Understanding nonviolent resistance

Abstract

The events of the Arab Spring of 2011 have made clear the importance and potential efficacy of nonviolent resistance, as well as the field’s inability to explain the onset and outcome of major nonviolent uprisings. Until recently, conflict scholars have largely ignored nonviolent resistance. This issue features new theoretical and empirical explorations of the causes and consequences of nonviolent resistance, stressing the role that unarmed, organized civilians can play in shaping the course of conflicts. Contributors demonstrate the importance of treating nonviolent and violent strategies, as well as conventional politics strategies, as alternative choices for engaging the state, show how gender ideology can influence which opposition groups use nonviolent resistance, and suggest that the causes of civil war and nonviolent resistance often differ. Other pieces highlight the role of public attitudes regarding whether nonviolent resistance and violence are employed, how experience with activism and repression by the state can shape activists’ perceptions of justice, and how the perceptions of resistance leaders can influence strategic choices. Moreover, several articles examine the key role that security force defections can play in the success of nonviolent resistance, how micro-level nonviolent tactics can improve security in civil war, and how nonviolent campaigns can influence the stability of autocratic states. These contributions suggest that rigorous empirical study of civilian-based contentious politics (rather than only violent contention by armed non-state actors) must be incorporated into the conflict literature. Improved theory and data on the subject will help researchers and policymakers to shape strategies to support these movements when appropriate, and to manage changes in the international system that result from the success of nonviolent uprisings.

Cascades of Violence: War, Crime and Peacebuilding Across South Asia

“…More than 200,000 people massed for a funeral attended by Afghanistan's president Najibullah in 1988. Erica Chenoweth's (2016aChenoweth's ( , 2016b data show that before the time of the campaigns of Bacha Khan's Peace Army and Gandhi's Indian National Congress, nonviolent campaigns for regime change were almost non-existent globally. , and the reversals of the Arab Spring after 2011, suggest this movement has a long way to go.…”

“…, and the reversals of the Arab Spring after 2011, suggest this movement has a long way to go. Indeed, they suggest that nonviolent uprisings have become less effective in the present decade compared with previous decades (Chenoweth 2016b). A common cause of these failures is the jihad imaginary that cascaded from benign enough beginnings with the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East in the late decades of the twentieth century and as a result of the war on Saddam Hussein in 1990 and the war on terror that included the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.…”

The Dynamics of Nonviolence Knowledge*

“…Those with long experience in nonviolence research are acutely aware of the marginal place of the field within the academy. It is true that there is far more nonviolence research in recent years than previously, and it might even be said that the field is in the process of being mainstreamed (Chenoweth and Cunningham 2013;Roberts and Garton Ash 2009). Even so, within social movement studies, nonviolent action has a relatively low profile compared to frameworks such as resource mobilization and political process theory.…”

An Orchestra of Civil Resistance: Privilege, Diversity, and Identification Among Cross‐Border Activists in a Palestinian Village

“…This paper combines ethnographic fieldwork with insights gained from civil resistance studies, thereby continuing a recent trend in this field toward emphasizing a stronger empirical and analytical perspective. 8 THE LOCAL "STAGE" "Civil resistance," "nonviolent resistance," and "nonviolent struggle" often refer to the same phenomenon, defined by Bartkowski as a form of political conflict in which ordinary people choose to stand up to oppressive structures by using tactics of nonviolent action. 9 It is a story about common citizens who are drawn into great causes from the ground up.…”