Previous research has shown that successful non-violent resistance (NVR) campaigns promote democracy compared with violent revolutions and top-down liberalization. However, research to date has not examined the character and quality of the democratic regimes following NVR campaigns, or evaluated the mechanisms that produce this effect. In this paper, we address this gap by analyzing the effect of NVR on the quality of democracy, using the Polyarchy index from the Varieties of Democracies project and its sub-components: (1) elected executive; (2) free and fair elections; (3) freedom of expression; (4) associational autonomy; and (5) inclusive citizenship. Using kernel matching and differences-in-differences estimation we find that initiating a democratic transition through NVR improves democratic quality after transition significantly and substantially relative to cases without this characteristic. Our analysis of the Polyarchy index’s sub-components reveals that this positive effect comes about primarily owing to improvements in freedom of expression and associational autonomy. This finding speaks to the strength of NVR in promoting expressive dimensions of democracy.
Although the empirical study of strategic nonviolent action has expanded in recent years, no current dataset provides detailed accounts of the day-to-day methods and tactics used by various nonviolent and violent actors seeking political change. We introduce the Nonviolent and Violent Campaigns and Outcomes (NAVCO) version 3.0 dataset, which assembles over 100,000 hand-coded observations of nonviolent and violent methods in 21 countries around the world between 1991 and 2012. Researchers can use these data and their associated coding framework to (1) replicate or challenge existing findings about nonviolent and violent action; (2) test or uncover novel insights about the dynamics of violent and nonviolent action; and (3) recode existing protest events databases to capture specific variations in risk and disruption across event types. In particular, scholars can use these data to better understand which types of lower-level interactions between dissidents and regimes lead to large-scale mobilization; which sequences of nonviolent methods are most effective; and which types of spatial and participation diffusion yield the highest likelihood of success.
Do peacekeeping missions facilitate nonviolent political contention in post–civil war countries? The nonviolent expression of political grievances is a crucial part of the post–civil war peace-building process but is understudied thus far. We claim that the presence of peacekeepers significantly contributes to establishing a secure environment for nonviolent political contention, particularly nonviolent public protest. In addition, we claim that peacekeeping missions with personnel from countries with robust civil societies are more likely to promote nonviolent political contention because of prior socialization to civic engagement and bottom-top political participation. This is particularly true for UN police personnel (UNPOL), who both train local police forces and have the most direct interaction with protesters. We test our hypotheses using a newly crafted dataset on nonviolent protests in post–civil war countries and peacekeeping missions’ presence, size, and home-country composition. We find that peacekeeping missions’ presence significantly increases nonviolent protests in post–civil war country-years. This effect is largely explained by the presence of UNPOL from countries with strong civil societies. Our findings have important implications for our understanding of post–civil war political revitalization and policy implications for the composition of peacekeeping missions.
When are episodes of resistance likely to lead to democratization? We argue that the participation of durable organizations rooted in quotidian relationships that are not themselves designed to compete for political power (what we call “quotidian civil society organizations,” QCSOs) drives successful democratic transitions. QCSOs are more likely to have stable preferences for democracy and durable mobilization structures that create greater accountability for new elites during political transitions and thus make shifts to democracy more likely compared to movements dominated by other organization types, such as political parties. Quantitative tests using novel data on the composition of resistance movements in Africa from 1990 to 2015 support these arguments. Older QCSOs and those independent from opposition political parties and the state also appear to be the most likely to engender democratization.
We introduce the Anatomy of Resistance Campaigns (ARC) dataset, which records information on 1,426 organizations that participated in events of maximalist violent and nonviolent contention in Africa from 1990 to 2015. The ARC dataset contains 17 variables covering organization-level features such as type, age, leadership, goals, and interorganizational alliances. These data facilitate new measurements of key concepts in the study of contentious politics, such as the social and ideological diversity of resistance episodes, in addition to measures of network centralization and fragmentation. The ARC dataset helps resolve existing debates in the field and opens new avenues of inquiry.
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