Our archive of Matthew Remski’s post to Bluesky on June 20, 2025

Erica Chenoweth is getting a new wave of attention with a recent appearance on @podsaveamerica.crooked.com and acolytes scoring legacy op-eds. This has spurred a rash of over-confident popular commentary: “We all know that non-violence is empirically successful.” This is false, and here’s why:

There are serious problems with Chenoweth’s 2011 research, which they partially conceded in 2023. Yet their work is imagined to be relevant to anti-Trump, anti-ICE, or anti-genocide protests, and is generally wielded by centrist Boomers to tell GenZ protestors to be better behaved.

Caveat: if you are morally or strategically committed to absolute nonviolence in resisting a fascist state, more power to you. Everyone is welcome to resist in any way they can. That’s the essence of the “Do Not Split” rule of Hong Kong, 2019-2020. It takes all types. Don’t betray each other.

But if you believe that you *know* that signs and chants are the only effective, safe and galvanizing options countering state violence, that is just a belief. Asserting it as fact will chill resistance courage, while maintaining the venerable tradition of punching left (if that’s your bag).

Among those countering this belief is Ben Case, who I interviewed here: https://www.conspirituality.net/episodes/brief-beyond-violence-and-nonviolence and here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/beyond-violence-128804821.

Any journalist interested in due diligence on this topic should reach out to him.

 All quotes that follow are from Case’s book:
 www.akpress.org/street-rebellion

Chenoweth’s OG NAVCO dataset is packed with inconsistencies and relies on a narrow definition of violence. NAVCO does not compare “violent tactics to nonviolent tactics” but rather compares “armed struggle to civilian struggle.”

The “violent” category is defined as literal warfare, typically involving at least 1,000 battle-related casualties (though later reduced to 25). NAVCO includes “no measure in the data for riots or any type of unarmed violence at all”…

…such as vandalism, sabotage, or physical confrontations that fall short of warfare. These types of actions vanish from the data. Despite this omission, findings from NAVCO are frequently used to argue that riots are generally detrimental to movements.

Some are, and some are not. Each case is politically, socially, and kinetically unique. Success can be measured in many different ways over many time frames. This is not a science, at least not yet. (Pretending it is is condescending, and will IMO contribute to the Dems bleeding youth votes.)

NAVCO also focuses on “maximalist” campaigns that explicitly aim to overthrow a government, oust a foreign occupation, or secede from a state. This *excludes* a vast range of social movements, including reformist movements, cultural movements…

…or those without overtly stated revolutionary goals, even if they incubate revolutionary aspirations. Consequently, the findings, though widely applied and touted on MSNBC etc, tell little about most contemporary movements.

Is “ICE, GET THE FUCK OUT OF LA” a maximalist movement? For some it is not, but for others it is connected to a larger set of antifascist or anticapitalist goals. NAVCO cannot speak to that distinction. Pretending that it does verges on journalistic/academic malpractice.

Chenoweth also uses a binary “success” or “failure” outcome variable that oversimplifies complex political transitions and can miss important post-campaign developments or the true nature of systemic power shifts. (Way less realistic than watching Andor, IMO.)

Chenoweth’s attempt to scientize the superiority of non-violence is part of a 40-year trend dating back to the armchair theorizing of Gene Sharp (Case does fieldwork), who wanted to prove that Gandhi’s “satyagraha” was uniquely successful, and more than a religious principle.

Sharp’s effort was grounded in a complete bypassing of decolonization movements and literature. This is a guy who did not engage with Césaire, Fanon, or the Black liberation movements of his own day.

That Sharp’s funding often came from DARPA and the DoD is a whole other can of worms, but it’s worth noting that Chenoweth is also embedded in US policy formation through their chair at the Harvard Kennedy School, where Biden Gaza architect Jake Sullivan is a recent hire. Nonviolence indeed.

It is unnecessary to impugn motives or invoke conspiracism to wonder: who benefits from strong but false claims about the empirical success of nonviolence?