“The riot is the language of the unheard” — Martin Luther King

2019 was the year of civil unrest. The world witnessed over 150 major protests in a wave of “people power” not seen globally since the 1960’s. From Hong Kong, to Lebanon to Chile to Indonesia to India. Some of these revolutions toppled governments, others were stomped brutally into the ground and some are still open-ended questions as millions take to the streets.

What traits did the successful movements share? Are there common strategies that made them more likely to achieve their goals?

There are.

It seems that when it comes to starting a revolution, the chances a movement will be successful are increased exponentially with five identifiable tactics.

Non-Violence

Non-violence as a strategy is far more likely to succeed than an armed rebellion. To define the term, this refers to protests in which the movement as whole is inclusive and does not mean a militarized or terroristic approach that requires picking up weapons. Virtually all protests around the world experience some violence and property destruction, such as Ecuador and Chile in 2019, but for the purposes of this article they are not defined as violent conflicts.

Armed uprisings do not fare well historically for a number of reasons. First, they are less inclusive. People are much less likely to pick up a gun than attend a march and therefore movements that require militarization tend to be less popular. A willingness to kill also makes the movement dramatically less sympathetic to world-media and even fellow citizens.

Violence provokes an intense and equally violent response from law-enforcement and state forces in the countries in which they occur.

Non-violent campaigns succeed at five-times the rate of violent movements, and are three times less likely to suffer a mass-killing in the process, even in the case of regime repression.

Responding to State-Violence with armed action is generally a self-defeating strategy.

Indigenous protesters in Quito, Ecuador in October (Photo: Joshua Collins)

Erica Chenoweth is a Harvard researcher on popular movements.

“If campaigns use (state repression) as a pretext to militarize their campaign, then they’re essentially co-signing what the regime wants — for the resisters to play on its own playing field,” she stated in an interview with the Harvard Gazette. “And they’re probably going to get totally crushed.”

When a government feels it has been pushed into to the brink of civil war, it tends to respond forcefully and with vigor; often with less repercussions from the world community than it would repressing a mostly peaceful movement.

Successful non-violent protests toppled governments in 2019 in Lebanon, Sudan and Puerto Rico. Sudan in particular, faced a particularly brutal regime and yet prevailed against Bashir, forcing him from power.

Non-violent protests continue to endure in Iraq, despite more than 500 deaths, and Iranians have endured bloody repression as well and yet still take to the streets.

Peace, it would seem, is powerful.