The Role of External Support in Nonviolent Campaigns
The Role of External Support in Nonviolent Campaigns

Author: Erica Chenoweth

Publisher:

Published: 2021-02-04

Total Pages: 108

ISBN-13: 9781943271368

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Nonviolent campaigns usually take place in complex domestic and international settings, where support from outside actors can be a double-edged sword. We argue that nonviolent campaigns tend to benefit the most from external assistance that allows them to generate high participation, maintain nonviolent discipline, deter crackdowns, and elicit security force defections. But various forms of external assistance have mixed effects on the characteristics and outcomes of nonviolent campaigns. We use original qualitative and quantitative data to examine the ways that external assistance impacted the characteristics and success rates of post-2000 maximalist uprisings. Among other findings, we argue that long-term investment in civil society and democratic institutions can strengthen the societal foundations for nonviolent movements; that activists who receive training prior to peak mobilization are much more likely to mobilize campaigns with high participation, low fatalities, and greater likelihood of defections; that donor coordination is important to be able to effectively support and leverage nonviolent campaigns; and that concurrent external support to armed groups tends to undermine nonviolent movements in numerous ways. Flexible donor assistance that supports safe spaces for campaign planning and relationship-building, and multilateral diplomatic pressure that mitigates regime repression can be particularly helpful for nonviolent campaigns.

Why Civil Resistance Works
Why Civil Resistance Works

Author: Erica Chenoweth

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2011-08-09

Total Pages: 451

ISBN-13: 0231527489

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For more than a century, from 1900 to 2006, campaigns of nonviolent resistance were more than twice as effective as their violent counterparts in achieving their stated goals. By attracting impressive support from citizens, whose activism takes the form of protests, boycotts, civil disobedience, and other forms of nonviolent noncooperation, these efforts help separate regimes from their main sources of power and produce remarkable results, even in Iran, Burma, the Philippines, and the Palestinian Territories. Combining statistical analysis with case studies of specific countries and territories, Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan detail the factors enabling such campaigns to succeed and, sometimes, causing them to fail. They find that nonviolent resistance presents fewer obstacles to moral and physical involvement and commitment, and that higher levels of participation contribute to enhanced resilience, greater opportunities for tactical innovation and civic disruption (and therefore less incentive for a regime to maintain its status quo), and shifts in loyalty among opponents' erstwhile supporters, including members of the military establishment. Chenoweth and Stephan conclude that successful nonviolent resistance ushers in more durable and internally peaceful democracies, which are less likely to regress into civil war. Presenting a rich, evidentiary argument, they originally and systematically compare violent and nonviolent outcomes in different historical periods and geographical contexts, debunking the myth that violence occurs because of structural and environmental factors and that it is necessary to achieve certain political goals. Instead, the authors discover, violent insurgency is rarely justifiable on strategic grounds.

Civil Resistance
Civil Resistance

Author: Erica Chenoweth

Publisher: What Everyone Needs to Know(r)

Published: 2021-03-05

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 0190244399

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Exploring both historical cases of civil resistance and more contemporary examples such as the Arab Awakenings and various ongoing movements in the United States, Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know® provides a comprehensive and engaging review of the current field of knowledge.

Civil Action and the Dynamics of Violence
Civil Action and the Dynamics of Violence

Author: Deborah Avant

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2019-08-28

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0190056916

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Many view civil wars as violent contests between armed combatants. But history shows that community groups, businesses, NGOs, local governments, and even armed groups can respond to war by engaging in civil action. Characterized by a reluctance to resort to violence and a willingness to show enough respect to engage with others, civil action can slow, delay, or prevent violent escalations. This volume explores how people in conflict environments engage in civil action, and the ways such action has affected violence dynamics in Syria, Peru, Kenya, Northern Ireland, Mexico, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Spain, and Colombia. These cases highlight the critical and often neglected role that civil action plays in conflicts around the world.

Civilian Jihad
Civilian Jihad

Author: M. Stephan

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2009-12-07

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 0230101755

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This book examines the role of nonviolent civil resistance in challenging tyranny and promoting democratic-self rule in the greater Middle East using case studies and analyses of how religion, youth, women, technology and external actors have influenced the outcome of civil resistance in the region.

Strategic Nonviolent Conflict
Strategic Nonviolent Conflict

Author: Peter Ackerman

Publisher: Praeger

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13:

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Nonviolent action, well planned and implemented, is shown in this lucid, timely, and compelling work to effect dramatic outcomes against opponents utilizing violence. Ackerman and Kruegler recognize that not all nonviolent efforts meet with success and they are careful to stress that a nonviolent approach involves great risks as well as opportunities. It is the effectiveness of the strategies employed which will determine whether those using nonviolent means can prevail against opponents who rely on violence in pursuit of objectives. Twelve principles of strategic nonviolence are established in this book--they serve as a conceptual foundation and enhance the prospects of success in nonviolent campaigns of resistance. The authors also develop six twentieth century examples of nonviolent action from the early Russian Revolution of 1904-1906 through the Solidarity movement in 1980-1981. Each campaign narrative constitutes a fascinating reading experience and illustrates common themes, strategies, and important aspects of behavior on the part of major participants in nonviolent encounters. This is a singularly important book. It offers more than a mere plea for nonviolence. Ackerman and Kruegler provide hard lessons based on important, and often painful, historical efforts: principles to govern the choice and implementation of strategies when nonviolence is the determined response; and insightful analysis to guide assessment and policy. Finally, the authors consider the evolving international situation and relate current themes and policies to the potential inherent in astute and deliberate programs of nonviolence. A work which will focus analysis, impact decision-making, stimulate policy consideration, and invigorate research, this volume will well serve professionals and students in international relations and numerous related fields.

Civil Resistance
Civil Resistance

Author: Kurt Schock

Publisher:

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780816694921

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In the past quarter century the world has witnessed dramatic social and political transformations, due in part to an upsurge in civil resistance. There have been significant uprisings around the globe, including the toppling of communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the Color Revolutions, the Arab Spring, protests against war and economic inequality, countless struggles against corruption, and demands for more equitable distribution of land. These actions have attracted substantial scholarly attention, reflected in the growth of literature on social movements and revolution as well as literature on nonviolent resistance. Until now, however, the two bodies of literature have largely developed in parallel--with relatively little acknowledgment of the existence of the other. In this useful collection, an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars takes stock of the current state of the theoretical and empirical literature on civil resistance. Contributors analyze key processes of nonviolent struggle and identify both frictions and points of synthesis between the narrower literature on civil resistance and the broader literature on social movements and revolution. By doing so, Civil Resistance: Comparative Perspectives on Nonviolent Struggle pushes the boundaries of the study of civil resistance and generates social scientific knowledge that will be helpful for all scholars and activists concerned with democracy, human rights, and social justice.

Powering to Peace
Powering to Peace

Author: Veronique Dudouet

Publisher:

Published: 2017-04-24

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9781943271320

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This report explores the complementary ideas and practices that civil resistance and peacebuilding approaches present, each from different points along the conflict transformation spectrum. Both strategies oppose violence in all its forms, and seek to pursue just peace by peaceful means. However, they take different approaches to conflict transformation, both in their analyses of the primary causes of violence and how they respond to conflict. The report then describes how civil resistance and peacebuilding can work in tandem throughout the four stages of transformation of asymmetric conflicts. Concrete examples are provided to illustrate the respective functions of constructive conflict (through civil resistance) and conflict mitigation (through peacebuilding) in transitions from latent to overt conflict, from resistance to dialogue and negotiation, and from conflict settlement to sustainable peace. It highlights in particular: the crucial importance of civil resistance as a violence prevention/mitigation instrument and as a pre-negotiation strategy for oppressed groups, enabling them to wage necessary conflicts through nonviolent means, thereby putting pressure on incumbent elites to redistribute power equitably; the usefulness of peacebuilding's conflict mitigation methods to translate civil resistance gains into mutually acceptable negotiated outcomes and to reconcile polarized relationships in the wake of nonviolent struggles; and the need for sustained civil resistance in post-conflict or post-war societies in order to prevent and oppose autocratic backlashes, to resist anti-emancipatory, and 'neoliberal' tendencies within post-war peacebuilding operations, or to put pressure on all stakeholders to implement their commitments to progressive state reforms and social justice. The conclusion highlights takeaways for researchers, nonviolent activists and educators, peacebuilding practitioners and international agencies seeking to support constructive, effective conflict transformation.