Why civil resistance works: The strategic logic of nonviolent conflict

International Security

Volumn 33, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 7-42

  Stephan, Maria J ^a   Chenoweth, Erica ^b,c,d  

^a International Center on Nonviolent Conflict

^b WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^c HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^d HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 47949127866     PISSN: 01622889     EISSN: 15314804     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1162/isec.2008.33.1.7     Document Type: Article

References (214)

1. Robert A. Pape, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terror (New York: Random House, 2005);
2. Robert A. Pape, Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996);
3. Daniel L. Byman and Matthew C. Waxman, "Kosovo and the Great Air Power Debate," International Security, Vol. 24, No. 4 (Spring 2000), pp. 5-38;
4. Daniel L. Byman, Matthew C. Waxman, and Eric V. Larson, Air Power as a Coercive Instrument (Washington, D.C.: RAND, 1999);
5. Daniel Byman and Matthew Waxman, The Dynamics of Coercion: American Foreign Policy and the Limits of Military Might (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002);
6. Michael Horowitz and Dan Reiter, "When Does Aerial Bombing Work? Quantitative Empirical Tests, 1917-1999," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 45, No. 2 (April 2001), pp. 147-173;
7. Max Abrahms, "Why Terrorism Does Not Work," International Security, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Fall 2006), pp. 42-78;
8. Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Jeffrey J. Schott, and Kimberly Ann Elliott, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered: History and Current Policy (Washington, D.C.: Institute of International Economics, 1992);
9. Robert A. Pape, "Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work," International Security, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Fall 1997), pp. 90-136;
10. Lisa L. Martin, Coercive Cooperation: Explaining Multilateral Sanctions (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992);
11. Jaleh Dashti-Gibson, Patricia Davis, and Benjamin Radcliff, "On the Determinants of the Success of Economic Sanctions: An Empirical Analysis," American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 41, No. 2 (April 1997), pp. 608-618;
12. A. Cooper Drury, "Revisiting Economic Sanctions Reconsidered," Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 35, No. 4 (July 1998), pp. 497-509;
13. Ivan Arreguín-Toft, How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005);
14. Gil Merom, How Democracies Lose Small Wars: State, Society, and Failures of France in Algeria, Israel in Lebanon, and the United States in Vietnam (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003);
15. and Donald Stoker, "Insurgencies Rarely Win - And Iraq Won't Be Any Different (Maybe)," Foreign Policy, No. 158 (January/February 2007).
16. See Pape, Dying to Win;
17. and Arreguín-Toft, How the Weak Win Wars.
18. Robert L. Helvey defines nonviolent methods as "the specific means of action within the technique of nonviolent action" including protest and persuasion, noncooperation, and intervention. See Helvey, On Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: Thinking about the Fundamentals (Boston: Albert Einstein Institution, 2004), p. 147.
19. Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, 3 vols. (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1973);
20. Peter Ackerman and Christopher Kruegler, Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: The Dynamics of People Power in the Twentieth Century (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1994);
21. Adrian Karatnycky and Peter Ackerman, How Freedom Is Won: From Civic Resistance to Durable Democracy (Washington, D.C.: Freedom House, 2005);
22. Kurt Schock, Unarmed Insurrections: People Power Movements in Nondemocracies (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005);
23. Paul Wehr, Heidi Burgess, and Guy Burgess, eds., Justice without Violence (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1994);
24. Stephen Zunes, "Unarmed Insurrections against Authoritarian Governments in the Third World: A New Kind of Revolution," Third World Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 3 (September 1994), pp. 403-426;
25. Stephen Zunes, Lester Kurtz, and Sarah Beth Asher, eds., Nonviolent Social Movements: A Geographical Perspective (Maiden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1999);
26. and Vincent Boudreau, Resisting Dictatorship: Repression and Protest in Southeast Asia (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
27. A notable exception is Karatnycky and Ackerman, How Freedom Is Won.
28. Our use of "resistance" designates major nonstate rebellions, either armed or unarmed. Instead of using event count data, we identify campaigns - a series of repetitive, durable, organized, and observable events directed at a certain target to achieve a goal - as the main unit of analysis. We measure "effectiveness" by comparing stated group objectives to policy outcomes (e.g., states' willingness to make concessions to opposition movements). This analytical distinction is imperfect, but others have used it with success. See Abrahms, "Why Terrorism Does Not Work."
29. Terrorist groups have fared much worse. See ibid., p. 42; and Stoker, "Insurgencies Rarely Win." Our study does not explicitly compare terrorism to nonviolent resistance, but our argument sheds light on why terrorism has been so unsuccessful.
30. See Abrahms, "Why Terrorism Does Not Work." This is especially true of terrorism, but we argue it can also apply to other forms of political violence. Sometimes violent movements restrain themselves to selective targeting, but such restraint requires high levels of campaign control. For a discussion of these issues, see Jeremy Weinstein, Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
31. Gene Sharp, ed., Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20th Century Practice and 21st Century Potential (Boston: Porter Sargent, 2005), pp. 41, 547.
32. See Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, vol. 2, in which Sharp lists 198 methods of nonviolent action and gives historical examples of each method.
33. George Lakey, ed., Powerful Peacemaking: A Strategy for a Living Revolution (Philadelphia, Pa.: New Society, 1987), p. 87.
34. See also Doug Bond, "Nonviolent Direct Action and Power," in Wehr, Burgess, and Burgess, Justice without Violence.
35. Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, 3 vols.;
36. Ackerman and Kruegler, Strategic Nonviolent Conflict;
37. and Schock, Unarmed Insurrections.
38. Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, 3 vols.
39. The maintenance of a disciplined, deliberate campaign involves significant collective-action problems, which are the subjects of other studies. See Weinstein, Inside Rebellion;
40. and Elisabeth Jean Wood, Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
41. Byman and Waxman, The Dynamics of Coercion, pp. 30, 50.
42. Pape, Bombing to Win;
43. Pape, "Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work"; and Horowitz and Reiter, "When Does Aerial Bombing Work?"
44. Pape, Dying to Win;
45. Ehud Sprinzak; "Rational Fanatics," Foreign Policy, No. 120 (September/October 2000), pp. 66-73;
46. David A. Lake, "Rational Extremism: Understanding Terrorism in the Twenty-first Century," Dialogue-IO, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Spring 2002), pp. 15-29;
47. Andrew H. Kydd and Barbara F. Walter, "The Strategies of Terrorism," International Security, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Fall 2006), pp. 49-80;
48. and Alan M. Dershowitz, Why Terrorism Works: Understanding the Threat, Responding to the Challenge (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002).
49. Abrahms, "Why Terrorism Does Not Work," p. 42.
50. Ibid., pp. 41-42.
51. "Moral jiu-jitsu," "political jiu-jitsu," and "backfire" are related but distinct concepts. See Richard. B. Gregg, The Power of Nonviolence, 2d ed. (New York: Schocken, 1935), pp. 43-65;
52. Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, p. 657;
53. and Brian Martin, Justice Ignited: The Dynamics of Backfire (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007), p. 3.
54. Anders Boserup and Andrew Mack, War without Weapons: Nonviolence in National Defence (London: Frances Pinter, 1974), p. 84.
55. Other scholars have noted that a combination of sustained confrontation with the opponent, the maintenance of nonviolent discipline, and the existence of a sympathetic audience are necessary conditions to trigger ju-jitsu. See Brian Martin and Wendy Varney, "Nonviolence and Communication," Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 40, No. 2 (March 2003), pp. 213-232;
56. and Martin, Justice Ignited. Martin qualifies the effects of backfire by emphasizing the importance of media coverage of security forces engaging unarmed protestors. Furthermore, regimes have developed their own strategies to inhibit outrage, thereby limiting the impact of backfire or preventing its emergence entirely.
57. Anika Locke Binnendijk and Ivan Marovic, "Power and Persuasion: Nonviolent Strategies to Influence State Security Forces in Serbia (2000) and Ukraine (2004)," Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol. 39, No. 3 (September 2006), p. 416.
58. Defections are the withdrawal of support from the incumbent regime. Security forces and civil servants are defecting, for example, when they stop obeying orders and defect from their positions in the state.
59. See Zunes, "Unarmed Insurrections against Authoritarian Governments in the Third World";
60. Ralph Summy, "Nonviolence and the Case of the Extremely Ruthless Opponent," Pacifica Review, Vol. 6, No. 1 (May 1994), pp. 1-29;
61. and Lakey, Powerful Peacemaking.
62. External aid may harm the campaign, but this can be true for violent or nonviolent campaigns. See Clifford Bob, The Marketing of Rebellion: Insurgents, Media, and International Activism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
63. We use the list of sanctions identified in Hufbauer, Scott, and Elliott, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered.
64. Daniel Byman, Deadly Connections: States That Sponsor Terrorism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
65. See also Jeffrey Record, "External Assistance: Enabler of Insurgent Success," Parameters, Vol. 36, No. 3 (Autumn 2006), pp. 36-49.
66. Abrahms, "Why Terrorism Does Not Work."
67. James DeNardo, Power in Numbers: The Political Strategy of Protest and Rebellion (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985).
68. This argument may depend on the "social distance" between resistance movements and their opponents, as social, cultural, religious, and linguistic differences between them could reduce the resistance group's leverage. See Johan Galtung, Nonviolence in Israel/Palestine (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989), p. 19.
69. Abrahms, "Why Terrorism Does Not Work."
70. The seminal work is Karen Rasler, "Concessions, Repression, and Political Protest in the Iranian Revolution," American Sociological Review, Vol. 61, No. 1 (February 1996), pp. 132-152.
71. See also Ronald A. Francisco, "After the Massacre: Mobilization in the Wake of Harsh Repression," Mobilization: An International Journal, Vol. 9, No. 2 (June 2004), pp. 107-126;
72. Ruud Koopmans, "The Dynamics of Protest Waves: West Germany, 1965 to 1989," American Sociological Review, Vol. 58, No. 5 (October 1993), pp. 637-658;
73. and Clifford Bob and Sharon Erickson Nepstad, "Kill a Leader, Murder a Movement? Leadership and Assassination in Social Movements," American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 50, No. 10 (June 2007), pp. 1370-1394.
74. Future studies should investigate whether a regime's ability to discriminate between insurgents and civilians during repression enable it to avoid backfire. For a related inquiry, see Ronald A. Francisco, "The Dictator's Dilemma," in Christian Davenport, Hank Johnston, and Carol Mueller, eds., Repression and Mobilization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005).
75. For instance, Russia overtly supported the incumbent Ukrainian and Georgian governments during their nonviolent "color revolutions."
76. Other studies have found a strong positive correlation between nonviolent civil resistance and durable democratization. Karatnycky and Ackerman, How Freedom Is Won.
77. The NAVCO data set contains a sample of resistance campaigns based on consensus data of scholars of both violent and nonviolent conflict. Resistance campaigns include campaigns for domestic regime change, against foreign occupations, or for secession or self-determination. Omitted from the data set are major social and economic campaigns, such as the civil rights movement and the populist movement in the United States. To gain inclusion into the NAVCO data set, the campaign must have a major and disruptive political objective, such as the ending of a current political regime, a foreign occupation, or secession. About ten campaigns (four nonviolent and six violent) did not fit into any of these categories but were nevertheless included in the data set. The coding scheme assumes that each campaign has a unified goal, but most campaigns have multiple factions. The dynamics created by these circumstances will be further explored in a later study.
78. Ackerman and Kruegler, Strategic Nonviolent Conflict, pp. 10-11;
79. Pape, Dying to Win;
80. and Horowitz and Reiter, "When Does Aerial Bombing Work?"
81. There are some challenges with this method. First, it is difficult to assess the strength of the movement and its activities over time. Second, without specific events data, it is theoretically difficult to compare all campaigns as equal when we know that some are much more disruptive than others. There are good reasons, however, to analyze campaigns rather than events. First, events data are difficult to gather, so making generalizations about conflict is virtually impossible. By analyzing campaigns rather than individual events, we are able to make some general observations about campaigns that can be explored further through in-depth case studies. Moreover, resistance campaigns involve much more than just events; they involve planning, recruiting, training, intelligence, and other operations besides their most obvious disruptive activities. Using events as the main unit of analysis ignores these other operations, whereas analyzing campaigns allows us to consider the broader spectrum of activities as a whole.
82. April Carter, Howard Clark, and Michael Randle, eds., People Power and Protest since 1945: A Bibliography on Nonviolent Action (London: Housmans, 2006).
83. See also Ronald M. McCarthy and Gene Sharp, Nonviolent Action: A Research Guide (New York and London: Garland, 1997).
84. Kristian Gleditsch, "A Revised List of Wars Between and Within Independent States, 1816-2002," International Interactions, Vol. 30, No. 3 (July-September 2004), pp. 231-262;
85. and Kalev Sepp, "Best Practices in Counterinsurgency," Military Review, Vol. 85, No. 3 (May-June 2005), pp. 8-12.
86. The COW data set requires 1,000 battle deaths to have occurred during the course of the conflict between armed combatant groups. We also checked our data against Jason Lyall and Isaih Wilson III's data on insurgencies. See Lyall and Wilson, "Rage against the Machines: Explaining Outcomes in Counterinsurgency Wars," unpublished paper, Princeton University, 2008.
87. See Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliott, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered;
88. and Pape, "Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work." The two-year threshold accounts for necessary logistical or operational delays in bringing about the outcome.
89. There is real concern, especially regarding nonviolent campaigns, that our data set is biased toward success, because large, mature campaigns are most commonly reported. Would-be nonviolent campaigns that are crushed in their infancy (and therefore fail) cannot be included in the data set. This is the major limitation in this study that is difficult to avoid. To address this concern, we circulated the data among leading authorities on nonviolent movements to make sure we accounted for failed movements. Moreover, we ran multiple tests both across nonviolent and violent cases and within nonviolent cases alone to ensure robustness on all results. There may be significant campaigns missing from the data set if we simply did not know about them.
90. When a campaign is ongoing, the campaign observation is noted for 2006 and is coded as a failure. An example is the West Papuan campaign against the Indonesian occupation from 1964 to the present, which is coded as a failure as of 2006.
91. Dupuy Institute, Armed Conflict Events Database, Release Version Beta 1.2.1, http://www.onwar.com/aced/index.htm; Zunes, "Unarmed Insurrections against Authoritarian Regimes";
92. Schock, Unarmed Insurrections;
93. Karatnycky and Ackerman, How Freedom Is Won;
94. Zunes, Kurtz, and Asher, Nonviolent Social Movements;
95. Wehr, Burgess, and Burgess, Justice without Violence;
96. Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook, 2007 (Washington, D.C.: Central Intelligence Agency, 2006);
97. Sepp, "Best Practices in Counterinsurgency";
98. and Carter, Clark, and Randle, People Power and Protest since 1945.
99. The availability of information through media coverage may cause variable effects. See, for example, Martin, Justice Ignited.
100. Data are gleaned from Dupuy Institute, Armed Conflict Events Database;
101. Zunes, "Unarmed Insurrections against Authoritarian Regimes";
102. Schock, Unarmed Insurrections;
103. Karatnycky and Ackerman, How Freedom Is Won;
104. Zunes, Kurtz, and Asher, Nonviolent Social Movements;
105. Wehr, Burgess, and Burgess, Justice without Violence;
106. Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook, 2007;
107. and Carter, Clarke, and Randle, People Power and Protest since 1945.
108. The variable on external aid excludes covert support, which is impossible to determine unless support is leaked to the public. This measure also excludes tacit state support through public statements or diplomatic pressure, support from NGOs, support from diaspora groups, support from other nonstate actors, or the influence of transnational advocacy networks (TANs), about which a literature has emerged. See, for instance, Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998).
109. This variable is coded a 1 if the aid was explicitly aimed at supporting the regime vis-à-vis the campaign, as made explicit in official statements or multiple accounts. Data for the regime repression and external support variables are from Dupuy Institute, Armed Conflict Events Database;
110. Zunes, "Unarmed Insurrections against Authoritarian Regimes";
111. Schock, Unarmed Insurrections;
112. Karatnycky and Ackerman, How Freedom Is Won;
113. Zunes, Kurtz, and Asher, Nonviolent Social Movements;
114. Wehr, Burgess, and Burgess, Justice without Violence;
115. CIA, The World Factbook, 2007;
116. Carter, Clarke, and Randle, People Power and Protest since 1945;
117. and Hufbauer, Elliott, and Schott, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered.
118. James D. Fearon, "Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes," American Political Science Review, Vol. 88, No. 3 (September 1994), pp. 577-592;
119. and Pape, Dying to Win.
120. The Polity IV score equals the country's autocracy-democracy score on a scale of -10 to 10 (-10 meaning autocratic, 10 meaning fully democratic). See Monty G. Marshall and Keith Jaggers, POLITY IV Project: Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800-2004 (College Park: Center for International Development, University of Maryland, 2005).
121. Dupuy Institute, Armed Conflict Events Database;
122. Karatnycky and Ackerman, How Freedom Is Won;
123. Carter, Clark, and Randle, People Power and Protest since 1945;
124. Gleditsch, "A Revised List of Wars Between and Within States";
125. and Sepp, "Best Practices in Counterinsurgency."
126. Additional results, variables, and data for replication can be obtained from Erica Chenoweth. The MLR allows researchers to estimate the relative probabilities of each outcome given a specific set of independent and autonomous variables when compared with the other potential outcomes. This is the preferred estimation method for several reasons. First, researchers can examine the probabilities of multiple outcomes drawn from the same sample, whereas independent logistic regressions estimate results based on independent samples. Second, MLR is preferable to ordered logistic (OLR) regression, because OLR assumes that the outcomes are qualitatively ranked. Reestimating the models using OLR, however, does not significantly alter the results. See Stata, "Logistic Regression," http://www.stata.com/capabilities/logistic. html.
127. Some final caveats are in order. First, many of our variables are inexact categorizations of complex social phenomena. The dichotomous nature of our variables excludes much sensitivity. Moreover, using the peak year as the unit of analysis omits the temporal component of the causal relationship, necessarily limiting us to tentative causal claims. Such omissions were a function of data unavailability rather than carelessness. There are good reasons to use dichotomous variables, however, because they provide useful organizing principles to assess the effects of each individual factor on the outcomes. Such measures draw attention to systematic, general relationships that can be further addressed using qualitative comparisons.
128. Lyall and Wilson, "Rage against the Machines."
129. Elisabeth Jean Wood has discovered the importance of economic elites in determining the course of campaigns. Wood, Forging Democracy from Below: Insurgent Transitions in South Africa and El Salvador (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
130. An important question is why regime violence backfires in some cases and not in others. See Martin, Justice Ignited, for some preliminary observations.
131. This finding is consistent with the arguments of many scholars of insurgency, who have argued that obtaining external support can be decisive for insurgencies. See Record, "External Assistance."
132. Compared to blanket sanctions, targeted or "smart" sanctions may decrease this effect. See David Cortright and George A. Lopez, eds., Smart Sanctions: Targeting Economic Statecraft (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002).
133. We thank Hardy Merriman for raising this point.
134. See, for instance, Merom, How Democracies Lose Small Wars;
135. and Fearon, "Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes."
136. See Lyall and Wilson, "Rage against the Machines."
137. According to the logic of nested analysis, large-n scholars should test and modify their causal claims by selecting both predicted and deviant observations from their sample for case study analysis. Among observations that fit the predicted regression line, case study analysis can reveal whether the causal relationship is accurate or spurious. Among deviant cases, case study analysis can reveal which omitted variables can account for the residual error.
138. Two UN Security Council resolutions, 384 (1975) and 389 (1976),
139. affirmed East Timor's right to self-determination and called on Indonesia to halt its invasion of East Timor and withdraw its military forces without delay. See Richard Falk, "The East Timor Ordeal: International Law and Its Limits," in Richard Tanter, Mark Selden, and Stephen R. Shalom, eds., Bitter Flowers, Sweet Flowers: East Timor, Indonesia, and the World Community (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001), p. 150.
140. Geoffrey C. Gunn, A Critical View of Western Journalism and Scholarship on East Timor (Manila: Journal of Contemporary Asia, 1994), p. 1.
141. Indonesian forces killed most of the FALANTIL commanders, eliminated approximately 80 percent of their bases, and assumed control over approximately 90 percent of the East Timorese population. Taur Matan Ruak, commander of FALANTIL, interview by Maria J. Stephan, Dili, East Timor, January 11, 2005.
142. Gusmão described, the consultations: "In 1979, I went from house to house, village to village, town to town, and asked my people if they were willing to continue the fight and they demanded that I never ever surrender. My people wish, rather demand and prefer, that I die on the battlefield. Such is the high sense of honor of the people of East Timor. And I am this country's soldier, and servant to those one thousand-time heroic people." See Sarah Niner, ed., To Resist Is To Win! The Autobiography of Xanana Gusmão (Richmond, Va.: Aurora, 2000), p. 166.
143. The CNRM was renamed the National Council of Timorese Resistance in 1998. This ideological and organizational transformation expanded the base of supporters by allowing a greater number of East Timorese to participate regardless of ideological or political affiliation. Chisako M. Fukuda, "Peace through Nonviolent Action: The East Timorese Resistance Movement's Strategy for Engagement," Pacifica Review, Vol. 12, No. 1 (February 2000), pp. 19-20;
144. and Maria J. Stephan, "Fighting for Statehood: The Role of Civilian-Based Resistance in the East Timorese, Palestinian, and Kosovo Albanian Self-Determination Movements," Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Summer 2006), pp. 57-81.
145. Constancio Pinto, "The Student Movement and the Independence Struggle in East Timor: An Interview," in Tanter, Selden, and Shalom, Bitter Flowers, Sweet Flowers, p. 36.
146. Ibid., p. 111.
147. Brian Martin, Wendy Varney, and Adrian Vickers, "Political Ju-Jitsu against Indonesian Repression: Studying Lower-Profile Nonviolent Resistance," Pacifica Review, Vol. 13, No. 2 (June 2001), pp. 143-156.
148. See also Arnold S. Kohen, From the Place of the Dead: The Epic Struggles of Bishop Belo of East Timor (New York: St. Martin's, 1999), pp. 160-187.
149. Domingos Sarmento Alves, Clandestine Front leader, interview by Maria J. Stephan, Dili, East Timor, January 5, 2005;
150. and Stephan, "Fighting for Statehood."
151. Michael E. Salla, "Creating the 'Ripe Moment' in the East Timor Conflict," Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 34, No. 4 (November 1997), pp. 449-466.
152. Quoted in Nora Boustany, "Riding the Tide of History," Washington Post, September 20, 1999.
153. "Clinton Demands Indonesia Accept International Force," Agence France-Presse, September 9, 1999;
154. "U.S. Cuts Military Ties with Indonesia," Reuters, September 9, 1999;
155. and Sanders Thoenes, "What Made Jakarta Accept Peacekeepers," Christian Science Monitor, September 14, 1999.
156. Ian Martin, "The Popular Consultations and the United Nations Mission," in James J. Fox and Dionisio Babo Soares, eds., Out of the Ashes: The Destruction and Reconstruction of East Timor (Adelaide, Australia: Crawford House, 2000).
157. In 1995 the Solidarity with the Maubere People organization was created to focus exclusively on East Timor. See Anders Uhlin, Indonesia and the "Third Wave of Democratization": The Indonesian Pro-Democracy Movement in a Changing World (New York: St. Martin's, 1997).
158. Joachim Fonseca, Clandestine Front leader, interview by Maria J. Stephan, Dili, East Timor, January 12, 2005.
159. Maggie Helwig, "Students Take Lead in East Timor Resistance," Peace News, No. 2389 (April 1995).
160. Manuela Saragosa, "Summit Light Spills Over on to East Timor," Financial Times, November 11, 1994;
161. Jeremy Wagstaff, "Timorese Protestors Say They Won't Quit Embassy," Reuters, November 12, 1994;
162. and Hugh O'Shaughnessy, "Aid Money Goes to Indonesian Regime Despite Massacres," London Observer, November 13, 1994.
163. Brad Simpson, "Solidarity in an Age of Globalization: The Transnational Movement for East Timor and U.S. Foreign Policy," Peace and Change, Vol. 29, Nos. 3-4 (July 2004), p. 459.
164. Allan Nairn, "U.S. Support for the Indonesian Military: Congressional Support," in Tanter, Selden, and Shalom, Bitter Flowers, Sweet Flowers.
165. Samuel Moore, "The Indonesian Military's Last Years in East Timor: An Analysis of Its Secret Documents," Indonesia, Vol. 72 (October 2001), pp. 9-44.
166. Brendan O'Leary, Ian S. Lustick, and Thomas Callaghy, eds., Rightsizing the State: The Politics of Moving Borders (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).
167. Benedict Anderson, "Imagining East Timor," Arena, No. 4 (April-May 1993).
168. After the Dili massacre, which led to disciplinary actions against soldiers and officers, some segments of the Indonesian military became highly critical of the government's strategy in East Timor. See John B. Haseman, "A Catalyst for Change in Indonesia: The Dili Incident," Asian Survey, Vol. 35, No. 8 (August 1995), pp. 757-767.
169. Ruak, interview by Stephan.
170. Ibid.
171. Geoffrey Forrester, "Introduction," in Forrester and R.J. May, eds., The Fall of Suharto (Bathurst, Australia: Crawford House, 1998).
172. See also Edward Aspinall, Herb Feith, and Gerry van Klinken, eds., The Last Days of President Suharto (Melbourne, Australia: Monash Asia Institute, Monash University, 1999).
173. Forrester, "Introduction"; and Aspinall, Feith, and van Klinken, The Last Days of President Suharto.
174. Richard Snyder, "Explaining Transitions from Neopatrimonial Dictatorships." Comparative Politics, Vol. 24, No. 4 (July 1992), pp. 379-400;
175. Richard Snyder, "Paths out of Sultanistic Regimes: Combining Structural and Voluntaristic Perspectives," in H.E. Chehabi and Juan J. Linz, eds., Sultanistic. Regimes (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), pp. 49-81;
176. Mark Thompson, "Searching for a Strategy: The Traditional Opposition to Marcos and the Transition to Democracy in the Philippines," unpublished paper, Yale University, 1991;
177. and Mark R. Thompson, "Off the Endangered List: Philippine Democratization in Comparative Perspective," Comparative Politics, Vol. 28, No. 2 (January 1996), pp. 179-205.
178. Amado Mendoza, "Civil Resistance, 'People Power,' and Democratization in the Philippines," in Adam Roberts, Timothy Garton Ash, and Thomas Robert Davies, eds., Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Nonviolent Action from Gandhi to the Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
179. Schock, Unarmed Insurrections.
180. Traditional politicians tried to build a small armed band in Sabah, Malaysia, with the help of the Moro National Liberation Front. After the army failed to grow, they turned to arson and bombing to force Marcos to grant electoral concessions. See Thompson, "Off the Endangered List."
181. Mendoza, "Civil Resistance, 'People Power,' and Democratization in the Philippines."
182. Schock, Unarmed Isurrections, p. 69
183. Mendoza, "Civil Resistance, 'People Power,' and Democratization in the Philippines."
184. Schock, Unarmed Insurrections.
185. Ibid., p. 77.
186. Ibid.
187. Stephen Zunes, "The Origins of People Power in the Philippines," in Zunes, Kurtz, and Asher, Nonviolent Social Movements, pp. 129-158.
188. Mendoza, "Civil Resistance, 'People Power,' and Democratization in the Philippines."
189. Ibid.;
190. and Schock, Unarmed Insurrections.
191. Mendoza, "Civil Resistance, 'People Power,' and Democratization in the Philippines";
192. and Schock, Unarmed Insurrections.
193. Schock, Unarmed Insurrections, p. 72.
194. This case study does not include the August-October 2007 Saffron Revolution. This popular uprising was sparked by high fuel prices, resulting in the largest and most sustained protests against the SPDC since 1988. Regime crackdowns against the peaceful protests prompted harsh criticism from human rights groups, governments, the UN Security Council, and regional bodies, which intensified political, diplomatic, and economic pressure against the junta. The UN special envoy to Burma has called on the SPDC to engage in meaningful dialogue with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, to release all political prisoners, and to draft a new constitution via a transparent, inclusive process. The SPDC established a national convention to draft a new constitution, which is subject to a nationwide referendum in May 2008, followed by ratification and multiparty democratic elections in 2010 - the first general election in twenty years. The political repercussions of the Saffron Revolution are undetermined. For more information on this campaign, see Daya Gamage, "Latest Visit to Burma Yielded No 'Immediate Tangible Outcome,' Gambari Tells UN Security Council," Asian Tribune, Vol. 7, No. 1 (March 21, 2008), http://www.asiantribune.com/?q=node/10128.
195. For an analysis of the 2007 Saffron Revolution, see International Federation for Human Rights, "Burma's 'Saffron Revolution' Is Not Over: Time for the International Community to Act," December 2007, http://www.fidh.org/IMG/pdf/BURMA-DEC2007.pdf.
196. Demonstrators in Rangoon fought back with whatever weapons they could improvise. Sharp, Waging Nonviolent Struggle, pp. 246-247.
197. Ibid., p. 249;
198. and Michael Beer, "Violent and Nonviolent Struggle in Burma: Is a Unified Strategy Workable?" in Zunes, Kurtz, and Asher, Nonviolent Social Movements, pp. 174-185.
199. Sharp, Waging Nonviolent Struggle, p. 248.
200. Tin Maung Maung Than, "Myanmar: Challenges Galore but Opposition Failed to Score," in Daljit Singh and Lorraine C. Salazar, eds., Southeast Asian Affairs, 2006 (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2007), pp. 186-207.
201. Sharp, Waging Nonviolent Struggle, p. 248.
202. Ibid.
203. Martin, Justice Ignited. In the backfire model, media coverage reflects the regime's failure to cover up its most discreditable actions.
204. Martin and Varney, "Nonviolent Communication."
205. We thank Howard Clark for his suggestions regarding additional internal variables.
206. Ackerman and Kruegler, Strategic Nonviolent Conflict;
207. and Helvey, On Strategic Nonviolent Conflict.
208. See, for example, Liam Mahoney and Luis Enrique Eguren, Unarmed
209. For example, the Serbian opposition movement used the writings of Gene Sharp during trainings of activists in the period leading up to the 2000 nonviolent ouster of Serbia's leader, Slobodan Milosevic. The documentary film Bringing Down a Dictator (about the Serbian movement) was shown on public television in Georgia and. Ukraine before and during the electoral revolutions in those countries.
210. National Endowment for Democracy, "The Backlash against Democracy Assistance," report prepared for Senator Richard Lugar, chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, June 8, 2006;
211. Carl Gershman and Michael Allen, "The Assault on Democracy Assistance," Journal of Democracy, Vol. 17, No. 2 (April 2006), p. 38;
212. Thomas Carothers, "The Backlash against Democracy Promotion," Foreign Affairs, Vol. 85, No. 2 (March-April 2006), pp. 55-68;
213. and Regine Spector and Andrej Krickovic, "Authoritarianism 2.0: Non-Democratic Regimes Are Upgrading and Integrating Globally," paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, San Francisco, California, March 26, 2008.
214. Thomas C. Schelling, "Some Questions on Civilian Defense," in Adam Roberts, ed., Civilian Resistance as a National Defense: Nonviolent Action against Aggression (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole, 1967), pp. 351-352.