By Jonathan Pinckney, 2016
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Abstract: New research has recently raised the profile of nonviolent civil resistance as a major and particularly effective form of political struggle. Yet the dynamics of nonviolent movements for change in repressive non-democracies remain poorly-understood. In particular, little empirical research has addressed the crucial question of nonviolent discipline; how the leaders of nonviolent movements maintain their followers’ adherence to nonviolent practice, an aspect of civil resistance often argued to be crucial in explaining its success. In this monograph I use new event-level data from the Nonviolent and Violent Campaigns and Outcomes (NAVCO) 3.0 dataset as well as comparative case studies to answer crucial questions about the aspects of movement tactics, strategy, and organization, as well as the broader political and social environment, which facilitate or undermine nonviolent discipline. The findings of this study will increase scholarly knowledge of the dynamics of civil resistance, as well as providing important insights for activists, civic educators, and policymakers.
About the Author: Dr. Jonathan Pinckney is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Institute of Sociology and Political Science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), an external associate at the Peace Research Institution of Oslo (PRIO), and a research fellow at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC). He previously worked as a research fellow at the Sie Cheou Kang Center for International Security and Diplomacy, where he supervised data collection for the Social Conflict Analysis Database (SCAD) and the Nonviolent and Violent Campaigns and Outcomes (NAVCO) 3.0 data project. Jonathan researches resistance movements in non-democracies. His work has been published in the Journal of Peace Research, Foreign Policy’s Democracy Lab, and the edited volume Wielding Nonviolence in the Midst of Violence. Jonathan received his PhD in International Relations from the University of Denver in March 2018. He was a 2012 recipient of the Korbel School’s Sie Fellowship and a 2016 recipient of the ICNC Ph.D. fellowship.