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Discovering the Unexpected Power of Nonviolence
http://www.thestreetspirit.org/discovering-the-unexpected-power-of-nonviolence-street-spirit-interview-with-erica-chenoweth-4/"We found that during the period of 1900 to 2006, nonviolent resistance campaigns are about twice as effective as violent ones in achieving their goals. We also found that these trends hold even where most people expect nonviolent resistance to be ineffective -- for instance, against dictatorships and highly repressive regimes." — Erica Chenoweth
In their book, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict, the authors found that far greater numbers of people from more diverse parts of society joined nonviolent campaigns than violent ones. This greater level of participation translates into more people who can demonstrate for change, and withdraw their cooperation from an unjust regime.
In addition, Chenoweth and Stephan found that when nonviolent movements overthrow an unjust regime, the victorious resistance groups are far more likely to establish democracies and protect human rights, and far less likely to lapse into civil war than their violent counterparts.
…
Spirit: Many people feel that young people are crucial to social-change movements. Can you be more specific about why you feel it’s a mistake to look at youth as the vanguard?
Chenoweth: I think the problem is impatience. There’s the sense that if we haven’t won in six months, we have to escalate and take it to the next level. But the truth is that the average nonviolent campaign, in our data set at least, takes three years to run its course. So if the campaign hasn’t been using concerted, well-thought-out, well-executed civil resistance for three years to no effect there’s really no justification yet for any type of escalation to any type of other methods. And even at the three-year point, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you run out of Gene Sharp’s 198 potential methods you could be using [laughs]. Sometimes it just means a strategic redirection of nonviolent methods.
In addition, Chenoweth and Stephan found that when nonviolent movements overthrow an unjust regime, the victorious resistance groups are far more likely to establish democracies and protect human rights, and far less likely to lapse into civil war than their violent counterparts.
…
Spirit: Many people feel that young people are crucial to social-change movements. Can you be more specific about why you feel it’s a mistake to look at youth as the vanguard?
Chenoweth: I think the problem is impatience. There’s the sense that if we haven’t won in six months, we have to escalate and take it to the next level. But the truth is that the average nonviolent campaign, in our data set at least, takes three years to run its course. So if the campaign hasn’t been using concerted, well-thought-out, well-executed civil resistance for three years to no effect there’s really no justification yet for any type of escalation to any type of other methods. And even at the three-year point, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you run out of Gene Sharp’s 198 potential methods you could be using [laughs]. Sometimes it just means a strategic redirection of nonviolent methods.
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For support of non-violent methods.
