Over the last year I have posted about a number of books related to civil resistance. In reading that literature, one of the works that gets frequently referred to is "Why Civil Resistance Works – The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict" by Chenoweth and Stephan (2011). Given that the field of study is a relatively niche one, the book is quite widely referenced (approaching 1,000 citations at the time of this posting). I had encountered presentations by Chenoweth as well as summaries of, and references to, this book elsewhere before reading it. The book is worth reading, as it provides a much more nuanced description of the methods and findings than what is presented elsewhere (even, I feel, by the authors). The simplified take away message has been: nonviolence is more successful than violence.

The book sets out to analyze civil action, largely comparing non-violence and violent campaigns. The authors "ask why nonviolent resistance has succeeded in some cases where violent resistance had failed in the same states, like the violent and nonviolent pro-independence campaigns in East Timor and regime-change campaigns in the Philippines. We can further ask why nonviolent resistance in some states fails during one period (such as the 1950s Defiance Campaign by antiapartheid activists in South Africa) and then succeeds decades later (such as the antiapartheid struggle in the early 1990s)" (p. 5). However, in this opening description, we start to encounter some of the challenges with quantitative assessments of complex movements. The authors have classified anti-apartheid activism in the 1990s as nonviolent. Reality was far more complex, while there were nonviolent tactics there was also violence as well as parallel violent movements. Attributing 'success' to the nonviolent components seems disingenuous. The authors say that if there was a 'significant amount of violence' (p. 13) it was not considered non-violent. However, this blurs the lines between nonviolence (in principle) versus movements who actively threaten violence (and may strategically use it in minor, demonstrative ways), both of which might be classified as nonviolent as the violence was not significant. What has not made it in the take away messages was this: "Characterizing a campaign as violent or nonviolent simplifies a complex constellation of resistance methods" (p. 12). This is important – and one of the nuances found in the book, but lost elsewhere. On methods, the identification of cases to include was not systematic (i.e. country by country), meaning that many are excluded. The authors reviewed the literature to find the cases, but many movements have not entered the academic literature. Other assessments might be complicated by the timeframe they are viewed in. For example, in the mid-2000s the violent Taliban movement might have rightly been classified as a 'failure' but that is far less clear on a longer timeframe.

Challenges aside, this is an interesting book. Beyond correlations, the authors explore processes, which I found quite insightful. For example, they write "large-scale and diverse participation may afford a resistance campaign a strategic advantage, which, in turn, increases the pressure points and enhances the leverage that the resistance achieves vis-à-vis its state adversary. The ability of nonviolent campaigns to more easily exploit these advantages of broad-based mobilization, and the high costs of prolonged disobedience and noncooperation has been so much more effective than violent resistance" (p. 41). Later, they write that the "results suggest that when regimes crack down violently, reliance on a nonviolent strategy increases the probability of campaign success by about 22 percent. Among the campaigns we explore here, backfiring may be an important mechanism through which nonviolent campaigns achieve success" (p. 51).

On long-term pathways, the authors find: "Insurgents, deposed elites, and emerging elites may perceive that violence is an effective means of expressing political preferences and gaining political power. For the losers in the conflict, who see the conflict in zero-sum terms, violence is therefore likely to remain the tactical method of choice. In other words, the constant threat of violence from all sides of the previous conflict exacerbates uncertainty rather than reducing it, thereby undermining Bernhard and Karakoc's essential element of democracy. Under such conditions, reaching mutually agreeable power-sharing arrangements and building democratic institutions are highly problematic." (p. 212)

Arundhati Roy's "Listening to the Grasshoppers: Field Notes on Democracy" (2009) is a collection of essays, written during the 2000s. The topics span a range of issues, largely occurring in India. While the "field notes on democracy" were present, they were often implicit - which is somehow expected as the content was not written as a book, but a series of disconnected essays. A few noteworthy, often very witty and wise, reflections:

• "The system of representative democracy - too much representation, too little democracy - need some structural adjustment." (p. x)

• "The space for nonviolent civil disobedience has atrophied. After struggling for several years, several nonviolent people's resistance movements have come up against the wall and feel, quite rightly, they have to now change direction. Views about what that direction should be are deeply polarized. There are some who believe that an armed struggle is the only avenue left... Others are increasingly beginning to feel they must participate in electoral politics - enter the system, negotiate from within." (p. 37)

• "A political party that represents the poor will be a poor party. A party with very meagre funds. Today it isn't possible to fight an election without funds. Putting a couple of well-known social activists into Parliament is interesting, but not really politically meaningful. Not a process worth channeling all our energies into. Individual charisma, personality politics, cannot effect radical change." (p. 39)

• "We need vision. We need to make sure that those of us who say we want to reclaim democracy are egalitarian and democratic in our own methods of functioning. If our struggle is to be an idealistic one, we cannot really make caveats for the internal injustices that we perpetuate on one another, on women, on children... If opportunism and expedience come at the cost of our beliefs, then there is nothing to separate us from mainstream politicians. If it is justice we want, it must be justice and equal rights for all - not only for special interest groups with special interest prejudices. That is non-negotiable. We have allowed nonviolence resistance to atrophy into feel-good political theatre, which at its most successful is a photo opportunity for the media, and at its least successful is simply ignored." (p. 41)

• "What we;re experiencing now is blowback, the cumulative result of decades of quick fixes and dirty deeds. The carpet's squelching under our feet. The only way to contain - it would be naive to say end - terrorism is to look at the monster in the mirror." (p. 197)
  

One of the world's leading thinkers and activists for advancing democratic governance through non-violent action is Gene Sharp. He founded the Albert Einstein Institute and is a multiple-time nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, as well as recipient of many other notable awards. He has authored many books, but one of his most influential and most widely translated books, as well as one of the most widely referred to books by non-violent activists, is "From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation" (1993, original). Famously, the book includes a list of 198 methods of non-violent action.

Sharp writes in the preface to the book that "the focus of this essay [it was originally written as a series for activists] is on the generic problem of how to destroy a dictatorship and to prevent the rise of a new one" (p. xix). At the outset, the author makes clear that in most instances of dictatorship, violent action will not work: "Whatever the merits of the violent option, however, one point is clear. By placing confidence in violent means, one has chosen the very type of struggle with which the oppressors nearly always have superiority" (p. 6). The alternative advocated by Sharp is non-violent action.

How? Quite succinctly, the author summarizes (p. 12): "When one wants to bring down a dictatorship most effectively and with the least cost then one has four immediate tasks:

• One must strengthen the oppressed population themselves in their determination, self-confidence, and resistance skills;
  
• One must strengthen the independent social groups and institutions of the oppressed people;
  
• One must create a powerful internal resistance force;
  
• One must develop a wise grand strategic plan for liberation and implement it skillfully."
  

Navigating the actions and reactions of a dictatorial government and its supporters requires close monitoring and analysis. Sharp does not delve into the academics of the matter, and summarizes the key factors relating to success as: "(1) the relative desire of the populace to impose limits on the government's power; (2) the relative strength of the subjects' independent organizations and institutions to withdraw collectively the sources of power; and (3) the population's relative ability to withhold their consent and assistance" (p. 33).