Nonviolent Action Lab
Producing and disseminating knowledge on nonviolent action
The Nonviolent Action Lab studies how people can create transformative social and political change using creative, disruptive, people power. In so doing, we produce public goods for activists, citizens, scholars, and students who want to know where nonviolent collective action occurs, and to analyze or learn about global trends in its forms, dynamics, and impacts.
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The Future of Nonviolent Resistance
Citation:
Erica Chenoweth. 7/2020. “The Future of Nonviolent Resistance.” Journal of Democracy , 31, 3, Pp. 69-84. See full text.
Full Text
Erica Chenoweth examines the recent decline of civil-resistance campaigns and argues recent setbacks, like the pandemic, have served as a much-needed reset for movements around the world.
Over the past fifty years, nonviolent civil resistance has overtaken armed struggle as the most common form of mobilization used by revolutionary movements. Yet even as civil resistance reached a new peak of popularity during the 2010s, its effectiveness had begun to decline—even before the covid-19 pandemic brought mass demonstrations to a temporary halt in early 2020. This essay argues that the decreased success of nonviolent civil resistance was due not only to savvier state responses, but also to changes in the structure and capabilities of civil-resistance movements themselves. Perhaps counterintuitively, the coronavirus pandemic may have helped to address some of these underlying problems by driving movements to turn their focus back to relationship-building, grassroots organizing, strategy, and planning.
: Erica Chenoweth | July 2020
: Erica Chenoweth examines the recent decline of civil-resistance campaigns and argues recent setbacks, like the pandemic, have served as a much-needed reset for movements around the world.
The Floyd Protests Are the Broadest in U.S. History — and Are Spreading to White, Small-Town America
Citation:
Lara Putnam, Erica Chenoweth, and Jeremy Pressman. 6/6/2020. “The Floyd Protests Are the Broadest in U.S. History — and Are Spreading to White, Small-Town America.” Washington Post. See full version.
Abstract:
Erica Chenoweth discusses the Floyd protests and its impact on law, social policies, and the 2020 elections.
Across the country, people are protesting the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery and demanding action against police violence and systemic racism. National media focuses on the big demonstrations and protest policing in major cities, but they have not picked up on a different phenomenon that may have major long-term consequences for politics. Protests over racism and #BlackLivesMatter are spreading across the country — including in small towns with deeply conservative politics.
: Erica Chenoweth et al. | June 6 2020
: Erica Chenoweth discusses the Floyd protests and its impact on law, social policies, and the 2020 elections.
Media Coverage Has Blown Anti-Lockdown Protests out of Proportion
Citation:
Erica Chenoweth, Lara Putnam, Tommy Leung, Jeremy Pressman, and Nathan Perkins. 5/10/2020. “Media Coverage Has Blown Anti-Lockdown Protests out of Proportion.” Vox. See full text.
Abstract:
Erica Chenoweth explains that anti-lockdown protests are smaller than portrayed, but the media is amplifying their message.
In the last few weeks, protests against state lockdowns and social distancing measures have seized national headlines. The wall-to-wall coverage might give the impression that what we’re seeing is a powerful grassroots movement in the making. But research we just conducted on protest attendance and media coverage shows something different: This massive media coverage has in fact been out of proportion.
A comprehensive look at the social distancing protests reveals that they have been small in terms of both the number of participants and locations. As one official in the administration of Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) tweeted about a protest in Annapolis on April 20, “There were more media inquiries about this than there were participants.”
: Erica Chenoweth et al. | May 10 2020
: Erica Chenoweth explains that anti-lockdown protests are smaller than portrayed, but the media is amplifying their message.
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Research shows that demonstrations are just one of many tools that civil resistance movements can use to effect change. Such movements are effective when they do three things: attract widespread and diverse participation; develop a strategy that allows them to maneuver around repression; and provoke defections, loyalty shifts, or disobedience among regime elites and/or security forces.”
- Erica Chenoweth
