Many individuals think that the most successful way to resist opposition is through violence. In Maria Stephan and Erica Chenoweth’s article, Why Civil Resistance Works, they challenge the view of violence being the most effective form of opposition. Their main argument is that nonviolent resistances’ are more successful. They state, “…nonviolent resistance is a forceful alternative to political violence that can pose effective challenges to democratic and non-democratic opponents and at times can do so more effectively than violent resistance” (Stephan and Chenoweth, 9). Nonviolence resistances are civilian based methods to wage conflict through nonviolent means. The theories, these two authors present regarding nonviolent campaigns were
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This article was written by Erica Chenoweth, Evan Perkoski and Sooyeon Kang, their main argument is that state repression and nonviolent resistance have evolved somewhat separately from each other. In this article, the authors examine how different factors and deceptive information lead to issues in the studies of state repression and nonviolent resistance. When discussing state repression and nonviolent resistances, the authors point out that there tends to be an inconsistency when defining what they are and what they mean. According to the authors, “Consistent definitions and measures are important to avoid conceptual stretching and conflation of different forms of dissent” (Chenoweth, Perkoski, Kang, 3). In the media, events are being labeled inappropriately which leads to a misconception and misunderstanding of what is going on. For example, nonviolent groups are being labeled as protests as opposed to the actual seriousness of the groups. Another issue, that is faced when studying nonviolent groups and state repression is this bias. The problem with bias is that only certain events are being covered in articles and on the news. The events that are typically covered are the larger events, which makes it harder for those who can only mobilize a small group of individuals at events. The authors then discuss their six consensus findings in regards to repression and nonviolent campaigns. In these findings, they discovered that repression intensity depends on the regime type, state repression is less effective on nonviolent movements, nonviolence tends to provoke less government repression and security forces are dire to a campaigns success (Chenoweth, Perkoski, Kang, 9-12). These consensus’, the authors have detailed, are useful to continue the research on nonviolent campaigns and
This article was written by Erica Chenoweth, Evan Perkoski and Sooyeon Kang, their main argument is that state repression and nonviolent resistance have evolved somewhat separately from each other. In this article, the authors examine how different factors and deceptive information lead to issues in the studies of state repression and nonviolent resistance. When discussing state repression and nonviolent resistances, the authors point out that there tends to be an inconsistency when defining what they are and what they mean. According to the authors, “Consistent definitions and measures are important to avoid conceptual stretching and conflation of different forms of dissent” (Chenoweth, Perkoski, Kang, 3). In the media, events are being labeled inappropriately which leads to a misconception and misunderstanding of what is going on. For example, nonviolent groups are being labeled as protests as opposed to the actual seriousness of the groups. Another issue, that is faced when studying nonviolent groups and state repression is this bias. The problem with bias is that only certain events are being covered in articles and on the news. The events that are typically covered are the larger events, which makes it harder for those who can only mobilize a small group of individuals at events. The authors then discuss their six consensus findings in regards to repression and nonviolent campaigns. In these findings, they discovered that repression intensity depends on the regime type, state repression is less effective on nonviolent movements, nonviolence tends to provoke less government repression and security forces are dire to a campaigns success (Chenoweth, Perkoski, Kang, 9-12). These consensus’, the authors have detailed, are useful to continue the research on nonviolent campaigns and