TIL Erica Chenoweth et al. studied over 323 movements and found that in aggregate, nonviolent civil resistance was far more effective in producing change
TIL Erica Chenoweth et al. studied over 323 movements and found that in aggregate, nonviolent civil resistance was far more effective in producing change
Harvard Professor Erica Chenoweth discovers nonviolent civil resistance is far more successful in effecting change than violent campaigns.
Erica Chenoweth initially thought that only violent protests were effective. However after analyzing 323 movements the results were opposite of what Erica thought:
For the next two years, Chenoweth and Stephan collected data on all violent and nonviolent campaigns from 1900 to 2006 that resulted in the overthrow of a government or in territorial liberation. They created a data set of 323 mass actions. Chenoweth analyzed nearly 160 variables related to success criteria, participant categories, state capacity, and more. The results turned her earlier paradigm on its head — in the aggregate, nonviolent civil resistance was far more effective in producing change.
If campaigns allow their repression to throw the movement into total disarray or they use it as a pretext to militarize their campaign, then they’re essentially co-signing what the regime wants — for the resisters to play on its own playing field. And they’re probably going to get totally crushed.
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Its kind of pithy but like we still live in a capitalist hellscape, so have any resistances really been successful?
Well it's illegal to enslave people, beat your spouse, or force your "possessions" to shit in each other's mouths as punishment, so I'm going to say we've had some minor successes, yes.
But those were achieved with violence, and before 1900
It's really shocking how LITTLE tangible progress has been made in the last 100 years. Minor concessions that do make peoples lives a little less terrible, but we haven't made anyone's life GOOD aside from the rich. Literally not a single class of people are better off.
Well no the poorest are definitely doing better
That's mostly thanks to science and technology, but still.
My parents still remember the days before many vaccines were common for example. And extreme hunger has definitely gone down. My dad comments how crazy it is there's now electricity everywhere where he used to live.
These could have been solved by now of course, but at least they aren't as bad as they used to be.
You are correct. But I swear all of that is despite societies best efforts.
Except it isn't illegal to enslave people. It is 100% legal if used as punishment for a crime as decided by the state. It is literally encoded into the 13th Amendment
Those "successes" are simply concessions from the state to lull the population back into complacency.