Sidenote: if you're ever a dictator somewhere, move your capital away from the big population centers. Invent some nutcase reason like "God told me to do it in a dream". Make sure that most inhabitants of your new capital are civil servants, whose livelihoods directly depend on your government's stability. Civil Resistance, violent or not, will be significantly less effective.
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.
> 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.
> what was the popular response to the name change?
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"
Ankara became the capital as a result of it being the headquarters of the Turkish National Movement during Turkey's War of Independence. During the war, Constantinople was under control of the Ottoman Sultan, who was at that point a protectorate of the Entendre. Because Ankara was the base of operations for the republican government since its creation, it made much more sense for it to be the postwar capital than Istanbul.
The nonviolent civil resistance is only effective when your opponent is a regime that is beholden to the opinion of its people or of the world. For oppressive opponents who don't actually care very much about human rights, nonviolent resistance is simply ineffective at all.
As she explains in the video, that was Erica Chenoweth's a priori guess too, before looking at the data. Her study, looking at all the available data from every resistance movement involving more than 1000 people since 1900, apparently suggests otherwise.
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.
And the replication crisis showes that 'empirical' social science that contradicts common sense should not be taken as fact.
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.
If you have a problem with the methodology or evidence presented here, then why not describe your issues? That would at least be useful. Unlike you, Chenoweth presents a substantial amount of evidence and reasoning.
Assuming that everything that comes from the social sciences is politically motivated exhibits reasoning as flawed as assuming the opposite.
The study's description says it makes a comparison against violent campaigns. Ostensibly, violent protesters also suffer from "just disappearing":
> 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.
I attempted to get access to the data which the study is based upon. They requested I register my e-mail address, name, organization in order to get access.
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?
True enough on the not taking it as fact. I don't, though I think it carries more weight than so-called 'commonsense' (which I dont' share your apparent respect for). Obviously it should be subject to good empirical critique.
Exactly. Ghandi was very brave, it's true, but his success in India says as much about the British as it does about the power of nonviolence. Try the same stunt against ISIS or North Korea and you'll only achieve being shot out of hand.
I have a feeling you haven't read much British colonial history. Amritsar? Boer concentration camps? Indian emancipation had nothing to do with British goodness. It had much to do with mass uprisings, clever tactics, and more than a few blown-up railway lines.
I read taneq's (admittedly sketchy) comment as suggesting that the Gandhian part of the Indian independence struggle was effective not because of its nonviolent tactics, but because of the relatively benign nature of British colonial governance.
I'm not saying they were great, and definitely on an organisational level they did some evil things. But on an individual level, shooting an unarmed person in the face in cold blood generally just wasn't done in the same way as it would have been in some other regimes.
Massive exhaustion, inability, and unwillingness to maintain their colonial empire after losing the best part of two generations to European wars had the most to do with it.
Unfortunately, we are still dealing with the fallout of Britain's abdication of responsibility.
There was more then Ghandi and non violence affecting politics back then. He was not the only player over there and there were violent people seeking in dependence too.
Yeah, I wasn't saying that Ghandi did it alone or that the British were squeaky clean. In other situations against other adversaries, though, his approach would have just got him instantly shot. The fact that this never happened shows the general character of the British that he faced.
Ghandi was quite shrewd as to what he could get away with. He started protesting in South Africa in 1893 when they were probably not terribly nice to non whites.
To think Indian independence came about with no threat of violence seems like a whitewashing of history. The British state chose to deal with the non-violent. But would they have bothered without the fear of violence?
where do people get the idea that british were nice in India? They killed millions in WW2 famines alone (to fund the war campaign). The reprisals after 1857 mutiny is said to have killed 10 million Indians. Right there from two incidents you have 15 million deaths. British were much more save than the Nazis when it comes to genocide of "others", colonization, savagery etc. They get a free pass in the west as opposed to the Nazis simply because British killed Asians, Africans and Native Americans when Nazis killed fellow whites. This is pure racism.
I would say a large section of our population want to go back to a certain style of governance that they believe (true or not) was around during the empire, that of strong economic liberalism and free trade with the rest of the world. I'd say it's one of the big philosophical differences with the EU (its protectionism is its main defining characteristic, after all) that has led to the Brexit vote.
The number of people who want the empire back though, I reckon you could count those on one hand.
If it was about skin colour, the deaths of a million Irish in the Great Potato Famine would not be considered “totally different” to the deaths of 3-7 million in the Holodomor, also known as (Stalin’s) “Famine-Genocide in Ukraine”.
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).
I know. My response was in the context of (paraphrased) “why are systematic deaths of Asians, Africans and Native Americans at the hands of Caucasians given a free pass when the same crimes against Jews were correctly prosecuted?” — and that is a difference of skin colour.
Where did I mention skin color? I mentioned "others" and racism. In the case of Irish, it was religious fanaticism ("Others").
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.
>> 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”?
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.
Europe has not given itself a free pass when it comes to colonialism.
For example, at the moment they're hiding a bell in Cambridge University lest it turns out to have formerly been used on a slave plantation.
There was no government organised genocide in British colonial history that I know of, not even in Ireland in the 17th century where arguably the worst atrocities were carried out.
Saying Britain killed millions in India in WW2 is complete hyperbole.
> Saying Britain killed millions in India in WW2 is complete hyperbole.
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.
two to three million is conservative estimates - from the famines in bengal, in world war 2 alone. There were other famines in India during WW2. There were other famines in India during british raj. There were other famines in other colonies.
The person I was responding to said words to the effect that they killed millions of people in India in order to win the war. That simply isn't true. An inadequate attempt to provide relief is not the same thing as actively killing people.
The person you were responding to is me, and yes, it is true that millions of indians were killed to fund war. The famine was directly caused by Briton redirecting the harvested grains and other resources from India for war efforts and scorched earth policies to counter the imminent Japanese invasion from the east (Japanese occupied Burma). Time and again it's whitewashed by blaming the poor people that died from whom the grains were forcefully collected, climate (disputed by everyone except the british and not supported by soil analysis or climate models), and the Japanese.
You are very certain about something about which they're is no consensus amongst even Indian commentators. Some refer to policy failures. No one apart from you is call it a deliberate killing of millions. I'm not sure why you feel the need to be so vehement about it.
Consensus as in agreement and no, you cannot easily dismiss smoking causing cancer in that way. There is a scientific basis for the latter. For the former, some commentators are attributing the famine to a malicious intent whereas others attribute it to a policy failure.
British policy at that time in that place was focused on preventing a Japanese invasion of India. If that policy had failed and Bengal had been invaded, the fate of the people there would very likely have been worse. Britain was in a tight spot at that time, doubtless things could have been handled better but there were a lot of mitigating factors. Referring to it as a deliberate killing millions of people to win the war is just plain wrong
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.
I am saying there is no consensus because there are different conclusions about the situation drawn by different scholars. You are saying that's not a convincing approach to take, that you could do the same about tobacco, which I don't believe, actually. You then proceed to state your opinion as fact despite it being most likely the result of a, relatively speaking, cursory reading of others' writings on the topic. What leads you to dismiss the views of other scholars who happen to have come to a different conclusion on the Bengal famine?
So what is it that differentiates yor denial from WWII holocaust denials. If you take them into account one can argue, just like you have that there is no 'consensus'. I dont find your arguments anymore illuminating than theirs.
Regarding tobacco there is no need to believe or disbelieve. You can just checkout 25 years of scientific research, many funded by the tobacco companies.
Pray tell us what is it that I claimed as a fact in my comment above that is not a fact. Are we disputing meaning of 'deliberate' or are we disputing that food supply redirection happened on its own without deliberation ... like by way of mysterious magic.
What makes you think my knowledge about these matters is limited to previous comments. BTW there were more than one British sponsored famine in Bengal so do educate yourself before you jump to defend.
Firstly, you're the one who keeps going off on tangents, first on tobacco, then on the Holocaust and finally on other British "sponsored" famine in Bengal none of which are relevant. Even a cursory googling of the 1943 famine will demonstrate that the causes for it are far from settled as far as the academic community are concerned. You, however seem to have no doubts on the matter. That doesn't inspire me to believe that your knowledge of it runs deep, rather the opposite in fact.
Tobacco and WWII holocausts are relevant to the style of your argument. Your argument was there is no 'consensus'. What I am pointing out is your argument is no different from the scholarship that continues to deny Jewish holocaust and deny that tobacco causes cancer. My respect for such denial arguments are roughly equal. Can you explain why the other famines are not relevant when we are on the topic of British excesses and resistance movements that led to independence. Are the lives lost to the other famines less valuable ? The death toll for the 18th century British made Bengal famine is around 10 million about 5 to 6 times more than the 1943 one.
You still have not clarified which part of deliberate you are contesting. Are you saying destruction of grains and diverting of supplies were not deliberate ? I presume it does not come as a surprise that denial of foodgrain causes starvation and death. Or is your position that the British tjought the 'natives' do not deserve/ need those ?
"Oops we did not realize you guys need to eat too, sorry cant have that, the Japs are coming, enjoy the scorched earth. BTW nothing is deliberate the grains self destruct or runaway on their own"
You can but neglect of duty can doubtless happen when you are overwhelmed with just trying to survive yourself fending off an invasion from the adjacent territory.
Normally I would agree with you. But right now in Sudan a non-violent revolution is occurring. The civilians are demanding a civilian government from Hemeti, the head of a militia that is responsible for war crimes in Darfur. Hemeti doesn't care what the western governments think, he is only beholden to the Gulf governments who are propping up the economy with money. They Gulf governments would prefer he uses force quickly and ruthlessly. His troops have used some violence, 4+ died about a week ago. But they haven't cleared the sit-in with their full force yet.
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.
The study claims, "between 1900-2006, campaigns of nonviolent civil resistance were twice as successful as violent campaigns", not that the former were always more successful than the latter.
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
Yeah, the determinant of the success of nonviolent movements is not the oppressiveness of the regime, it's the relative dependence on resources vs labour. Since it's much harder for the government to force everyone to go back to work than it is to throw a few violent people in jail, nonviolent movements can paralyze an economy and hold the government to account.
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.
Fascinating — I’d never heard of that before, and it seemed strange that any public opinion could sway the Nazi regime, but the Wikipedia page has a lot of references: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktion_T4
The Nazis were super-paranoid about public opinion, and made some fairly serious efforts to track it (on a population level, so not about individuals).
Next thing destruction of property is also called violence.
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.
Another case of violent successful resistance is the cuban revolution. My guess is only small changes that can be coopted/incorporated into current system can do so non-violently.
The statement about the successrate is based on the following database
>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
Stata is a pretty entrenched tool (never figured out myself what past colleagues got from using it, other than it was just what they had been trained on), but luckily there are software libraries that make it easy to import and then export to something else, such as R's `foreign`:
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.
A while back I read "The failure of non violence" by Peter Gelderloos on the topic who argued for the opposite. Not an academic work but I found it interesting to read about a different point of view.
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.
"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"
I read it best put in the book "Blueprint for Revolution" (which, believe it or not, was mentioned in Adam Grants' "Originals").
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.
A black bloc uncle old me once, that in political struggle you need a militant and a civil/political branch. With as little direct connection between the two as possible. One of his reasons was the one you pointed out. The other that the persons that participates in violent struggle, are a bad fit for dialogue and building something lasting up afterwards.
This is probably the reason why the Israeli state is so fearful of the BDS movement. Violent resistance is easy to quell, but reduced trade due to the boycott is harder to do something about. It is also hard to motivate how people exercising their right to not purchase goods for ethical reasons are acting in bad faith.
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.
Nonviolent or violent civil resistance can easily be co-opted by other actors like the CIA or KGB for their own nefarious agendas. Be wary of being pawns for assholes. Transforming your country into a liberal, democratic country requires the fact the country evolved itself into some sort of democracy. Not someone forced that on you through a manufactured war or revolution.
Popular protest is part of the evolution of a country into some sort of democracy, and it's generally much bigger assholes complaining that every popular protest against them is backed by the CIA/KGB/Iran/Saudis/neighbours (even when that claim has a grain of truth to it...)
Same with Serbia's Otpor! IIRC there was a fair bit of criticism of them within Serbia for taking American (if not CIA?) funding, and who knows whether that specific act was the right decision. But the did get rid of Milosevic, remarkably peacefully given the nature of the regime.
I had Otpor! Co-founder Srdja Popovic as a lecturer for a Harvard/JFK School course on non violent social change.
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.
We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community. Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self purification. We began a series of workshops on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves: "Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?" "Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?"
History class in U.S. high schools greatly emphasize the success of nonviolent protest, and it was surprising to me that they actually are twice as effective. I had recently come to the conclusion that this history lesson was mostly an intended plan to indoctrinate people away from tendencies to perform violent protest; it is nice to see that it is actually measureably correct.
Solidarity in Poland would be an outstanding example of successful non violent civil resistance that was a catalyst for a cascade of largely(but not entirely) non violent revolutions across Eastern Europe and Russia between 89-91.
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.
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.
Okay? You haven't shown that it's a meaningful comparison. What does it mean for nonviolent movements to be "twice as successful"? Nothing, because you can construct any arbitrary measure of movement or success.
There was also the Great War which they were instrumental at ending, and the Civil War which was propped up by other regimes. Way more bloody than the prelude to the revolution, which also included Tzarist oppression and slaughter of workers.
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
― 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.
Movements don't occur in vacuums where one tactic is explicitly used by the participants. The civil rights movement also had many acts of violent resistance with it. Trying to claim that any single tactic is more effective is simply not valuable because there will _never_ be a single tactic in use.
All this serves as academic masturbation on what tactics have been best used in the past. By all means, keep speculating what is the best way to enact change, but be aware that your academic theories aren't going to matter much to people who are actively being oppressed. Direct action gets the goods.
The article says that nonviolent civil resistance is effective
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'...)
Literally the first sentence of the video description:
> 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.
> but that doesn't defeat the point of the article.
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.
Sidenote: if you're ever a dictator somewhere, move your capital away from the big population centers. Invent some nutcase reason like "God told me to do it in a dream". Make sure that most inhabitants of your new capital are civil servants, whose livelihoods directly depend on your government's stability. Civil Resistance, violent or not, will be significantly less effective.
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.
Trump thought Washington should've named Mt. Vernon after himself https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/04/10/trump-wond...
> 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.
[1] Checked it, writing from there, and probably will be for few more months.
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 =(
Wow, what was the popular response to the name change?
China can't stay behind now, can they? Can't wait for Beijing to be renamed to Jinping.
> what was the popular response to the name change?
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"
Washington County was formed in 1801, two years after George died.
Though if you are at risk of US intervention you might be better off surrounded by human shields and the like.
Ankara.
Ankara became the capital as a result of it being the headquarters of the Turkish National Movement during Turkey's War of Independence. During the war, Constantinople was under control of the Ottoman Sultan, who was at that point a protectorate of the Entendre. Because Ankara was the base of operations for the republican government since its creation, it made much more sense for it to be the postwar capital than Istanbul.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_War_of_Independence
The nonviolent civil resistance is only effective when your opponent is a regime that is beholden to the opinion of its people or of the world. For oppressive opponents who don't actually care very much about human rights, nonviolent resistance is simply ineffective at all.
As she explains in the video, that was Erica Chenoweth's a priori guess too, before looking at the data. Her study, looking at all the available data from every resistance movement involving more than 1000 people since 1900, apparently suggests otherwise.
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.
And the replication crisis showes that 'empirical' social science that contradicts common sense should not be taken as fact.
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.
If you have a problem with the methodology or evidence presented here, then why not describe your issues? That would at least be useful. Unlike you, Chenoweth presents a substantial amount of evidence and reasoning.
Assuming that everything that comes from the social sciences is politically motivated exhibits reasoning as flawed as assuming the opposite.
In oppressive states protesters tend to just disappear and there is little evidence about their fate. Does the methodology correct for this?
The study's description says it makes a comparison against violent campaigns. Ostensibly, violent protesters also suffer from "just disappearing":
> 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.
I attempted to get access to the data which the study is based upon. They requested I register my e-mail address, name, organization in order to get access.
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’ve neither accepted nor rejected it, which is why I’m not going to spout off about it based on nothing but irrelevant generalities.
True enough on the not taking it as fact. I don't, though I think it carries more weight than so-called 'commonsense' (which I dont' share your apparent respect for). Obviously it should be subject to good empirical critique.
Exactly. Ghandi was very brave, it's true, but his success in India says as much about the British as it does about the power of nonviolence. Try the same stunt against ISIS or North Korea and you'll only achieve being shot out of hand.
I have a feeling you haven't read much British colonial history. Amritsar? Boer concentration camps? Indian emancipation had nothing to do with British goodness. It had much to do with mass uprisings, clever tactics, and more than a few blown-up railway lines.
The grandfather comment said and implied nothing about British goodness. It was a pragmatic decision.
I read taneq's (admittedly sketchy) comment as suggesting that the Gandhian part of the Indian independence struggle was effective not because of its nonviolent tactics, but because of the relatively benign nature of British colonial governance.
I'm not saying they were great, and definitely on an organisational level they did some evil things. But on an individual level, shooting an unarmed person in the face in cold blood generally just wasn't done in the same way as it would have been in some other regimes.
Massive exhaustion, inability, and unwillingness to maintain their colonial empire after losing the best part of two generations to European wars had the most to do with it.
Unfortunately, we are still dealing with the fallout of Britain's abdication of responsibility.
There was more then Ghandi and non violence affecting politics back then. He was not the only player over there and there were violent people seeking in dependence too.
Yeah, I wasn't saying that Ghandi did it alone or that the British were squeaky clean. In other situations against other adversaries, though, his approach would have just got him instantly shot. The fact that this never happened shows the general character of the British that he faced.
Ghandi was quite shrewd as to what he could get away with. He started protesting in South Africa in 1893 when they were probably not terribly nice to non whites.
Gene Sharp who pioneered studying non violent resistance wrote a book about it - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhi_as_a_Political_Strategi...
To think Indian independence came about with no threat of violence seems like a whitewashing of history. The British state chose to deal with the non-violent. But would they have bothered without the fear of violence?
The Brits gave up most of their colonies so probably. Though it was after being knocked back by a lot of real violence in WW2.
where do people get the idea that british were nice in India? They killed millions in WW2 famines alone (to fund the war campaign). The reprisals after 1857 mutiny is said to have killed 10 million Indians. Right there from two incidents you have 15 million deaths. British were much more save than the Nazis when it comes to genocide of "others", colonization, savagery etc. They get a free pass in the west as opposed to the Nazis simply because British killed Asians, Africans and Native Americans when Nazis killed fellow whites. This is pure racism.
As a Brit, I can confirm that there is a large section of our population that thinks the empire was a positive thing and pines for a return to it.
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.
I would say a large section of our population want to go back to a certain style of governance that they believe (true or not) was around during the empire, that of strong economic liberalism and free trade with the rest of the world. I'd say it's one of the big philosophical differences with the EU (its protectionism is its main defining characteristic, after all) that has led to the Brexit vote.
The number of people who want the empire back though, I reckon you could count those on one hand.
If it was about skin colour, the deaths of a million Irish in the Great Potato Famine would not be considered “totally different” to the deaths of 3-7 million in the Holodomor, also known as (Stalin’s) “Famine-Genocide in Ukraine”.
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).
Racism is not only about skin color. Nazi seen other whites as different race too - Jews, Slavic and British for that matter too.
I know. My response was in the context of (paraphrased) “why are systematic deaths of Asians, Africans and Native Americans at the hands of Caucasians given a free pass when the same crimes against Jews were correctly prosecuted?” — and that is a difference of skin colour.
Where did I mention skin color? I mentioned "others" and racism. In the case of Irish, it was religious fanaticism ("Others").
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.
The phrase that I saw was “killed fellow whites”.
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.
>> 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”?
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.
I wonder if we’ve been agreeing with each other this whole time?
Europe has not given itself a free pass when it comes to colonialism. For example, at the moment they're hiding a bell in Cambridge University lest it turns out to have formerly been used on a slave plantation. There was no government organised genocide in British colonial history that I know of, not even in Ireland in the 17th century where arguably the worst atrocities were carried out. Saying Britain killed millions in India in WW2 is complete hyperbole.
> Saying Britain killed millions in India in WW2 is complete hyperbole.
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.
two to three million is conservative estimates - from the famines in bengal, in world war 2 alone. There were other famines in India during WW2. There were other famines in India during british raj. There were other famines in other colonies.
The person I was responding to said words to the effect that they killed millions of people in India in order to win the war. That simply isn't true. An inadequate attempt to provide relief is not the same thing as actively killing people.
The person you were responding to is me, and yes, it is true that millions of indians were killed to fund war. The famine was directly caused by Briton redirecting the harvested grains and other resources from India for war efforts and scorched earth policies to counter the imminent Japanese invasion from the east (Japanese occupied Burma). Time and again it's whitewashed by blaming the poor people that died from whom the grains were forcefully collected, climate (disputed by everyone except the british and not supported by soil analysis or climate models), and the Japanese.
You are very certain about something about which they're is no consensus amongst even Indian commentators. Some refer to policy failures. No one apart from you is call it a deliberate killing of millions. I'm not sure why you feel the need to be so vehement about it.
Define 'consensus'. In anycase I dont see that a fruitful line of argument. I can easily dismiss smoking causes cancer by adopting such a line.
Consensus as in agreement and no, you cannot easily dismiss smoking causing cancer in that way. There is a scientific basis for the latter. For the former, some commentators are attributing the famine to a malicious intent whereas others attribute it to a policy failure. British policy at that time in that place was focused on preventing a Japanese invasion of India. If that policy had failed and Bengal had been invaded, the fate of the people there would very likely have been worse. Britain was in a tight spot at that time, doubtless things could have been handled better but there were a lot of mitigating factors. Referring to it as a deliberate killing millions of people to win the war is just plain wrong
> Consensus as in agreement
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.
I am saying there is no consensus because there are different conclusions about the situation drawn by different scholars. You are saying that's not a convincing approach to take, that you could do the same about tobacco, which I don't believe, actually. You then proceed to state your opinion as fact despite it being most likely the result of a, relatively speaking, cursory reading of others' writings on the topic. What leads you to dismiss the views of other scholars who happen to have come to a different conclusion on the Bengal famine?
So what is it that differentiates yor denial from WWII holocaust denials. If you take them into account one can argue, just like you have that there is no 'consensus'. I dont find your arguments anymore illuminating than theirs.
Regarding tobacco there is no need to believe or disbelieve. You can just checkout 25 years of scientific research, many funded by the tobacco companies.
Pray tell us what is it that I claimed as a fact in my comment above that is not a fact. Are we disputing meaning of 'deliberate' or are we disputing that food supply redirection happened on its own without deliberation ... like by way of mysterious magic.
What makes you think my knowledge about these matters is limited to previous comments. BTW there were more than one British sponsored famine in Bengal so do educate yourself before you jump to defend.
Firstly, you're the one who keeps going off on tangents, first on tobacco, then on the Holocaust and finally on other British "sponsored" famine in Bengal none of which are relevant. Even a cursory googling of the 1943 famine will demonstrate that the causes for it are far from settled as far as the academic community are concerned. You, however seem to have no doubts on the matter. That doesn't inspire me to believe that your knowledge of it runs deep, rather the opposite in fact.
Tobacco and WWII holocausts are relevant to the style of your argument. Your argument was there is no 'consensus'. What I am pointing out is your argument is no different from the scholarship that continues to deny Jewish holocaust and deny that tobacco causes cancer. My respect for such denial arguments are roughly equal. Can you explain why the other famines are not relevant when we are on the topic of British excesses and resistance movements that led to independence. Are the lives lost to the other famines less valuable ? The death toll for the 18th century British made Bengal famine is around 10 million about 5 to 6 times more than the 1943 one.
You still have not clarified which part of deliberate you are contesting. Are you saying destruction of grains and diverting of supplies were not deliberate ? I presume it does not come as a surprise that denial of foodgrain causes starvation and death. Or is your position that the British tjought the 'natives' do not deserve/ need those ?
"Oops we did not realize you guys need to eat too, sorry cant have that, the Japs are coming, enjoy the scorched earth. BTW nothing is deliberate the grains self destruct or runaway on their own"
I think you've gone completely over the top there, old boy. I'm out, cheerio!
> An inadequate attempt to provide relief is not the same thing as actively killing people.
You can kill by neglect. I don't think you can simply dismiss the accusation as "complete hyperbole".
You can but neglect of duty can doubtless happen when you are overwhelmed with just trying to survive yourself fending off an invasion from the adjacent territory.
Normally I would agree with you. But right now in Sudan a non-violent revolution is occurring. The civilians are demanding a civilian government from Hemeti, the head of a militia that is responsible for war crimes in Darfur. Hemeti doesn't care what the western governments think, he is only beholden to the Gulf governments who are propping up the economy with money. They Gulf governments would prefer he uses force quickly and ruthlessly. His troops have used some violence, 4+ died about a week ago. But they haven't cleared the sit-in with their full force yet.
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.
The study claims, "between 1900-2006, campaigns of nonviolent civil resistance were twice as successful as violent campaigns", not that the former were always more successful than the latter.
Actually I would argue exactly the opposite.
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
Yeah, the determinant of the success of nonviolent movements is not the oppressiveness of the regime, it's the relative dependence on resources vs labour. Since it's much harder for the government to force everyone to go back to work than it is to throw a few violent people in jail, nonviolent movements can paralyze an economy and hold the government to account.
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.
It's a messy example but in Myanmar/Burma the government used to be pretty uncaring and oppressive but eventually enacted democratic reforms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011%E2%80%932015_Myanmar_poli...
In an interesting example, Nazi Germany actually scaled back their T4 "euthanasia" murder project because of popular protests.
Fascinating — I’d never heard of that before, and it seemed strange that any public opinion could sway the Nazi regime, but the Wikipedia page has a lot of references: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktion_T4
There was also the Rosenstrasse protest, where a group of non-Jewish women managed to get their Jewish husbands released.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenstrasse_protest
The Nazis were super-paranoid about public opinion, and made some fairly serious efforts to track it (on a population level, so not about individuals).
Next thing destruction of property is also called violence.
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.
Another case of violent successful resistance is the cuban revolution. My guess is only small changes that can be coopted/incorporated into current system can do so non-violently.
If you are going to count freeing slaves as violent then you have an odd definition of violence.
It was "loss of property" by law... It's not my def, it's the def-by-law of those days.
The statement about the successrate is based on the following database
>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...
So it seems like you need some proprietary thing called Stata 11 to see the data. I think I'm just going to continue being profoundly sceptical.
Stata is a pretty entrenched tool (never figured out myself what past colleagues got from using it, other than it was just what they had been trained on), but luckily there are software libraries that make it easy to import and then export to something else, such as R's `foreign`:
https://www.statmethods.net/input/importingdata.html
In addition to the R reader already mentioned, Pandas (python) can also read Stata out of the box.
This seems incomplete.
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.
A while back I read "The failure of non violence" by Peter Gelderloos on the topic who argued for the opposite. Not an academic work but I found it interesting to read about a different point of view.
I skimmed the first 6 pages here: https://web.stanford.edu/group/peacejustice/Gelderloos-Failu...
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.
See also The Great Leveler by Scheidel:
"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...
I read it best put in the book "Blueprint for Revolution" (which, believe it or not, was mentioned in Adam Grants' "Originals").
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueprint_for_Revolution
A black bloc uncle old me once, that in political struggle you need a militant and a civil/political branch. With as little direct connection between the two as possible. One of his reasons was the one you pointed out. The other that the persons that participates in violent struggle, are a bad fit for dialogue and building something lasting up afterwards.
This is probably the reason why the Israeli state is so fearful of the BDS movement. Violent resistance is easy to quell, but reduced trade due to the boycott is harder to do something about. It is also hard to motivate how people exercising their right to not purchase goods for ethical reasons are acting in bad faith.
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.
Nonviolent or violent civil resistance can easily be co-opted by other actors like the CIA or KGB for their own nefarious agendas. Be wary of being pawns for assholes. Transforming your country into a liberal, democratic country requires the fact the country evolved itself into some sort of democracy. Not someone forced that on you through a manufactured war or revolution.
Popular protest is part of the evolution of a country into some sort of democracy, and it's generally much bigger assholes complaining that every popular protest against them is backed by the CIA/KGB/Iran/Saudis/neighbours (even when that claim has a grain of truth to it...)
CIA covertly backed Solidarity with non violent aid.
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?
Same with Serbia's Otpor! IIRC there was a fair bit of criticism of them within Serbia for taking American (if not CIA?) funding, and who knows whether that specific act was the right decision. But the did get rid of Milosevic, remarkably peacefully given the nature of the regime.
I had Otpor! Co-founder Srdja Popovic as a lecturer for a Harvard/JFK School course on non violent social change.
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.
Yes well, that's real-world experience in spades - actually taking part in deposing a regime!
We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community. Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self purification. We began a series of workshops on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves: "Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?" "Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?"
https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham....
History class in U.S. high schools greatly emphasize the success of nonviolent protest, and it was surprising to me that they actually are twice as effective. I had recently come to the conclusion that this history lesson was mostly an intended plan to indoctrinate people away from tendencies to perform violent protest; it is nice to see that it is actually measureably correct.
Solidarity in Poland would be an outstanding example of successful non violent civil resistance that was a catalyst for a cascade of largely(but not entirely) non violent revolutions across Eastern Europe and Russia between 89-91.
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.
> Not only are non violent movements twice as successful(on average)
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...
It is a perfectly meaningful comparison.
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.
Okay? You haven't shown that it's a meaningful comparison. What does it mean for nonviolent movements to be "twice as successful"? Nothing, because you can construct any arbitrary measure of movement or success.
It's actually quite simple and easy.
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.
There was violence before October revolution and bulk of it performed by the same people who got violent after.
There was also the Great War which they were instrumental at ending, and the Civil War which was propped up by other regimes. Way more bloody than the prelude to the revolution, which also included Tzarist oppression and slaughter of workers.
I am saying that exactly same people who got violent after non-violent revolution were violent before it.
Not some other people in the same geographical area. The same people.
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
― 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.
These kinds of articles are always odd to me.
Movements don't occur in vacuums where one tactic is explicitly used by the participants. The civil rights movement also had many acts of violent resistance with it. Trying to claim that any single tactic is more effective is simply not valuable because there will _never_ be a single tactic in use.
All this serves as academic masturbation on what tactics have been best used in the past. By all means, keep speculating what is the best way to enact change, but be aware that your academic theories aren't going to matter much to people who are actively being oppressed. Direct action gets the goods.
The article says that nonviolent civil resistance is effective
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'...)
Literally the first sentence of the video description:
> 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.
> but that doesn't defeat the point of the article.
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.
What drivel.
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?