We Have the Power
What I read: The '3.5% rule': How a small minority can change the world by David Robson. Published May 13, 2019.
Before I get to the main topic of this post, let me state upfront that this post is being written exactly one week prior to one of the most important elections of my lifetime, the 2022 midterms. Please vote. Please vote for Democrats. I believe it’s the only immediate action that will help ensure that our democracy survives.
Now, on to the rest of the post.
In this bonkers political environment we find ourselves in these days, I think it’s important to emphasize that ultimately we the people have the power. I know. The American political landscape appears to be hopeless at times. Money talks. Greed thrives. Power-hungry politicians and wealthy influencers seem to have the upper hand. Hate is on the rise. Voting processes are gerrymandered and configured to suppress voting. It’s maddening and disheartening.
But, in the long term, there has never been an oppressive regime that has succeeded in resisting the will of the people if enough of those people rally together and demand change. And it can be done nonviolently.
There are, of course, many ethical reasons to use nonviolent strategies. But compelling research by Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist at Harvard University, confirms that civil disobedience is not only the moral choice; it is also the most powerful way of shaping world politics – by a long way.
As I write this, we’re experiencing a wave of political violence in our country. Whether it’s the horrific attempted overthrow of our democracy on January 6th or the recent attempted attack on Speaker Nancy Pelosi in which her husband was badly hurt, we’re seeing violence all around us.
Violence will not win. The vast majority of the American people are decent, nonviolent, and of a liberal to moderate bent. I know it’s difficult sometimes to realize that extreme right-wing elements of the Republican party are the fringe minority in our country relatively, but they are.
There are times massive protests are required. We know our country can turn out big numbers for such events. One need only look to the huge turnout for the Women’s March as proof.
When Americans are pushed too far, they will push back. There is even more power when those masses are on the correct side of history, the correct side of decency, the correct side of democracy.
How many people are needed to be more or less assured of victory over oppression? Turns out it’s 3.5% of the population per research done by Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist at Harvard University.
Looking at hundreds of campaigns over the last century, Chenoweth found that nonviolent campaigns are twice as likely to achieve their goals as violent campaigns. And although the exact dynamics will depend on many factors, she has shown it takes around 3.5% of the population actively participating in the protests to ensure serious political change.
When Chenoweth first began her research, she was skeptical that nonviolent actions could be more powerful than armed conflicts in most situations. To her surprise, Chenoweth discovered that nobody had thus far seriously dived into a comparison of success rates for nonviolent versus violent protests. But her research produced what she considers quite statistically significant results.
By the end of this process, they had collected data from 323 violent and nonviolent campaigns. And their results – which were published in their book Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict – were striking.
Overall, nonviolent campaigns were twice as likely to succeed as violent campaigns: they led to political change 53% of the time compared to 26% for the violent protests.
53% and 26%. That’s a stark contrast in the effectiveness of each approach to bringing about political change.
Part of the reason for the success rate of nonviolent protests is their ability to attract larger numbers of participants from wide ranging demographics. Those kinds of large numbers can disrupt normal daily life and the functioning of society. Thus, part of their power.
Of the campaigns they studied, the nonviolent protests attracted about four times as many participants as the violent ones. As examples, the People Power campaign in the Philippines, 1984/85 Brazilian uprising, and Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia all attracted hundreds of thousands or millions of active participants.
After looking at the data, Chenoweth concluded that once approximately 3.5% of the population begins to participate in these actions, success for their cause appears to be inevitable. This is really important information. Just 3.5% of the overall population can topple a fascist regime or move a nation to take action on a cause.
“There weren’t any campaigns that had failed after they had achieved 3.5% participation during a peak event,” says Chenoweth – a phenomenon she has called the “3.5% rule”
These were not the results Chenoweth expected to find when she began her research. But now she can point to many reasons she believes nonviolent protests work. An obvious reason is that violent protests by their nature exclude people who abhor and avoid bloodshed, but nonviolent and peaceful protesters maintain the moral high ground.
There are also fewer barriers of entry for participation in nonviolent protests. Nonviolent protests appeal to a greater range of ages and physical capabilities while also being easier to discuss openly and without the need for firearms or weapons.
Now, admittedly, 3.5% of the population can be a high rate of participation, but it can be done. Push a population enough in ways that crush their basic civil rights, labor rights, or day-to-day freedoms and that 3.5% number is not as difficult to muster when people are properly motivated.
Chenoweth isn’t the only person who cites the 3.5% threshold.
Isabel Bramsen, who studies international conflict at the University of Copenhagen agrees that Chenoweth and Stephan’s results are compelling. “It’s [now] an established truth within the field that the nonviolent approaches are much more likely to succeed than violent ones,” she says.
Regarding the “3.5% rule”, she points out that while 3.5% is a small minority, such a level of active participation probably means many more people tacitly agree with the cause.
You have power with your vote. You have power by taking to the streets when needed. You have power when you participate in a strike. Together as a collective, we have a lot of power, and we can exercise that power nonviolently and succeed.
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