The Success of Nonviolent Civil Resistance
nonviolent-conflict.org
nonviolent-conflict.org
Eg Naypidaw (Myanmar), Astana / Nur-Sultan[1] (Kazachstan), Brasilia, Islamabad (Pakistan), Ciudad de la Paz (Equatorial Guinea), etc.
I'm not sure if there's statistically sufficiently many capitals-in-the-middle-of-nowhere but I bet there's a direct correlation between "capital is also the major population center" and "success rate of uprisings". It even holds for functioning democracies. I don't think the "yellow vests" people in Paris would've had a similar impact in Australia, where the government is comfortably far away from Where People Live.
[1] Woa check the new name! It's like renaming Washington DC to "Donald". [2]
[2] EDIT: Omg I just realized that George Washington did exactly that. Some ego! I had always assumed that it had been founded/named long after Washington was dead, but nothing like that was the case. It's really the "Trump Hotel" of cities.
Been selling widgets to rapid transit company there. Can't wait to go back to China, but it seems that there is a new local client on the horizon =(
China can't stay behind now, can they? Can't wait for Beijing to be renamed to Jinping.
There was a ~15-20 people scuffle few weeks later, and 1 day without Internet. Nothing though on the day of the renaming. Locals more or less grew apathetic to the idea of ruling elites being a joke over last 30 years. Some I'd say even like it that way, saying that "Imagine our joke president for life would've been a proper dictator, like somebody as sharp as that Paul Kagami dude, no, things are better this way"
> If he was smart, he would’ve put his name on it,” Trump reportedly said. “You’ve got to put your name on stuff or no one remembers you.”
> On the subject of whether anyone remembers George Washington, The Washington Post, which is based in the capital city of Washington (not Washington state) near George Washington University, would refer readers to the fact that Washington has come in first or second in nearly every “best presidents” poll conducted, including the most recent one, in 2018, by Siena College Research Institute.
Unfortunately, we are still dealing with the fallout of Britain's abdication of responsibility.
Even the 'white man's burden' is viewed by many as a necessary endeavour. It's the number one criticism I have of my own country (and I have many).
It's nationalist propaganda that panders to exceptionalism and it seems to have worked on half of the electorate unfortunately.
The number of people who want the empire back though, I reckon you could count those on one hand.
Between two and three million people died in the Bengal Famine of 1943. The extent to which the British regime was responsible is still debated, but it would seem that the Churchill government refused to supply food aid (or at least only supplied a fraction of that requested) and refused the local administration permission to import food themselves.
That's ill defined if you get to pick and choose whom you consider in the pool to establish "they're is no consensus amongst even Indian commentators". This seems more opinion than fact.
Even for the issue of smoking causes cancer I can easily constitute a pool who will contest that there isn't a convincing body of evidence that categorically shows that smoking causes cancer (not that I agree with a view).
The Britain and its sphere of influence has a skin in the game to deny that intentional harm was done.
> Referring to it as a deliberate killing millions of people to win the war is just plain wrong
Its not by magic that food disappeared from Bengal and ended up were the British wanted it. It was not a case of accidental misplacement of car keys. That qualifies for 'deliberate". They also weren't unaware of the famine related deaths, that came up in the British parliament multiple times. I am not sure which part of "deliberate killing millions" you are contesting.
That is opinion. Churchill's benchmark was if Gandhi was still alive it couldn't possibly a famine. That speaks for the general British position then.
You can kill by neglect. I don't think you can simply dismiss the accusation as "complete hyperbole".
I think it’s mainly that the UK, as the winner, got to write the history books.
(I’m not claiming that it cannot be partly racism — how many of “us” know about the Belgian Congo? — but mainly it’s “we are settlers, you are colonisers, they are invaders” and “our boys are heroes, your boys are soldiers, their boys are barbarians” in people’s minds).
For the record, I am not saying it's not skin color. Primarily it's race/nationality (=~ skin color), and thus british empire falls on the same side of West/Europe/Caucasian people. What other reason is there for the people of west to not treat the atrocities that colonial empires committed (towards brown/black/native people) the same as what Naizs did to white european jews? Especially given what the colonialists were an order of magnitude more cruel in both savagery and the number of people murdered?
As with any puritanism movement, there are other factors determining "purity". Aside from skin color, you have religious denomination.
I don’t understand what your point is here, I’m afraid — if the reason that the suffering of Jews is recognised is simply because they are part of the “us” group, despite multiple millennia of racial and religious discrimination, why would the Irish count as a “them”? It’s easy to forget how severely “othered” Jews used to be. The only explanation I have for the dichotomy is that the Jewish people were the enemy of the enemy, while conversely the Irish were… I’m not sure which time period to consider, but in my youth they were “terrorists”, which I guess made “them” a direct enemy in popular discourse at roughly the same time that Jews were unambiguously innocent victims. The same model also explains why communists killed in the holocaust are ignored in half the often quoted death statistics: communists were the enemy in this period, rather than the poor innocent victim of the brutal regime whose destruction was totally a pyrrhic victory (for the Empire) that had to be justified.
Jews were them until and during the WW2 (even now as per some section of western populace). Antisemitism was officially declared church doctrine in various denominations (even today Polish easter celebration happens with the effigy burning of a stereotypical jew). Antisemitism was not just in Nazi Germany. It was the norm all over the Europe. Jews suffering got recognized mainly because (IMO) it is a tool to highlight the Nazi horror - the bad guys as per the European lore.
My main point is that colonial Briton was worse than Nazi Germany, and Europeans fails to see that (or outright deny it) simply because colonial victims were not fellow whites (and may be tyranny of distance) and it doesn't fit into the Allied good guys vs the Axis bad guys WW2 narrative. My secondary point is that it was just bad guys vs the even worse guys, and the winners white washed their crimes highlighting the losers as the ultimate evil villains from whom they saved the humanity.
Gene Sharp who pioneered studying non violent resistance wrote a book about it - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhi_as_a_Political_Strategi...
Non-empirical 'commonsense' guesswork turns out to be wrong far more often than most people think. So it's great that the Chenoweth's of this world are curious enough to put their guesses to the test.
This seems especially true when the conclusions align closely with the incentives of people who have the power to get research friendly to their interests infront of you.
Assuming that everything that comes from the social sciences is politically motivated exhibits reasoning as flawed as assuming the opposite.
> Between 1900-2006, campaigns of nonviolent civil resistance were twice as successful as violent campaigns. Erica Chenoweth, Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and a Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, will talk about her research on the impressive historical record of civil resistance in the 20th century and discuss the promise of unarmed struggle in the 21st century. She will focus on the so-called “3.5% rule”—the notion that no government can withstand a challenge of 3.5% of its population without either accommodating the movement or (in extreme cases) disintegrating. In addition to explaining why nonviolent resistance has been so effective, she will also share some lessons learned about why it sometimes fails.
having done that I still do not have access.
How much due diligence did you do on the data before accepting the study's claims?
I think this is because if Hemeti used full scale violence he wouldn't have a state to rule over. The non-violent protesters have enough support that a violent response would fracture the armed forces, militias, civilians, and government into non-governable chaos.
If you are an oppressive regime, you likely have the maximum capability for violence many times over in your region.
Hence violent civil resistance will start off with a bad footing in two ways: 1. People are not so keen to take up arms 2. For any amount of violence, the government will likely respond with an overwhelming amount of violence.
Non-violent strategies, on the other hand beat these two stepping stones: 1. Non violent strategies, if they are at all popular, are way less riskier for individual participants and due to their non violent nature are easier for people to copy 2. Government has a way harder time to respond to non-localized non-violent influence strategies, as their oppressive regime is likely specialized in fielding force projection troops to localized events
This is not as effective in so called "resource-cursed" countries. There, the government does not care whether the population works, so long as the oil keeps flowing. It's much harder for a nonviolent movement to disrupt the economy in that case, and hence oppressive regimes tend to thrive in resource-cursed countries.
Let's think of the abolition of slavery as an example. This was a huge, important change that came about by civil resistance: slave owners were mostly backed by law during the period of resistance.
It was not non-violent, especially if destruction of property (e.g. freeing a slave) is counted as an act of violence against the slave owner/ law. I do not believe this change was easier to provoke non-violently and/or non-property-destructively.
>To these ends, we constructed the Nonviolent andViolent Conºict Outcomes (NAVCO) data set, which includes aggregate dataon 323 violent and nonviolent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006.35
>The NAVCO data set contains a sample of resistance campaigns based on consensus data ofscholars of both violent and nonviolent conºict. Resistance campaigns include campaigns for do-mestic regime change, against foreign occupations, or for secession or self-determination. Omittedfrom the data set are major social and economic campaigns, such as the civil rights movement andthe populist movement in the United States. To gain inclusion into the NAVCO data set, the cam-paign must have a major and disruptive political objective, such as the ending of a current politicalregime, a foreign occupation, or secession. About ten campaigns (four nonviolent and six violent)did not ªt into any of these categories but were nevertheless included in the data set. The codingscheme assumes that each campaign has a uniªed goal, but most campaigns have multiple fac-tions. The dynamics created by these circumstances will be further explored in a later study
https://www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/file...
https://www.du.edu/korbel/sie/research/chenow_navco_data.htm...
Humans and most animals tend to naturally resist along a spectrum (sometimes referred to as the force continuum), and for most that spectrum will include violence at the extreme end.
Nonviolent civil resistance scales tends to scale more quickly because there is less at stake for the individual participants under most circumstances. But it's still resistance, and still an indicator that some percentage of the populace has less tolerance for provocation before things begin to turn violent. That's where i think at least some of the effectiveness of the nonviolent approach comes from...the threat of a lot more people turning violent.
About the only thing I would take away from this is that if I want to organize resistance, it might be more effective to spend time marketing it and scaling horizontally first than to flame out on a skirmish and scare possible supporters off. Once the tribe starts to grow, however, it becomes much easier to turn up the heat when necessary.
Also, no tiki torches.
"Deep and long-lasting levelling of both the absolute and relative degree of income and wealth inequality has found its place primarily in conjunction with the ‘Four Horsemen’ of levelling: namely, mass mobilisation warfare; transformative revolutions (such as communism); state collapse; and plague and pandemic episodes"
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2018/02/23/book-rev...
It seems he's arguing that a diversity of tactics is more effective than nonviolence alone. Chenoweth's methodology if I understand correctly was to divide a lot of civil resistance campaigns into violent and nonviolent, and compare the success of the two groupings.
It's possible that they're both right, that a diversity of tactics wins, but is more likely to win when that diversity is skewed toward nonviolence.
Long to short, Popovic wrote: nonviolence is more successful because it casts a wider / deeper net. Adding violence to your tactic severely reduces the number who will embrace and participate in your change movement.
I believe that is how South Africa's Apartheid system was brought down. The ANC actually engaged in terrorism - but that wasn't what ended the system - it was the global economic boycott.
In that specific ring fences example, did anyone outside of the Soviet/Polish regimes have issue with it then or since?
Would any/many Poles consider it a mistake or criticise the effort or result?
It was a really interesting opportunity to learn from someone who has actually led non violent social change, rather than just researching/writing about it.
A bit like YC compared to other accelerators. Experience doing over talking.
Optor’s ‘Laughtivism” Strategy was quite creative and funny.
While it was never discussed, I suspect you may be right about Otpor’s sources of funding.
It could be disinformation, but it could also be true.
https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham....
It is also a successful example of external non-violent support as the CIA provided strictly non violent support in the form of cash, communication, printing, and copying equipment and supplies.
Largely shipped covertly via Swedish maritime cargo and other means.
The key learning point, especially for governments interested in interfering in the affairs of other countries, is that it requires a committed and motivated existing and self sustaining organisation.
In the case of Solidarity/Poland, CIA simply provided some additional momentum to what already existed.
Pope John Paul II and President Ronald Reagan also provides considerable moral support and political capital to put the spotlight on the existent Solidarity.
Not only are non violent movements twice as successful(on average) than violent revolutions, but they are also more sustainable/resilient.
There was an excellent course run out of Harvard JFK School called “Leading Non-Violent Movements for Social Change”.
It was led by Srdja Popovic, founder of Otpor! that helped remove Milosevic fro. Power in Serbia.
Check out CANVAS: https://canvasopedia.org/
Great free resources.
This is a meaningless comparison because they aim at entirely different things. The French revolution was different than the fall of communism.
Funny enough, the October revolution was also largely a non-violent event, with just a few casualties. The ensuing Civil War, however...
A domestic, intrinsically motivated movement, supported externally with non violent diplomatic, financial, and moral aid, acted as a catalyst to the largely non violent removal of many authoritarian repressive regimes.
All of which have largely avoided civil war with the exception of Ukraine due to a resurgent Russia responding to excessive NATO expansion.
Former Yugoslavia doesn’t count as it excluded itself from the Soviet Warsaw Pact sphere Nd attempted non alignment.
Did a fundamental shift in incumbent political power occur? Yes/No
Was that fundamental shift away from the previous incumbent political power sustainable, or did it fall as well(after X time)? Yes/No
I sincerely hope I'm not coming across in an unintentionally rude or abrasive way, if so, I apologise.
To be honest, you kind of are.
Not some other people in the same geographical area. The same people.
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
So you can have a 'violent' movement that does not get round to using violence. The movement can be effective enough to not need to fire a single shot.
Because of this it is a bit silly to compare and categorise non-violent vs. violent resistance.
If you read The Art Of War then the keep the powder dry idea is quite key to winning. Timing and leadership matters more. How many 'leaderless' movements, e.g. Extinction Rebellion, Occupy Wall Street etc. have got anywhere? Precisely zero.
Modern day capitalism demands war and terrorism. It is all part of the illusion. Over the centuries UK/US interests have got to be good at it. The terrorism meme invariably gets rolled out but no genuine resistance movements ever use terror tactics. It is a sure way to lose popular support. The distinction between sabotage and terrorism isn't widely appreciated. So although 'burning down the parliament building' might be a perfectly valid act of sabotage it will always be an act of terror in the media whether it is Guy Fawkes or Hitler doing it.
I would be more interested in knowing what resistance movements succeeded based on their counter surveillance skills. If a movement has a non English language and other culture that is hard for spies to learn then success is much more likely.
But truth is that nonviolent civil resistance is not effective. The few "regimes" that were "toppled" by it never stood in ranks of real regimes, or were at their dying breath.
I wish authors of the article ever told that to Ugandans, North Koreans, and after all Chinese.
China sees sporadic riots nearly weekly (which are almost never covered by Western press.) I'd say that as a percentage of population, the amount of people who ever raised a hand on policeman/official person and served term should be around 5-7%.
That was way higher in eighties when forced sterilisation campaign was at its peak (imagine men having to stand still while a communist pokes his dirty finger into their wives'...)
> Between 1900-2006, campaigns of nonviolent civil resistance were twice as successful as violent campaigns.
You're just saying "No." without providing anything more than an opinion and some anecdotal evidence. You're absolutely right that under many oppressive regimes like China pretty much any kind of protest beside outright civil war is suppressed, but that doesn't defeat the point of the article.
Also, saying things like
> dirty communist pokes his finger ...
really doesn't help you here.
It does, very much. Read what is my point above. What argument they have against that?
Their reasoning is shallow, their data is very meticulously gathered, but is nevertheless massaged, and people behind the report... take a look at their bios and judge yourself.
I have a lot of anger for types of people calling for peaceful sit ins when crowds are already being showered by machine gun fire. Those share the blame for people's deaths as much as regimes doing the killing.
Doing that is an advocacy for moral frailty.
Why is "toppling a regime" your only benchmark for measuring success?
What is your justification for favouring your own anecdata over the article's statistics?
How is "sporadic riots in China" an example of nonviolent resistance, and how does it further your argument?