JOSÉ MANUEL SUÁREZ-MIER
Erica Chenoweth shows that peaceful resistance is more effective than armed struggle.
In the current climate of anxiety that prevails in many countries, especially those suffering from authoritarian leadership or aspiring to be so, the question arises more and more frequently: what to do to stop the threat against laws and institutions whose decline would endanger freedom and democracy?.
One option is civil resistance, which Erica Chenoweth (Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict, Columbia U. Press, 2011) shows, with copious empirical evidence, that it is more effective than armed struggle and under what conditions it works or fails and, in some cases, how in South Africa it first fails and decades later was crowned with success.
This comes to mind when the streets of the United States are ablaze with protests by the black population, with the growing support of the rest, due to the violence of white police against members of that minority, who, judging by what has just happened in the city of Atlanta, do not seem to have understood anything.
In countries like Mexico and Brazil, with leaderships that exhibit remarkable ineptitude to manage the crises they face and that, in addition, suffer fatal violence from criminal gangs, with governments incapable of subduing them, the population protests against bad government, but without tangible results.
The big question is whether, in this context of growing lawlessness, which many believe will lead to ungovernability and chaos, the peaceful civil resistance of the population helps to remove authoritarian and inept leaders with boycotts, protests, marches, and strikes, thus challenging the entrenched power.
The author shows that peaceful resistance, supported by sanctions from the rest of the world, was effective in removing authoritarian regimes in Serbia (2000), Madagascar (2002), Georgia (2003), and Ukraine (2004-05) after fraudulent elections, and ended the foreign occupation of Lebanon (2005).
In her archive of peaceful and violent campaigns (NAVCO) results, she analyzes 323 resistance campaigns between 1900 and 2006. She proves that the number of violent events increased over time, while the success of peaceful ones also increased.
The question that arises is the effectiveness of peaceful protest against an increasingly autocratic Donald Trump, facing an election in five months in which polls indicate that he will lose, which, if it happens, will lead him to denounce fraud and lead to a constitutional crisis.
The author argues that protests are effective for other reasons. They induce others to join the cause, as long as they are peaceful and win concessions; they reach the “silent majority,” who will view the government with increasing skepticism; they encourage congressmen and bureaucrats to resist from within the government; they reach the rest of the world, which sees that people reject authoritarianism.
The script of authoritarian leaders includes dividing society to impose their agenda, which goes against their interests, hidden behind a populist discourse that affirms the opposite.
Orwell was right; we must reread 1984, which today is more popular than ever!
*This column was originally published in Spanish by Excélsior on June 19, 2020