Professor Erica Chenoweth Receives the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award for her Book Why Civil Resistance Works

http://www.du.edu/korbel/sie/news/chenoweth_book_award_8-13-12.html

Professor Erica Chenoweth Receives the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award for her Book Why Civil Resistance Works

August 14, 2012—The American Political Science Association (APSA) has selected Korbel School Professor Erica Chenoweth and her co-author Maria J. Stephan of the U.S. State Department as the recipients of the 2012 Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award for their book Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict (Columbia University Press). The Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award is given annually for the best book on government, politics, or international affairs published in the U.S. during the previous calendar year. Dr. Chenoweth will accept the award at the 2012 APSA Annual Meeting in New Orleans on August 30.

Why Civil Resistance Works is the first systematic study to answer the question: are nonviolent or violent resistance methods superior in producing short- and long-term political change? The book applies a hard test to this question, assessing the success rates of the “toughest” type of insurgencies: anti-dictator, self-determination, and anti-occupation movements. Based on an unprecedented data set of over three hundred major nonviolent and violent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006, the book combines a number of quantitative tests (expanded upon in a 200-page online appendix) as well as four comparative case studies of failed and successful nonviolent campaigns (Palestinian Territories, Iran, the Philippines, and Burma).

The book’s main finding is that nonviolent resistance is more than twice as successful as violent resistance, even in the face of brutal regime repression. Moreover, countries that have experienced nonviolent uprisings are much more likely to emerge from the conflicts democratic and with a lower risk of civil war relapse than countries that have experienced violent insurgencies. In fact, the success rates of nonviolent resistance campaigns are increasing over time, while the effectiveness of violence is declining. A secondary argument in the book is that nonviolent resistance campaigns fail when they are unable to attract a large number of diverse participants, when they succumb to internal factional fighting, or when they fail to shift between nonviolent methods of concentration (like demonstrations, rallies, and protests) and lower-risk methods of dispersion (like strikes and boycotts). Throughout the book, the authors also employ a number of techniques to rule out the possibility that selection effects are the primarily drivers of the findings.

The book challenges the common claim by insurgents that violent resistance is necessary and fruitful as an avenue of political change, while vindicating the common claim by many activists that nonviolent resistance is a superior strategic choice. According to the book’s findings, in most cases where violent insurgency has occurred, a well-executed nonviolent campaign may have been equally as successful. And in most places where nonviolent resistance is impossible (as in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, for example), violent resistance does not perform any better. If enough people become convinced that civil resistance works while creating more enduring, stable, and representative democracies, then over time, it may become a sufficient substitute for violence.

The Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award is the latest and most prestigious accolade to be bestowed on Why Civil Resistance Works. Since the book was released in July 2011, it has become recognized as a seminal work in the field of civil resistance, with a unique appeal to academics, activists, and policymakers alike. Why Civil Resistance Works explicitly sets aside the question of which method of resistance is right or wrong, and assesses which method of resistance is the superior strategic choice. This approach appears to be persuasive to many security studies scholars, policymakers, and those engaged in ongoing wars. Steven Pinker named Why Civil Resistance Works one of the best books of 2011 at The Guardian, and the head of the British Academy, Sir Adam Roberts, identified it as among the top five books on civil resistance at The Browser. The article version of the argument, which was published in International Security in 2008, is now among the top 10 most-downloaded articles in the journal’s history.

In addition to acclaim in academic circles, the book is making an impact on many ongoing conflicts. The book has already been translated into Pashto and Ukrainian. Parts of the book have also been translated into other languages and widely circulated among activists and opposition groups abroad. Given that far fewer people die in nonviolent resistance campaigns than die in civil wars, this is certainly a hopeful trend. Even in the United States, where the Occupy Wall Street movement has diffused to hundreds of cities, some activists have referenced Why Civil Resistance Works when persuading fellow activists to maintain nonviolent discipline.

Finally, the book has had an impact among policymakers. Over the past year, Dr. Chenoweth has briefed numerous domestic and international government agencies and officials to help them to better understand the dynamics of these campaigns—how they win, and how democratic governments can or should respond to pro-democracy civil resistance campaigns. She has given approximately 20 talks to various policy bodies in this regard. Maria Stephan, now a senior strategic planner at the State Department, is actively incorporating the book’s insights into U.S. policy on numerous different conflicts in the Middle East and Asia.

As the selection committee for the 2012 Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award recognized, Why Civil Resistance Works is an important book that may have the potential to reshape how people think about the utility of violence compared with other more constructive forms of conflict, or at least to provoke a lively and productive scholarly debate on the strategic potential of nonviolent resistance. The Korbel community congratulates Dr. Chenoweth and Maria Stephan on their receipt of this award and the success of their work.



Sié Chéou-Kang Center for International Security and Diplomacy • Josef Korbel School of International Studies

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Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/







"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs