"Why Civil Resistance Works"
a book by Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan
"Why Civil Resistance Works"
This article summarizes a very good interview with Chenoweth on The Bulwark about her research into overthrowing autocratic regimes. A lot of it quotes from her interview and of course, the insights and analysis belong completely to Chenoweth and Stephan.
The 3.5% Rule of Non-Violent Political Change
More Effective
Civil non-violence resistance wins almost three times more often in overthrowing autocratic regimes over violent resistance.
These take the form of strikes and protests
People are more likely to join non-violent protests, and it helps to elicit defections from the party in power.
Mass Participation
Every autocrat has to depend on pillars of support: business community, security forces, civil servants and state media.
Non-violent resistance begins to tap into those pillars and tears apart those pillars’ loyalties. Then defections start to happen from the autocrat’s pillars of support: police refusing to fire, refusing to comply with an order.
3.5% is critical threshhold of population participation. Non-violent movements tap into cultural and economic networks to get defections from the autocrat’s supporters. An example of such a network in action would be a police officer seeing a neighbor in the crowd he is ordered to fire upon. He knows the guy and his kids. He knows that neighbor is a good person. He defies the order.
Strategy Behind Non-Violent Resistance
Backfire
Non-violent resistance makes repression backfire against non-violent protesters. People don’t like to see peaceful people get beaten and shot, apparently.
General strike
As you’ll remember from a previous article, The 45 Steps to Hitler’s Germany, a general strike was a big fear of the Nazis. According to Chenoweth and Stephan’s book, general strikes are the most powerful form of collective action. It is a large group that has tapped into different networks and organizations. The key is tapping into the sources of influence and social power in a very large, broad-based way.
Keeping It Non-Violent
A movement with factions within the movement are more likely to have one faction turn to violence. It is essential that there be a united non-violent movement to keep this from happening.
Discipline
Organizational and tactical discipline are needed. Like the civil rights movement, people need to be trained and prepared. The messaging needs to focus on the goals, so “Defund the police” type messaging doesn’t derail popular support for the movement. More than that, the autocrats will look for ways to tarnish the protesters and misrepresent their intentions. Don’t hand them the ammo.
Protest is Persuasion
One very important point Chenoweth made is that the protests themselves are part of the mass persuasion of the public. That’s why looting and burning cars really hurts the resistance.
Direct Cost to Supporters of Autocrat
The actions of resistance need to cause direct costs to the supporters of the autocrat. That’s why shutting down the economy is such a powerful tool. Of course, my handy-dandy recipe for electronic resistance would work, too.
Read the article here.
Alternative Institutions
You can’t just throw economic stones, apparently. You need to create alternative institutions to replace the ones that are not functioning.
Any ideas how to do that?