Why Civil Resistance Works

The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict

By: Erica Chenoweth, Maria J. Stephan

Narrated by: Traci Odom

Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

In this book, 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 shifts in loyalty among opponents' erstwhile supporters.

Chenoweth and Stephan conclude that successful nonviolent resistance ushers in more durable and internally peaceful democracies, which are less likely to regress into civil war. Presenting a rich, evidentiary argument, they originally and systematically compare violent and nonviolent outcomes in different historical periods and geographical contexts, debunking the myth that violence is necessary to achieve certain political goals.

©2011 Columbia University Press (P)2019 Tantor

An Evidence Based Argument for the Best Way to Enact Civil Change

The first few chapters are pretty dry as they go over their research methods.

But how they break down their key case studies is fascinating. Some of the tactics used to enact civil change were surprising both in their nature and their efficacy. The authors took a very diligent research approach that I appreciated. They did their homework, and challenged their own hypothesis, to come to a rational, evidence based conclusion.

Non-violent change is more effective at achieving both short term and long term goals. Even in the face of harsh repression.

This book should be a corner stone for any community organizer looking to achieve lasting civil change.

Important Discovery Peaceful Resistance Successes

The intuitive perception that peaceful vs violent political struggle is better and more “civilized” is objectively proven!
It’s a great contribution to societal evolution in that it proves that the Marxist mantra “destruction is required before reconstruction” is false and contrary to positive evolution & revolution of mankind.

Thorough study from authors' perspective

Well arranged and well put together study and analysis. Even noting expected biases, I was educated greatly by their thoughtful arrangement and presentation.

Narrator was excellent, understandable, and appropriately emphatic.

Non-violence can make a difference

There is no limit to the atrocities we humans commit against one another for power.