this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2025
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Just gonna link this tired old post over here
I keep seeing that study:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240678278_Why_Civil_Resistance_Works_The_Strategic_Logic_of_Nonviolent_Conflict
From what I can tell, it works backwards from a conclusion the authors already held. They excluded peaceful events that weren’t “noteworthy,” labeled protests as violent if police instigated violence, and narrowly defined success windows for violent movements while crediting peaceful ones for regime collapses that likely would have happened anyway.
Since the study was published, a wave of high-profile failures—the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, BLM, etc.—has shown that the effectiveness of nonviolence has drastically diminished. Even the study’s lead author has acknowledged that modern authoritarian regimes now use digital surveillance and media control to neutralize peaceful dissent.
The study also ignores the reality that mixed-strategy movements—where one faction remains peaceful while another escalates—are often more successful, yet it frames nonviolence as the only legitimate or effective tactic.
Thank you for posting what I've wanted to convey about that study. Mixed strategy movements are the ones with true success. The civil rights movement did not succeed on MLK's back alone. Malcolm X and the Black Panthers becoming militarized is why the U.S. government started thinking about extending an olive branch. Well that and the RIOTS after Dr. MLK was assassinated by the FBI. And those riots were not "peaceful".
this is not the conversation ending truth-bomb some people make it out to be.
scholars have contested the selection methods and conclusions reached in that original survey/article. for example, several of the "successful" countries on their list have since regressed into dictatorships/unrest.
not trying to debate or be contrarian, but I think folks who lean heavily on the non-violence strategy should consider that the success of nonviolent moderate protest movements may have something to do with them being perceived as more palatable to the ruling class than the violent opposition alternatives. therefore, simply making violent alternatives widely known and believed to be credible threats, actually serves to push moderate people towards the less scary less radical faction of the movement.
I mean that's how the civil rights movement succeeded here in the US. I know we get a heavily sanitized version basically reduced to "I have a dream" but the Black Panthers and Malcolm X were extremely active and militarized. It was either deal with MLK's peace movement or deal with Malcolm X and the Black Panthers.
Throughout history, like 99% successful rebellion against authoritarianism has been violent.
Source: Historian.
The only successful non-violent over-throwing of an authoritarian occupation either had the leverage of violence, or brought attention to the issue by those who used violence :/
I sure don't have any qualms about nonviolence succeeding because the oppressors realize they don't want to see the violence.
lol right? Yeah they ARE famous for that ACTUALLY