[throw0101d]

In a survey of ~600 movements since 1900, it was found that those that tended to use violence more succeeded about 25% in achieving their goals, while those that used less violence succeeded over 40%:

* https://global.oup.com/academic/product/civil-resistance-978...

* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44096650-civil-resistanc...

You also almost double your odds of success by not using violence. Further, less violent movements are more likely to end up more democratic / less authoritarian.

The/A thesis of the author is that people are turned off by the use of violence/force and are less likely to agree with, and/or get involved in, movements that use violence. So if a movement wants to grow the 'coalition' of people that will help and/or join them, that growth is best achieved by eschewing violence as much as possible.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3.5%25_rule

The book is 'minorly academic', but it's an easy read and probably more geared toward the general public.

(The studies/book recognize that "violence" exists on a spectrum. The book also talks about generally non-violent movement(s) that have factions that attach to them that want to use violence, and various other scenarios.)

[InitialLastName]

> You also almost double your odds of success by not using violence.

Admittedly having not read the 400-page study, I don't think that's a causation that is necessarily supported by the correlation. It would be extremely surprising if the prior of "how likely is this movement to succeed" were not a determining factor in whether a movement tends to use violence, with the a priori less-promising movements being more likely to take violent action.

C.F. the difference between me demanding you give me an apple or your car.

[throw0101d]

> Admittedly having not read the 400-page study […]

It is not a 400-page study: it is a 400-page book that goes over the research available at the time and summarizes it. The book leans slightly academic, but it's a fairly easy read.

A movement's success is (partly?) determined by its size and how much of the general population gets on board with the original (presumably) small group that started it.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3.5%25_rule

The/A thesis of the author is that people are turned off by the use of violence/force and are less likely to agree with, and/or get involved in, movements that use violence.

So if a movement wants to grow the 'coalition' of people that will help and/or join them, that growth is best achieved by eschewing violence as much as possible.

[Edited GP post to add some of this comment.]

[pixl97]

Yea, causation here depends on a whole lot.

If you're movement is going to 100% cause a reaction of violence with the opposition regardless if you're violent or not, then there is zero reason for your movement not to use violence themselves. Simply put, you'd be rounded up and exterminated simply for existing.

[throw0101d]

> If you're movement is going to 100% cause a reaction of violence with the opposition regardless if you're violent or not, then there is zero reason for your movement not to use violence themselves. Simply put, you'd be rounded up and exterminated simply for existing.

The book covers such scenarios: where you are non-violent but the Powers That Be are violent towards your movement.

[atoav]

Many people, especially in the US today, dont understand that non-violence doesn't mean passivity or even a willingness to compromise. It just means you do anything you can without actually punching and killing people.

And it turns out killing and punching people is sometimes the worst option of to play the long game. This is why nation states often twist themselves in bretzels to manufacture consent so they can go elsewhere and punch and kill people over there. If you don't have that consent, you will lose the popular support and that can mean that even if you won the battle, you lose the war.

Many people fail to consider second order effects. Offensive violent actions to address violent threat may seem like the natural solution, but a second order effect is often that it runs a wedge between the general population and those willing to use violence, shrinking the support. Another second order effect is that the other side will also use more violence and then the whole thing spirals into open weaponized conflict. A thing you should only provoke if you have the numbers, support and means to actually win it. So don't just scratch where it itches, think about the side effects and what psth it leads you down.

Non-violent opposition hinges on the fact thst many of the second order effects are positive. The non-violent side has usually more sympathies within the population, non-violent opposition can be really easy to get into, it could be as simple as a mail man strategically losing a letter, a sysadmin accidentally leaving a api exposed, a wine-mom building networks with others to keep open tabs on the neighbourhood, a peint shop not forgetting who printed a certain flyer when the state authorities show up and so on. Wherever you are, there is probably a way to resist. And if there are enough people normal operations of the regime become hard to sustain.

[direwolf20]

Today, smashing soup against a painting, or spraying paint on trucks entering and leaving an oil facility, is considered violent domestic terrorism.

[constantius]

I will attempt to find a link when I'm not on my phone, but the methodology and results here have been solidly criticised (mainly around survivorship bias, as a sibling notes, as well as about the measures of success).

This study (and the one about 3% of the population being sufficient to enact a change) comes up constantly when you hang around leftists, and I've been known to quote it myself when I was younger, but it always felt too good to be true and uncomfortably aligned with liberal sensibilities.

[shimman]

This video is a good rebuttal of the 3.5% rule:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQUmDwB69cQ

[throw0101d]

From the video:

> [Chenoweth and Stephan] have gone out of their way to correct people who treat it like a cheat code, and to caution against overreading any success of non-violent oppostion.

The rebuttal is against those arguing that 3.5% is a "magic number", that treat(ed) it like an 'absolute', when we're actually dealing with probabilities and likelihoods and odds.

The formulators of the "3.5% rule" do not treat it as an absolute, and neither do I: my GP post talks about "odds" and likelihoods.

[shimman]

Nice, so you didn't watch the video completely. Hopefully others don't make your mistake, both that and believing that garbage.

Resistance has always been violence/sabotage towards oppressors, if nonviolence actions were effective you'd see more armed forces bashing skulls at no kings protests.

[throw0101d]

> Nice, so you didn't watch the video completely.

I did: he talks about the 3.5% is "just" walking and chanting down the street, but about structure changes 'behind the scenes'.

But the video is generally irrelevant to the point being made in the comment, as Stoermer (video creator) recognizes the people who came up with the rule are criticizing some who are putting it forward certain ideas about.

Stoermer is putting forward the idea that the 3.5% needs to be done in a certain way to actually be something meaningful, which doesn't disprove the rule nor the originating comment: that you'll be more liekly to get to a critical mass of movement supporters by eschewing violence.

[zahlman]

> A thesis of the author is that people are turned off by the use of violence/force and are less likely to agree with, and/or get involved in, movements that use violence.

It's strange to me that this isn't obviously true to everyone.

[kaibee]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%932026_Iranian_prot...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

[throw0101d]

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025–2026_Iranian_protests

And the original Iranian protests in the late-1970s against the Shah were non-violent.

It is actually 'interesting' in that it is one of the few examples where a non-violent movement ended up with an authoritative regime after "success": it's (almost?) unique in that regard per the author. Most non-violent movements end up in a democratic system.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

Invalid counter-argument: the survey in question looks all sort of movements, both those that succeeded and failed.

[duped]

> And the original Iranian protests in the late-1970s against the Shah were non-violent.

"original" is doing some heavy lifting here - the Iranian revolution was not non violent. By the state or by the revolutionaries.

It's also impossible to talk about the regime without also bringing up the formative events in the early years of the Iranian state, namely the Iran-Iraq war.