A protest is more likely to escalate to violence a) the more recently it has faced state repression and b) when it is spontaneous rather than well-organized.
nonviolent/civil resistance
In South Africa, “dialogue policing” and other seemingly benign “soft-policing” tactics during protests ultimately serve the interests of the state.
Disobedient peace is about developing knowledge collectively through reflection and action, questioning taken-for-granted assumptions about a complex social order and obedience to authority, and developing a moral identity and action plans to disobey inhumane social orders.
Three central mechanisms help explain the turn to violent resistance: emotional mechanisms (fear and anger as motivation for self-defense and revenge, respectively), material mechanisms (“the availability of weapons”), and practice mechanisms (“previous experience, training, and organizational capabilities in violence”).
As of January 2020, The U.S. and Iran have walked back from the precipice of war. The recent escalation underscores
A cohesive national identity may be necessary for nonviolent movement success but does not itself fully explain why some such movements succeed while others fail.
Limiting both state violence and activist violence in the context of a civil resistance struggle is important to movement success.
In Barcelona, a four-day-long riot associated with 15-M led to an overall 12-point decline in public support for the movement.
Reformists in Iran were more willing to support and join a hypothetical Green Movement in the future if it were to use nonviolent rather than violent strategies.
Nonviolent uprisings with radical flanks have a higher mediation rate—35%, as opposed to 14% for those uprisings without radical flanks—suggesting that movements with radical flanks may create greater incentives for mediation due to the “greater risks of negative externalities.”
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