Guest Editors’ introduction: Nonviolent resistance and its discontents
| Author | Erica Chenoweth,Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00223433221145542 |
| Published date | 01 January 2023 |
| Date | 01 January 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Introduction |
Introduction
Guest Editors’ introduction: Nonviolent
resistance and its discontents
Erica Chenoweth
Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University
Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham
Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland and Peace Research Institute Oslo
Abstract
In the past decade, myriad studies have explored the effects of nonviolent resistance (NR) on outcomes including
revolutionary success (short-term and long-term) and democratization, and how nonviolent mobilization can play a
similar role to violence in affecting social change in some settings. This special issue seeks to advance our under-
standing of the role of nonviolence by tackling some key assumptions in existing work that are complicated by
historical and contemporary realities of deepening polarization worldwide. This issue addresses four key areas
within conflict and peace research that limit our ability to make sense of NR: (a) the fragmented nature of civil
resistance campaigns in terms of supporters and demands; (b) the increasing prevalence of authoritarian or anti-
egalitarian nonviolent campaigns; and (c) the complicated nature of revolutionary success. Cutting across all three
of these substantive areas is another key area, which is: (d) the United States as an increasingly salient site of
conflict and contention.
Keywords
nonviolence, revolution, contention, conflict processes
Introduction
Ten yearsago, the Journal of Peace Research(JPR)published
a special issue on ‘Understanding Nonviolent Resistance.’
In the years since, empirical research regarding nonvio-
lent resistance (NR) has flourished. In particular, myriad
studies have explored the impact of NR on outcomes
such as revolutionary success, democratization, and the
ways in which popular mobilization has served as a func-
tional equivalent to armed conflict in many settings.
This focus on nonviolent action was an important cor-
rective to an intense, at times exclusionary, focus on civil
war in the quantitative study of conflict processes.
Simultaneously, we saw the increasing relevance of and
use of NR tactics around the world. Projects that track a
variety of categories of protest movements point to a
historic rise in incidence over the past two decades (Ortiz
et al., 2021). According to the Nonviolent and Violent
Campaigns and Outcomes Data Project, from 2010–
2019, a record number of campaigns emerged thatcalled
for the ouster of incumbent national leaders or territorial
independence and relied primarily on NR methods to
push for these results (Chenoweth, 2022). From Sudan
to Armenia to Chile to Lebanon to the United States,
people power movements helped to oust incumbents
and push for change, with varying long-term implica-
tions for the countries, their populations, and their rela-
tionships with foreign allies and foes alike.
Yet the field of NR has developed in a way that has
also taken for granted some key assumptions that are
complicated by the historical and contemporary realities
of deepening polarization worldwide. This special issue
seeks to address three specific dimensions that interfere
with our ability to make sense of NR: (a) the fragmented
nature of civil resistance campaigns in terms of support-
ers and demands; (b) the increasing prevalence of
Corresponding author:
kgcunnin@umd.edu
Journal of Peace Research
2023, Vol. 60(1) 3–8
ªThe Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/00223433221145542
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