Erica Chenoweth & Maria J. Stephan
Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict
New York: Columbia University Press, 2011
Every industry has its own best practices, including that of advocating for some form of social change. There is a menu of tactics one can choose to effect social change that range from all-out civil war to insurgency to non-violent civil resistance.
Erica Chenoweth, Ph.D. and Maria J. Stephan, Ph.D. took a look at a century’s worth of data, and in 2011 they published a well-received book entitled Why Civil Resistance Works. They argue that of all the different ways to create social change, non-violent civil resistance is the most effective.
From what I’ve gathered from watching their lectures and speeches online, the two women are quite different from each other. Dr. Chenoweth exudes charm and is able to explain the concepts in her book in simple, easy to understand terms. Dr. Chenoweth frankly states that non-violent civil resistance can be used by any cause, in any place, and for any reason.
Dr. Stephan is a true believer in the neo-liberal globalist ideology. She worked for the US State Department in Syria at the start of the dreadful conflict there, and is of the same school of thought as Crooked H and the late Madeline Albright. She radiates an evil vibe and strikes me as the type of Deep State operative who would lovingly napalm the people of Indiana if their elected representative blocked funds for some state-sponsored adventure in a far-off land.
The pair focused on maximalist campaigns, i.e. regime change against a Brutal Dictator,TM ending a foreign occupation, or a succession movement. They focused on those types of campaigns to show that non-violent civil resistance can work even in the most difficult cases. They did not include campaigns such as Gandhi’s in India, because Indian independence came long after the peak of Gandhi’s efforts. If a dictator dies in office, that doesn’t count for them, either. Phenomena such as the “civil rights” movement or agitation for things like climate change or more medial research was also not included in their data set.
They classified the results of all social change movements, violent or not, into categories of successful, partially successful, or failure, and found that since the 1970s, non-violent civil resistance increased in success and violent campaigns increasingly failed.
Why Do Violent Campaigns Fail So Often?
Doctors Chenoweth and Stephan argue that events such as Fidel Castro’s takeover of Cuba using a small cadre of armed men are aberrations. The reason that most violent insurgencies fail is due to several factors.
The first is that it is physically difficult to be an insurgent. Insurgent forces must be made up of military-aged men who are willing to live in difficult conditions for an indefinite amount of time. There is also considerable training required for a fighter to be effective, and each one who is killed, wounded, or captured is a big loss for an organization that is operating on a shoestring budget.
Second, violent actions such as bombings tend to go off-message. The injustice of immolating the attendees of the annual Dog Breeders Association’s conference becomes the overriding narrative rather than the cause the bombing was carried out to support.
And finally, those people supporting the ruling regime usually become hostile to an insurgency.
This isn’t to say that violent insurgencies always fail; they just fail more often compared to non-violent civil resistance.

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There are other problems with violent insurgencies as well. For example, such insurgents tend to be supported by foreign governments. When word of that fact gets out, the insurgents can lose domestic support. Furthermore, such a foreign government can be highly fickle in their support and can easily usurp the movement to align with their own aims rather than those of the insurgency. That foreign government can also walk away, leaving the insurgents hanging.
It’s also the case that insurgents tend to be poor rulers in the off-chance that they actually win. Nations that are born through a violent insurgency, such as Algeria, usually don’t become well-functioning civil societies. The former insurgents who become the new rulers often see things through the lens of warfare and then rule by the sword. Consequently, they often perish by the sword.
The Violent Flank
There are many non-violent movements which have a violent flank as well. They tend to be less successful than completely non-violent campaigns because they are continuously undermined by the problems of the violent tactics noted above.
Non-Violent Movements & Their Success
Non-violent civil resistance campaigns are more likely to win for several reasons. The most important one is sheer numbers. If the campaign is free of bad optics such as pulling injured children out of rubble, more people will join it. To effect social change, only 3.5% of the population needs to be involved. Civil resistance campaigns that have as many women as men participating have a much higher chance of success.
The main mechanism for success is moving the pillars of support of the established regime towards the ideas of the civil resistors. In Serbia in 2000, protestors overthrew Slobodan Milošević by bringing the security forces over to their side. Interviews with the police and soldiers after the event confirmed the same basic elements: leaders in the security forces thought their children would be among the protestors, or their wife’s sister and so on. One soldier recognized a clerk whom he had purchased alcohol from on Saturday afternoons among them. Other soldiers identified with Milošević’s tracksuit-wearing rival. During the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the Shah fell when the security forces who were detailed to force striking oil workers back to work started to call in sick.
After Success
There is never really a Year Zero after a revolution succeeds, including for those that win through non-violence. Successful non-violent civil resistance movements consist of many different ideological and political groups that cease to be allies at the moment of victory. The faction which eventually takes over is the one with a cadre of skilled people who can quickly take over government operations. In Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini already had an existing shadow government ready to go, and they moved into positions of power immediately. He then proceeded to liquidate his former Marxist allies.
Smart Repression of Civil Resistance
In the years since the book was published, Dr. Chenoweth has added to her theories. One concept that she has explored is the idea of smart repression. A way for a government or establishment to eliminate a powerful civil resistance is to employ a multi-pronged non-violent civil resistance of their own. Several of the strategies can be combined in order to control the journalistic narrative. In foreign countries, it means banning outsiders and independent journalists. In the United States, it means strict editorial control over the mainstream media to better carry out journalistic spin and censoring. Governments can also use many different means to conduct digital surveillance.
The establishment, along with its sympathetic media, can mischaracterize the opposition as terrorists, traitors, or coup plotters. They can also co-opt the opposition by proposing reforms endorsed by the opposition which they find agreeable. They can make use of pseudo-legitimate laws and practices to maintain their grip on power and selectively enforce other laws. Another strategy is to use their own “non-violent” supporters as well as thugs, death squads, and paramilitaries to suppress their opponents. Civil resistors can likewise be entrapped by agents provocateurs. The supporters of the establishment can also be paid off, and information can be shared with regime allies.
The parallels to the BLM/antifa rebellion in 2020, as well as the craven cowardice of the Republican establishment, police, and military in dealing with that event, is obvious. The media’s hostility towards and censorship of Donald Trump during the fraudulent 2020 election is also clearly a tactic such as described above. The treatment of the January 6 protestors is similarly an example of an immoral regime’s smart repression. But it is important to note that digital activism is always at risk of government surveillance and manipulation.
BLM/Antifa: The Violent Flank of the Democratic Party & the Establishment?
The Establishment overturned the successful non-violent civil resistance movement that was the Trump administration by means of their own “civil resistance” that consisted of voter fraud, smart repression, and a violent BLM/antifa flank, but it was only partially successful due to its violent flank. The Biden administration has been wounded since election night and has yet to recover. Republicans won the off-season elections in Virginia and New Jersey by campaigning against Critical Race Theory. Even the homosexual movement’s gains during the Obama administration are being eroded. Thus, the Democratic Party and neo-liberal establishment were not helped, even in the short run, by their violent BLM/antifa flank.
The White Advocate Civil Resistors
Non-violent civil resistance can be used by any group, at any time, and for any reason. For those of us who are resisting the Great Replacement, it is obvious that non-violent civil resistance is a good idea. We first need to get more than 3.5% of the population to endorse some of our ideas. In doing so, we need to cut ties with any “Right-wing” militia or paramilitary group. No white advocate should wear a uniform or go around swinging their fists in the streets.
Optics is key. No white advocate should dress in a way other than that of a respectable member of society. Every piece of writing, action, or event should be carefully planned and executed. Any references to the National Socialist movement needs to be dropped. Instead we need to be sober, responsible, and able to turn key pillars of support to our side while becoming skilled enough to build a shadow government awaiting its posting.
And then we must govern wisely.
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7 comments
Make White Identity Nationalism Cool Again.
I’m so glad to see that our part of the movement is thinking productively about ‘normal politics’. Hopefully, the days of synchronized strolling as the apex of pro-White politics will come to an end sooner rather than later.
If you have not read David Hines’ writings over at American Conservative, I suggest doing so. He’s one of the few on ‘the Right’ who gets this aspect of our enemy’s strategy and tactics.
I’m not so sure I agree with much of the book, or the review’s author. Non-violent civil resistance (NVCR) often loses – think of the peaceful protest in Tiananmen Square in 1989 brutally crushed by Beijing in front of the whole world. I think NVCR works best among morally superior peoples; ie, among whites. Even then, other factors often have to come into play. Did the Brits lose India because they were unwilling to terrorize the Indian people, or because they were materially exhausted after WW2 (or some combination)? The ANC was violent as well as non-violent, but it still triumphed because a) it had most of the population on its side, and b) the whites, being white and mostly (theologically misguided) Christians, didn’t have the guts to “open fire” – ie, to really do what they needed to have done to maintain white minority rule.
NVCR will not work for white preservationists (WPs) in the US at this time because we lack a broad base of popular support. What WPs need to do is divide political forces, forming an exogenous and overt WP political and social movement, while having other WPs infiltrate every organ of institutional conservatism and the GOP, seeking to influence the latter’s choice of issues focus towards issues which indirectly aid WP (eg, halting immigration, securing the border, attacking CRT and Defund the Cops, national independence for Puerto Rico, Federal legislation mandating felon disenfranchisement, expelling, first, Hawaii, and later California, from the Union, national concealed carry, etc).
However, under the rubric of sport shooting clubs and other private associations, whites absolutely must develop networks of capable and awakened men who can functionally reconstitute themselves as militias very quickly in times of civil unrest and mortal danger. Mr. v.d. Camp is correct that optics is key, which is why any type of WN 1.0 (as Greg Johnson has called it) activism – Nazis, KKK, etc – should be eschewed. And of course none of our side should engage in violence like the antifa/BLM looters do (as our people are morally superior anyway, we don’t engage in that type of vandalism and hooliganism).
OTOH, we do have to project physical toughness, or we won’t win many adherents. The Black Muslims are a good guide here. They don’t engage in insurrectionary or criminal violence (at least not in recent decades), but they are quietly intimidating. We must recognize that whites qua whites have domestic enemies – people who hate us and wish to hurt us. Our cause cannot just consist of persecuted intellectuals; we must become a real, interconnected social movement, but one which understands that we cannot appeal to our enemies for justice. We must win our rights by being firm, strong and relentlessly activist. We start that process by forcing ourselves into conservative “spaces” (that’s where are potential converts are).
“Our cause cannot just consist of persecuted intellectuals; we must become a real, interconnected social movement, but one which understands that we cannot appeal to our enemies for justice. We must win our rights by being firm, strong and relentlessly activist.”
This is golden. I fully agree with the astute and insightful observation. Admittedly, None Violence should be the mainstream approach of the WN movement, and optics is very very important. However, it must be pointed out that NV should never be absolute or unconditional if we don’t want to surrender our hard-earned gains to our sworn enemy due to the latter’s violent intimidation and coercion.
Our movement must be comprehensive and coordinated, with both its peaceful, respectable intellectually and politically-oriented activism and also our own ruthless, gritty and cunning functional “guard” or “garrison” force. To attain political successes and to protect and defend our people and interests from vicious enemy assaults are an integral and integrated wholeness. The White nationalist and racialist cause can only achieve its ultimate victory i.e., permanently securing the survival and revival of the White race with such a two-pronged strategy and its effective enforcement.
Follow these rules and who knows, maybe in several decades Any City, USA’s Marin Luther King, Jr. Mail Sorting Facility for Social Justice will simply be called, one more, The US Post Office.
Does this mean that HA Covington’s The Brigade or The Turner Diaries are not ultimate prescriptions for moving forward with a white nation?
Also my apologies for not replying to this very important topic earlier. This is an extremely useful article, the utility of which is demonstrated by it’s adoption by the US Gov’t, the Tech Monopolies, the MSM, and other associated “Progressive” causes.
I wish there was more outline as to when “passive resistance” or non-violent conflicts work and when they don’t. I recall the last speaker at the last AR Conference: it was an older guy with the gravitas of Sam Francis but I forget his name. Anyway, he said that change in the USA would not come peacefully.
“Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict”, 2011, is only $27 at Amazon or $14 used from another supplier. Worth a look definitely.
I appreciate this sort of article. I’m definitely on the side of ‘optics matter’. You need the correct tactics for the current era.
Anyone suggesting that the Turner Diaries is an appropriate approach is asking for Jan 6 and aggressive actions will become national holidays of remembrance and demonizing.
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