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Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict

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Erica Chenoweth;Maria J. Stephan

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“In countries in which violent insurgencies have been victorious, we find, however that the country is much less likely to become a peaceful democracy after the conflict has ended. On the other hand, in analogous countries where mass, nonviolent campaigns have occurred, we see a much higher rate of postconflict democracies and a much lower rate of relapse into civil war. This does not mean that there will not be any sharp political contention or democratic backsliding following a successful nonviolent transition. But it does mean that political contention is more likely to transpire through nonviolent channels. Some may cite the American Revolution against the British as a counterexample to the above assertion. It should be remembered, however, that the armed insurgency against British forces, notably in the form of guerrilla warfare, was preceded by a decade of parallel institution building, nonviolent boycotts, civil disobedience, noncooperation, and other nation-building methods.”

WarPeaceDemocracyAmerican RevolutionNation BuildingNonviolent ResistanceGuerrilla WarfareViolent Insurgency
Book:Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict
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“The alternative to violence is nonviolent resistance. This method was made famous in our generation by Mohandas K. Gandhi, who used it to free India from the domination of the British empire. Five points can be made concerning nonviolence as a method in bringing about better racial conditions. First, this is not a method for cowards; it does resist. The nonviolent resister is just as strongly opposed to the evil against which he protests as the person who uses violence. His method is passive or nonaggressive in the sense that he is not physically aggressive toward his opponent. But his mind and emotions are always active, constantly seeking to persuade the opponent that he is mistaken. This method is passive physically but strongly active spiritually; it is nonaggressive physically but dynamically aggressive spiritually. A second point is that nonviolent resistance does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding. The nonviolent resister must often express his protest through noncooperation or boycotts, but he realizes that noncooperation and boycotts are not ends themselves; they are merely means to awaken a sense of moral shame in the opponent. The end is redemption and reconciliation. The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community, while the aftermath of violence is tragic bitterness. A third characteristic of this method is that the attack is directed against forces of evil rather than against persons who are caught in those forces. It is evil we are seeking to defeat, not just the persons victimized by evil. Those of us who struggle against racial injustice must come to see that the basic tension is not between races. As I like to say to the people in Montgomery, Alabama: ‘The tension in this city is not between white people and Negro people. The tension is at bottom between justice and injustice, between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. And if there is a victory it will be a victory not merely for fifty thousand Negroes, but a victory for justice and the forces of light. We are out to defeat injustice and not white persons who may happen to be unjust.’ A fourth point that must be brought out concerning nonviolent resistance is that it avoids not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. At the center of nonviolence stands the principle of love. In struggling for human dignity, the oppressed people of the world must not allow themselves to become bitter or indulge in hate campaigns. To retaliate with hate and bitterness would do nothing but intensify the hate in the world. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can be done only by projecting the ethics of love to the center of our lives.”

ResistanceCivil RightsNonviolenceNonviolent Resistance
Author:Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
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“According to her [Erica Chenoweth's] data, “no campaigns failed once they’d achieved the active and sustained participation of just 3.5 percent of the population—and lots of them succeeded with far less than that.” Further, she notes, “Every single campaign that did surpass that 3.5 percent threshold was a nonviolent one. In fact, campaigns that relied solely on nonviolent methods were on average four times larger than the average violent campaign. And they were often much more representative in terms of gender, age, race, political party, class, and urban-rural distinctions.”

Nonviolent ResistanceNonviolent Conflict ResolutionPolitical ParticipationPolitical CampaignsCivil ResistanceErica Chenoweth
Book:The Moral Arc: How Science Makes Us Better People
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“When, for decades, you have been able to make a man compromise his manhood by threatening him with a cruel and unjust punishment, and when suddenly he turns upon you and says: "Punish me. I do not deserve it. But because I do not deserve it, I will accept it so that the world will know that I am right and you are wrong," you hardly know what to do. You feel defeated and secretly ashamed. You know that this man is as good a man as you are; that from some mysterious source he has found the courage and the conviction to meet physical force with soul force.”

RacismNonviolenceAfrican AmericansBlacksNonviolent Resistance
Book:Why We Can't Wait
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