For more than a century from 1900 to 2006 campaigns of nonviolent resistance were more than
twice as effective as their violent counterparts in achieving their stated goals. By attracting
impressive support from citizens whose activism takes the form of protests boycotts civil
disobedience and other forms of nonviolent noncooperation these efforts help separate regimes
from their main sources of power and produce remarkable results. Combining statistical analysis
with case studies of specific countries and territories Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan
detail the factors enabling such campaigns to succeed and sometimes causing them to fail.
They find that nonviolent resistance presents fewer obstacles to moral and physical involvement
and commitment and that higher levels of participation contribute to enhanced resilience
greater opportunities for tactical innovation and civic disruption (and therefore less
incentive for a regime to maintain its status quo) and shifts in loyalty among opponents
erstwhile supporters including members of the military establishment.
