Nonviolent Protest Strategies

6. Civic Knowledge and Skills

In 2003, Maire Dugan began her BI essay on Nonviolence and Nonviolent Direct Action by saying,"if asked for an example of nonviolent action, one is likely to mention Gandhi, or Martin Luther King, Jr., and maybe Rosa Parks. Strong and courageous people whose effective movements resulted, respectively, in Indian independence from decades of British rule, and the initial steps toward freeing African-Americans from decades of discrimination.

Such well-known cases notwithstanding, most of us tend to think of nonviolence as ineffectual, the weapon of the weak. We stand with Mao in presuming that "power grows out of the barrel of a gun."

The source of the problem lies partly in the way the words are structured — defining the concepts in terms of what they are not. Nonviolence and nonviolent action, by their appearance, simply mean "not violence" and "not violent action." It is a short mental jump to presume that they are everything violence and violent action are not. And, since the latter are associated with force, power, and strength, the former must be the absence of these attributes."

That misapprehension is still true. Nonviolence is still thought to be weak, violence to be strong. That is why, perhaps, in October 2025, thirty percent of Americans told PBS/NPR/Marist pollsters that "people may have to resort to violence in order to get the country back on track."

But research has shown that the assumption that violence is more effective than nonviolence is incorrect. Violence just enrages the opposition and makes them resist even harder, often with return violence, which quickly escalates conflict and risks igniting large-scale violent conflict; if left uncontrolled, perhaps even civil war. Nonviolent protest strategies are much more likely to draw sympathy and understanding among the opponents. This is how the Freedom Marches of the 1960s civil rights era were so persuasive, and resulted in the passage of both the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

In Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict, Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan note that

between 1900 and 2006, campaigns of nonviolent resistance were more than twice as effective as their violent counterparts. Attracting impressive support from citizens that helps separate regimes from their main sources of power, these campaigns have produced remarkable results, even in the contexts of Iran, the Palestinian Territories, the Philippines, and Burma.

(One must note, of course, that those places did not stay nonviolent—far from it. But they might well have been better off if they had.)

I was simultaneously amused and dismayed to re-read my update to Maire's 2003 essay on nonviolence which was written in 2020. In that, I write about President Donald Trump (then serving his first term) sending federal troops into Portand, Oregon to supposedly quell violent protests (which were mostly nonviolent until the federal troops showed up and stoked violence). Here it is five years later, Donald Trump is serving his second term, and he is again sending federal troops into Portland. In 2020, I wrote that

Trump and his followers are trying hard to create the impression that violent Antifa thugs are coming to ransack conservative communities. [Now in his second term, he has designated Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization.] The goal is to frame the Antifa and the Left, in general, as violent adversaries. If violent threats are so effective, then why would Trump be trying to make his opponents appear more violent (and, hence, more effective)? The answer: he isn't. He knows that most people don't like others who are violent—they turn against the violent actors and towards those who promise law and order.

And towards those who stand up for what is right, against bad-faith actors who are seen as irresponsible, unlawful thugs.

We agree with Chenoweth and Stephan: nonviolence is much more effective than violence when force is needed to counter bad-faith actors who cannot be persuaded through integrative power, or traded with (using exchange power). But as we explain in the newsletter on the power strategy mix (and also explain in the Guide section on the Complex Nature of Power) it is still better to try to get as many of your interests, values, and needs met through persuasion and exchange, before resorting to coercion, nonviolent or violent.

It is also important to note that nonviolent protest is likely to be taken more seriously if the protesters, themselves, are serious, well-disciplined, and have a coherent message. That was what was so very impressive about the U.S. civil rights marches in the 1960s. The marchers were very well-disciplined, trained in nonviolent resistance, clear and consistent about their demands, and willing to engage in protest at potentially high cost to themselves (as they were often faced with brutal repression coming from the authorities).

This is in considerable contrast, we think, to the "No Kings Marches" that we are seeing since Donald Trump was elected to his second term. These marches are largely like parties. Participants come dressed up in costumes (in contrast to the 60s marchers who came in dresses and suits and ties), they dance and sing and encourage drivers going by to honk (it isn't clear whether honking is approval or disapproval, but it makes the events noisy.) The signs the protesters carry make all sorts of comments and demands from"No Kings," to "Love Everyone" (presumably not Donald Trump) to "Melt ICE," to ,"Protect Democracy," to, ,"Protect the Constitution,", to ,"Protect a Woman's Right to Choose,," to ,"Protect the Earth." The only coherent message was that the protesters hate Trump.

Fortunately, not many of these events have faced repression yet, because the untrained marchers would likely have no idea how to respond. Although we know many of our respected colleagues disagree, we don't think these marches are likely to bring about much change because they aren't disciplined, don't have a coherent message that is likely to create sympathy with people on the other side. Since American voters are about equally split between conservatives and liberals/progressives, it is going to take a movement that creates sympathy with more than half of the voters if they want to be able to have a successful movement.

That said, President Trump is doing enough unconscionable things that we really DO need an effective nonviolent movement countering his many authoritarian power-grabs. We need another leader of the stature of Martin Luther King who can organize effective nonviolent resistance, not simply a lot of disorganized party goers who stand on street corners for two hours every two months and then go home to business as usual.