Introduction
Over the past century, nonviolent revolutions have succeeded more often than violent revolutions. – Erica Chenoweth (2021)
In 2011 Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan published the Nonviolent and Violent Campaigns and Outcomes (NAVCO) dataset. Since expanded, the original version analysed 323 violent and nonviolent campaigns held between 1900 and 2006. All of the campaigns included featured “maximalist demands” with “discrete political outcomes”, such as “overthrowing a government or achieving territorial independence.”
In their 2011 book Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict the pair found that nonviolent campaigns concerning such goals were two times more likely to succeed than those based on violence.
Success in these cases was defined as “the full achievement of its stated goals (regime change, anti-occupation, or secession) within a year of the peak of activities and a discernible effect on the outcome, such that the outcome was a direct result of the campaign’s activities.”
Civil resistance is a form of collective action that seeks to affect the political, social, or economic status quo without using violence or the threat of violence against people to do so. It is organized, public, and explicitly nonviolent in its means and ends. – Chenoweth (2021)
The research suggested that the civil resistance campaigns they had studied had been more likely to create revolutionary change via nonviolent means because:
- They were able to recruit more participants than violent ones as “the moral, physical, informational and commitment barriers” were lower than for violent insurgencies.
- Such campaigns were able to draw on a wider range of people and communities, thereby producing challenges and disruption in a greater number of spheres.
- Nonviolent protest allowed campaigners to operate more openly.
- Elites were more likely to either negotiate with nonviolent campaigners or defect to them.
- By their nature nonviolent campaigns had the potential to undermine narratives used by governments to justify the crushing of resistance and therefore cause repression to backfire.
- Due to their tactics and size nonviolent campaigns opened possibilities for winning over members of security forces, not least because protesters may have been members of their family and community.
The 3.5% Rule
The “3.5% rule” is the idea that no revolutions have failed once 3.5% of the population has actively participated in an observable peak event like a battle, a mass demonstration, or some other form of mass noncooperation. -Chenoweth (2021)
Further use of the NAVCO dataset by Chenoweth led them to coin the ‘3.5% rule’, which was first shared during a 2013 TedX talk. This rule tested and built on analysis that political scientist Mark Lichbach had shared in his 1995 book The Rebel’s Dilemma.
The involvement of 3.5% of a population in a peak event was seen as generating change due to three key factors:
- That it creates major economic, political and social disruption and coercive costs for elites.
- That it demonstrates broader public sympathy and helps to further build it.
- That it causes defections from elites through the movement being perceived as reaching a critical mass.
Participation rates were based on the number of people who could be observed taking part in a peak event, “usually either mass demonstrations in the case of nonviolent campaigns, or the maximum total fighters in the case of armed campaigns.”
They were based on those present at a single event rather than the “cumulative number of participants over the course of the campaign.” Although the size of peak events would suggest that movements had widespread popularity and involved people in a range of activities, only participation in the event itself was taken into account.
The historical record suggests that large-scale participation is usually the tip of the iceberg, and there is usually much broader public support for the movement than the people who are active in the streets. But unlike active participation in a mass movement, there is no way to calculate how much popular support is needed for a movement to succeed without comprehensive opinion polling. – Chenoweth, 2020
Warnings and Qualifications from Erica Chenoweth
The 3.5% rule has been popularized and inspired many activists to aim for mass mobilizations around a range of issues. While welcoming this, Chenoweth has offered a number of qualifications and warnings in publications such as Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know (2021) and Questions, Answers, and Some Cautionary Updates Regarding the 3.5% Rule (2020). In the latter they offered takeaways including:
- “The 3.5% figure is a descriptive statistic based on a sample of historical movements. It is not necessarily a prescriptive one, and no one can see the future. Trying to achieve the threshold without building a broader public constituency does not guarantee success in the future.”
- “The 3.5% participation metric may be useful as a rule of thumb in most cases; however, other factors—momentum, organization, strategic leadership, and sustainability—are likely as important as large-scale participation in achieving movement success and are often precursors to achieving 3.5% participation.”
- “Large peak participation size is associated with movement success. However, most mass nonviolent movements that have succeeded have done so even without achieving 3.5% popular participation.”
Chenoweth emphasizes that their findings should be seen as a “rule of thumb” rather than an “iron law” and 3.5% mobilisation is no guarantor of success.
Similarly they warn that their original findings were based on historical campaigns regarding territorial self determination and regime change and therefore may not be applicable “to other kinds of reform or resistance movements that don’t have the same kinds of goals as those in the NAVCO dataset.” There is also no guarantee that changes gained through a 3.5% mobilization will not be reversed in some form.
Chenoweth further notes that it is important to understand that the protests in the database were undertaken before the rule had been coined, and largely before digital methods of mobilization were available. As a result they argue, “no one knows whether the rule will hold once people consciously attempt to reach the threshold— especially if they do so without all the strategizing, community organizing, and training and preparation that these earlier movements had to undertake to mobilize such huge numbers.”
[K]eep in mind that although the 3.5% rule refers to a single peak event, civil resistance as a technique seldom involves one event that brings large numbers of people into the streets. We’re talking here about an ongoing, well-organized campaign with a clear goal that shifts among various tactics as needed. – Chenoweth, 2021
Recent work by Chenoweth has discussed the global turn towards authoritarianism and noted that, in the face of government adaptation, the success rates of both nonviolent and violent revolutionary mass movements have declined in recent years.
Chenoweth has also investigated the role of violence within and alongside primarily non-violent movements, finding that “organized armed violence appears to reduce the chances for otherwise nonviolent movements to succeed, whereas unarmed collective violence has more ambiguous effects.”
Overall Chenoweth continues to hold that large events based in deep nonviolent mobilization have historically been the most successful “in pushing forward major progressive change and democratization, and doing so without creating long-term humanitarian crises in the meantime.”
On this basis they continue to advocate for civil resistance tactics based in nonviolent non-cooperation and “the creation of new alternatives, like mutual aid organizations, alternative economic systems, and alternative political groups, where people experience what life under a new system might look like.”
Civil resistance is a realistic and more effective alternative to violent resistance in most settings. Civil resistance is not about being nice or civil, but refers to resistance grounded in community action. It is about fighting back and building new alternatives using methods that are more inclusive and effective than violence. – Chenoweth, 2021
Further Articles, Talks and Podcasts involving Erica Chenoweth
- Erica Chenoweth’s webpage
- Erica Chenoweth on 5 Paths Social Movements Can Take in a Disinformation Era (Article)
- Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know (Overview, videos, podcasts)
- The Role of External Support in Nonviolent Campaigns: Poisoned Chalice or Holy Grail? (Report)
- ‘We have everything we need’: Political scientist Erica Chenoweth on resisting Trump 2.0 (Video)
- The 3.5 Percent Rule (Podcast)
- Meet the Nonviolent Action Lab (Podcast)
- How Women Will Defeat Authoritarianism (Video)
- How to Change the World (Podcast)
- The role of activism in protecting civil rights (Article)
- Erica Chenoweth on Civil Resistance (Podcast)
- The Paradox of Civil Resistance in the 21st Century (Video)
- Q&A: Erica Chenoweth (Article)
- The Future of Nonviolent Resistance (Article)
- Pro-Democracy Organizing against Autocracy in the United States: A Strategic Assessment & Recommendations (Article)
Explore Further
- What does that mean? Dictionaries, Glossaries and Terminology for Civil Resistance
- Social Movements and the (mis)use of Research: Extinction Rebellion and the 3.5% rule
- Learning from Criticisms of Civil Resistance
- Civil Resistance Tactics in the 21st Century: Report and Webinar
- Civil Resistance against Climate Change: What, when, who and how effective?
- The Trifecta of Civil Resistance: Unity, Planning, Discipline
- Civil Resistance 2.0: 198 Nonviolent Methods Upgraded
- Organising: Start Here
