Introducing the Strategies of Resistance Data Project

Abstract

This article introduces the Strategies of Resistance Data Project (SRDP), a global dataset on organizational behavior in self-determination disputes. This dataset is actor-focused and spans periods of relative peace and violence in self-determination conflicts. By linking tactics to specific actors in broader campaigns for political change, we can better understand how these struggles unfold over time, and the conditions under which organizations use conventional politics, violent tactics, nonviolent tactics, or some combination of these. SRDP comprises 1,124 organizations participating in movements for greater national self-determination around the world, from 1960 to 2005. Despite the fact that few self-determination movements engage in mass nonviolent campaigns, SRDP shows that more organizations employ nonviolent tactics at some point in time (about 40%) than employ violence (about 30%). Many organizations switch among tactics or use both at the same time. This dataset will allow analysts to examine the use of different combinations of tactics and patterns of change. We compare the data with the most-used dataset on nonviolence, the NAVCO 2.0 Data Project, to demonstrate what we gain by employing an organization-level dataset on tactics. We present a set of descriptive analyses highlighting the utility of the SRDP, including an examination of tactic switching. We show that more organizations change from violence to nonviolence than the reverse – challenging the widely held assumption that organizations ‘resort’ to violence. SRDP allows scholars to examine organizational choices about tactics, and trends in these tactics, with much greater nuance.

Updating nonviolent campaigns: Introducing NAVCO 2.1

“…However, the most meaningful impacts of contentious mobilization result from continuous campaigns rather than one-off events (Chenoweth & Lewis, 2013). Second, many existing databases have limited geographic scope (Asal, Johnson & Wilkenfeld, 2008; Chenoweth, Pinckney & Lewis, 2018; Salehyan et al, 2012; Raleigh et al, 2010), are limited by regime type (Weidmann & Rød, 2017) or campaign-type (Cunningham, Dahl & Fruge, 2020), or provide coverage only through 2006 (Chenoweth, 2011; Chenoweth & Lewis, 2013). Campaign-level databases with global coverage (Chenoweth, 2011; Chenoweth, 2021) present data at a highly aggregated unit of analysis, obscuring important variation on key attributes within multiyear campaigns.…”

Introducing the Anatomy of Resistance Campaigns (ARC) dataset

“…ARC is distinct from existing resources because it provides information on the features of organizations that participated in nonviolent and violent dissent, while also going beyond self-determination or ethnonationalist movements (Cunningham, Dahl & Frugé, 2020; Wilkenfeld, Asal & Pate, 2011), or armed groups alone (Braithwaite & Cunningham, 2020; Cunningham, 2013; Cunningham, Gleditsch & Salehyan, 2009; Harbom, Melander & Wallensteen, 2008; Pettersson & Öberg, 2020; Stewart, 2018; Svensson & Nilsson, 2018). Events datasets often identify participating actors, but lack information on their features (Chenoweth, Pinckney & Lewis, 2018; Chenoweth, Hendrix & Hunter, 2019; Clark & Regan, 2021; Raleigh et al, 2010; Salehyan et al, 2012).…”

Violent Political Protest: Introducing a New Uppsala Conflict Data Program Data Set on Organized Violence, 1989-2019

“…The Strategies of Resistance Data Project (SRDP) is a global data set on organizational behavior in self-determination disputes. It includes organization-year data on self-determination movements covering the time-period 1960-2005, and includes a broad scope of resistance strategies, including boycotts, sit-ins, and low-risk type of protest behavior (Cunningham 2011, 2013, Cunningham, Dahl, and Frugé 2020). 5 The Mass Mobilization in Autocracies Database (MMAD 2.0) covers the time-period 2003-2015.…”