes and Takeaways from The Success of Nonviolent Civil Resistance
Source: TED
When I watched it: May 2020.
Why I watched it: The current protests have me curious as to how effective nonviolent protests are in bringing about political and social change. To my surprise, Professor Chenoweth’s research suggests peaceful campaigns are far more effective than violent ones.
Go to the video page for details and to watch or scroll down for my notes.
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My notes
About the speaker
Erica Chenoweth, Ph.D. is a professor at Harvard Kennedy School. She is the author of Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. She also did her PhD dissertation about how and why people use violence to seek political goals (PDF)
Most people think the best way for people to achieve political change is through violence ⇒ Erica’s research disagrees. It’s more effective to achieve political change through nonviolent civil resistance.
Civil resistance
Civil resistance is an active form of conflict where unarmed civilians use tactics like protests, demonstrations, strikes, boycotts, and many other forms of mass noncooperation to confront oppression (see this list of 198 methods of nonviolent action).
Two examples of nonviolent political change:
Serbia in 2000 ⇒ overthrowing Slobodan Milosevic
Philippines in 1986 ⇒ ousting Ferdinand Marcos
The research
Erica and her research partner collected data on all major nonviolent and violent campaigns for the overthrow of a government since 1900 ⇒ Key findings include:
From 1900 to 2006, nonviolent campaigns worldwide were 2x as likely to succeed outright as violent campaigns.
Nonviolent campaigns were more likely to usher in democratic institutions and 15% less likely to relapse into civil war
In the last 50 years, civil resistance has become more frequent and effective than violent efforts
The 3.5% rule
Some researchers say that no government could survive if five percent of its population mobilized against it (this has been called the 5% rule).
According Erica’s data, the threshold is probably lower ⇒ more like 3.5%.
In the U.S., 3.5% is only ~11 million people.
Why civil resistance works
Civil resistance allows people of all different levels of physical ability to participate (while violent protests require training / physical acumen)
Civil resistance is more accessible by differing races, beliefs, etc. (while violent protests often alienate diversity)
And once more diverse people get involved, it’s likely that the movement will then have some personal links to government officials ⇒ this leads to influence ⇒ which leads to change.
Most governmental people do not live isolated from the population itself ⇒ they have friends, family, etc. that they have to live with.