Why read Why Civil Resistance Works?

Book cover of Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict

Book description

For more than a century, from 1900 to 2006, campaigns of nonviolent resistance were more than twice as effective as their violent counterparts in achieving their stated goals. By attracting impressive support from citizens, whose activism takes the form of protests, boycotts, civil disobedience, and other forms of nonviolent noncooperation,…

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Nonviolence

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Why read it?

1 author picked Why Civil Resistance Works as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Ches Thurber

Author

The classic book that changed the way scholars of global conflict, including myself, think about nonviolent resistance.

While nonviolent resistance has often been viewed as morally superior but strategically less effective, Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan showed that, in fact, movements that use primarily nonviolent strategies have been twice as effective as those that use violence.

Their work challenges assumptions about the necessity of violence to create political change and firmly plants “civil resistance” as a major force in global politics that needs greater attention from policymakers and scholars alike.

From Ches' list on nonviolent protest in global politics.