Question

Do you think a non-violent movement is more effective than a violent one? Explain.​

Answer 1

Answer:

One of the perennial themes of this blog is the idea that crises may provide an opportunity for progressive change. True. But I’ve always been nervous that such hopes can forget that most conflicts cause far more human misery than any good that may come.

This is something that Duncan and I have (non-violently) tussled about over the years. So imagine my delight when I saw a recent report that seems to back up my caution. The International Center on Nonviolent Conflict’s paper on Nonviolent Resistance and Prevention of Mass Killings looked at 308 popular uprisings up to 2013. It found that “nonviolent uprisings are almost three times less likely than violent rebellions to encounter mass killings,” which faced such brutal repression nearly 68% of the time. The authors, Erica Chenoweth and Evan Perkoski, think this is because violent campaigns threaten leaders and security forces alike, encouraging them to “hold on to power at any cost, even ordering or carrying out a mass atrocity in an attempt to survive.”

There is a positive lesson here, that nonviolence works – at least better than violence. This builds on Chenoweth’s earlier study, which suggested that between 2000 and 2006, 70% of nonviolent campaigns succeeded, five times the success rate for violent ones. Looking back over the 20th century, she found that non-violent campaigns succeeded 53% of the time, compared with 26% for violent resistance.