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Whither Nonviolent Studies?
... For more seeCoy (2013),Stephan and Chenoweth (2008) andWehr (1995) 2 SeeChenoweth and Sephan (2011), Nepstad (2011,Stephan and Chenoweth (2008) andZunes (1997Zunes ( , 1999Zunes ( , 2011). 3 See Hancock (2010).Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.Contemporary Islam ...
Most analyses of nonviolent movements downplay the role that national identity may play in their success or failure. Our study aims to bridge the gap between those who focus on structure and those who focus on agency by comparing national identity in Iran’s Islamic revolution with the Green Wave. We argue that the Shah’s attempts to create a secularized Persian-based national identity ran afoul of deep-seated cultural connections to Islam: which were successfully harnessed by Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers to bridge the gap between themselves and regime insiders. By contrast, members of the Green Wave were unable to build a shared sense of national identity with advocates of the system. This difference was, in part, responsible for the success of the former movement and the failure of the latter, hopefully leading to a reassessment of the need to contest a viable national identity in any nonviolent campaign. However, while identity may be necessary for a successful campaign, it is clearly not sufficient.
... With time, nonviolent campaigns have become more organized and strategic, making them more likely to succeed in comparison to violent, and often opportunistic, armed insurrections (Chenoweth & Stephan, 2011;Stephan & Chenoweth, 2008). The growing popularity of nonviolent resistance was mirrored in the recent proliferation of scholarship (Coy, 2013). Not every nonviolent attempt has been successful in overthrowing the repressive incumbents. ...
One goal of nonviolent resistance movements is to legitimize themselves in opposition to governments by undermining the latter’s leadership. We argue nonviolent groups that can ‘own’ the national identity are more likely to succeed, as they can assert the legitimacy of their vision for the state, and persuade other sectors of society to support their cause. Our argument is supported by the Arab Spring uprisings, where those resistance movements that were able to identify and claim ownership over a homogeneous national identity were more successful in pressing their claims. We view national identity as a component of symbolic power in both successful and unsuccessful nonviolent revolutions. We supplement our argument via a comparison of the Arab Spring uprisings featuring Egypt, Bahrain, and Libya, with nonviolent movements of the past: the ‘early’ cases (Northern Ireland, Iran, and the Philippines) and the color revolutions (Serbia, Georgia, and the Ukraine). We posit that the role of national identity, while not a determinant of success, can play an important role in the struggle for legitimacy, which may help determine the prospects of success for these movements.
Growing literature suggests that civil resistance is a strategically superior means of waging a struggle, but why do some movements continue to respond to violent repression with violence? Based on extensive, comparative fieldwork, this chapter sheds light on why some groups transform their tactical responses to police provocation, from riots and arson to disciplined, strictly nonviolent methods of struggle. Ethnographic evidence from two cases of mining conflicts in Peru illustrates how, within a context of legal and discursive criminalization, civil resistance movements learn how their opponents use discourses of “violence” and “terrorism” to delegitimize, repress, and demobilize their struggle. Activists directly cite this mechanism as a key reason why they adopt strictly nonviolent tactics and frames, train their activists in the importance of these methods, and discipline their actions. This research thus contributes an in-depth look at how conflict dynamics, criminalization, and movements’ learning processes affect their tactical and strategic choices.
The role of national identity is such that any group that can authoritatively claim to ‘own’ the national identity can assert the legitimacy of their vision for the state; persuading other sectors of society to support their cause. The Northern Irish Civil Rights Association was unable to bridge the divide between themselves and Northern Irish security forces or their Protestant neighbors. The role that divided identity has played in Northern Ireland since its inception has increased structural impediments to bridging the gap between protesters and security forces, leading to a resurgent IRA and the outbreak of the Troubles.
The historical record indicates that nonviolent campaigns have been more successful than armed campaigns in achieving ultimate goals in political struggles, even when used against similar opponents and in the face of repression. Nonviolent campaigns are more likely to win legitimacy, attract widespread domestic and international support, neutralize the opponent's security forces, and compel loyalty shifts among erstwhile opponent supporters than are armed campaigns, which enjoin the active support of a relatively small number of people, offer the opponent a justification for violent counterattacks, and are less likely to prompt loyalty shifts and defections. An original, aggregate data set of all known major nonviolent and violent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006 is used to test these claims. These dynamics are further explored in case studies of resistance campaigns in Southeast Asia that have featured periods of both violent and nonviolent resistance.
In 1989, citizens in China and East Germany rose up, demanding political change. Both movements used the tactics of strategic nonviolence but their outcomes differed: the Tiananmen Square revolt was crushed but East German resisters were victorious. Nonviolent Revolutions examines these two movements, along with citizen revolts against authoritarian regimes in Panama, Chile, Kenya, and the Philippines in the late twentieth century. Through a comparison of successful and failed uprisings, Sharon Erickson Nepstad analyzes the effects of movement strategies and regime counter-strategies. She concludes that security force defections were critical for movement success since regimes that maintained troop loyalty were the least likely to collapse. She also examines the impact of international sanctions, arguing that they sometimes harm movements by generating new allies for authoritarian leaders or by shifting the locus of power from local civil resisters to international actors. In conclusion, this book argues that theories of armed revolution do not sufficiently account for the factors shaping unarmed revolutions. Nonviolent Revolutions offers insight into the distinctive dynamics of civil resistance and explores the reasons why nonviolent insurrections succeed or fail.
The study of nonviolent civil resistance is now in vogue. The American Political Science Association gave its best book award this year to Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, authors of Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. Additionally, in the last few years, there have been an unprecedented number of academic books, edited volumes, and journal special issues published on this topic, largely due to interest generated by the Arab Spring uprisings and the “color revolutions” in post-communist regions.
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