https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3Cd-oEvEog
Thursday, August 27, 2020
How to topple a dictator
An interview with Erica Chenoweth, a leading scholar of authoritarian regimes.
By Waleed ShahidTwitter
FEBRUARY 24, 2017
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/how-to-topple-a-dictator/
As hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets in efforts to resist Donald Trump, Professor Erica Chenoweth has been obsessed with one question: How many people exactly?
Erica Chenoweth is one the leading scholars on authoritarian regimes and how to overthrow them. In her book Why Civil Resistance Works, she compiled 323 cases of nonviolent and violent campaigns in order to assess which were more successful in achieving their stated goals of regime change. Much to her surprise, Chenoweth discovered that nonviolent campaigns were nearly twice as effective as armed campaigns over the past century.
Chenoweth says the most effective variable in toppling a dictator is the number of people participating in a movement. Chenoweth argues that many more people—and more diverse groups of people—participate in nonviolent campaigns than in activities perceived to be violent. She concludes that this means nonviolence is not merely a moral choice for an individual, but a strategic necessity for a movement.
I sat down with Professor Chenoweth to discuss how her work studying efforts to overthrow dictators abroad can relate to resisting Trump at home, and whether authoritarianism is rising in the United States.
How do mobilizations like the Women’s March and the airport rallies impact the Trump administration?
They signal that resistance to the administration’s plans is alive and well, and they signal this to lots of important audiences. The first audience is other would-be protesters, who may be more willing to participate as they see the movement growing and winning key gains. The second audience is the silent majority, who may see the protests and demonstrations as reason to interpret the Trump administration’s actions with more skepticism. The third audience is the people who actually implement policy—Congress, law-enforcement officials, civil servants, and others who may be involved—who see that implementing the policies might be too costly, thereby motivating them to resist internally. And the fourth audience is people observing abroad, who see the resistance as a sign that the preferences of the American electorate are actually quite different from those of the American president. Public resistance can help to temper the consequences of any reckless missteps from the administration.
Do you consider Donald Trump to be an aspiring authoritarian?
There are certainly demagogic aspects of his behavior: disregard for institutional limits of his own authority, disregard for democratic norms and human rights, bullying and threatening political opponents, scapegoating of the vulnerable, mischaracterizing opposition to his plans as treachery, and a seeming indifference to understanding the US Constitution. But it’s also important to recognize the broader authoritarian currents in the American polity that put him in power.
What is the typical playbook of an authoritarian?
There is a pretty typical authoritarian playbook when it comes to weakening civil society. It’s basically a divide-and-rule strategy.
First there are strategies to reinforce elite loyalty through purges, paying off an inner entourage, and co-opting oppositionists through threats and bribes.
Second, there are strategies to suppress or undermine opposition. This includes using direct violence against oppositionists or their associates, of course, but it also involves counter-mobilizing one’s own supporters, infiltrating the movement, expanding surveillance, using pseudo-legitimate laws and practices that criminalize or increase penalties for erstwhile legal behaviors, adding administrative, financial, or legal burdens to civil-society groups, and planting plainclothes police and agents provocateurs to push the opposition into chaotic and/or undisciplined behavior.
Third, autocrats use strategies to reinforce support among the silent majority and other observers. This includes scapegoating foreigners and outsiders for domestic problems; mischaracterizing oppositionists as terrorists, traitors, coup plotters, “thugs,” or communists; censoring information or engaging in misinformation campaigns; and co-opting or bullying the independent media into submission. As authoritarians consolidate power, all of these behaviors tend to increase in frequency and intensity.
What is civil resistance and how it is different than what we might consider typical rallies and marches?
Civil resistance is a method of waging conflict where people use a wide variety of coordinated actions to disrupt and confront the opponent. There are many hundreds (or thousands) of techniques of civil resistance, which vary in their risk and disruptiveness. Actions like blockades, highway shutdowns, human barricades, and nonviolent occupations tend to involve higher risk and disruptiveness, whereas rallies and marches involve moderate risk and disruptiveness (depending on their size and the transgressiveness of their claims).
What does the success of a civil-resistance movement depend on?
Generally speaking, successful civil-resistance campaigns have four things in common: the continual growth of the number and diversity of participants; the ability to elicit loyalty shifts among the opponent elites and their supporters; the innovation of new methods rather than reliance on a single method; and the ability to remain resilient, disciplined, and united in the face of escalating repression.
We’ve seen videos of bricks thrown at store windows and cars and other objects lit on fire at some protests. These acts of property destruction are sometimes defended by a small segment of activists in the name of “diversity of tactics.” Can you be for nonviolence and for a diversity of tactics? What’s at stake in this question for organizers?
My take is that the widespread acceptance of “diversity of tactics” as a necessary or superior method of struggle compared to nonviolent discipline is misplaced. The most systematic studies on social movements in the US suggest that the technique has been politically counterproductive, even in cases where it had short-term tactical advantages. It has tended to alienate participants and would-be sympathizers, while undermining loyalty shifts among the opponent elites and increasing repression against movement activists and those they purported to represent.
Studies in other contexts and my own work with Kurt Schock on violent flanks suggest that combining violent and nonviolent action has been counterproductive in many other contexts as well (i.e., in both democratic and authoritarian systems, among different types of movement claims, etc.). There have been longer-term consequences too, as these activities have tended to deepen movement fragmentation and polarization over time. This has increased the propensity for authoritarianism and civil war long after mass movements have ended.
The approach undeniably has had short-term tactical advantages that many organizers take for granted. However, in the competition for legitimacy among the silent majority, these short-term tactical advantages have had long-term political costs that have been difficult to overcome.
How does property destruction affect the success of a movement?
A systematic survey on different public attitudes toward property destruction (among other tactics, like riots, protests, using graffiti, etc.) found that it is deeply unpopular in the United States. According to their surveys, the average white or Hispanic American believes that brutal forms of state violence (including the declaration of martial law, disappearances, and torture) are permissible when protesters engage in property destruction.
Omar Wasow also looked at nonviolent protests versus riots and violent protest in the 1960s in the US (the latter of which often involved property destruction). He found that proximity to nonviolent protests increased white Democratic vote share, whereas proximity to violent protests caused substantively important declines and likely tipped the 1968 election from Hubert Humphrey to Richard Nixon.
Tragically, we live in a country where many people have valued private property above human life. This ought to be contested and transformed. But this existing normative structure is an important part of the strategic operating environment, and it explains why so many studies have found property destruction to be counterproductive in terms of strategic success.
What trends have you seen from your studies about when a movement begins to lose nonviolent discipline?
Research finds that nonviolent discipline is more likely to slip away both when the opponent represses the movement and when it makes some midstream concessions to the movement. Repression can lead more militant voices to encourage the group to abandon nonviolent discipline out of a sense of desperation, whereas concessions can also split the movement into hard-liners and moderates, leading factions to spin out and form violent flanks. Many movements have successfully trained and avoided the breakdown of nonviolent discipline—and that this has allowed them to remain resilient (and therefore win in the end), despite the state’s attempts to divide and thwart them.
It seems clear that Donald Trump and Steve Bannon are pursuing a “divide-and-conquer” strategy of polarization. Is it right to assume that Trump and Bannon are waiting for a war, terrorist attack, or riots, to justify increasing authoritarianism? What can organizers do before the administration employs such tactics?
Any government could use such an action to justify increasing authoritarianism—whether it’s Trump’s administration or any other. A strong civil society can be an effective bulwark against authoritarianization. I believe that people in this country must protect and expand every bit of space they have to convene, talk, and build unity, solidarity, and capacity for the long haul. Of course, protests, marches, and rallies are opportunities for civil society to express itself. But, as Theda Skocpol argues, a strong civil society really comes from simple things like convening conversations over food, reading and study groups, encouraging involvement in various civic activities, community meetings, interfaith dialogues, and coalition-building.
In many civil resistance campaigns around the world, we’ve seen the last stage of a movement through iconic images of security forces refusing to obey orders and deciding to side with civilians. While the US military is one of the most racially integrated institutions in our country, how will these dynamics play out in our politics and in our policing system which are highly racialized?
READY TIn some systems, defections among security forces are impossible because of racial or ethnic divides. This was true in South Africa, for instance, where trying to elicit defections from security forces would have been disastrous (and incredibly dangerous) for black activists in the townships, particularly because of the tendency to view all black people as potential “terrorists” in the armed wing of the ANC. So instead, anti-apartheid mobilization aimed to hit the wallets of economic and business elites, and this was the crucial pillar of support that withdrew its cooperation from legalized apartheid as a result.
One lesson from this and other cases abroad is that effective community organization and resilience, building strategies that identify various other targets and methods of pressure, and avoiding deliberately provocative confrontations with security forces whenever possible can help a movement win in the end, while reducing needless exposure to risk.
There is strong evidence to suggest that the Americans view protest and policing through similarly racialized lenses. For instance, in recent survey research, many African Americans see all police violence against protesters as illegitimate. Conversely, many white Americans are more likely to interpret police violence as legitimate when it is directed against brown and black bodies, as compared with white bodies. However, when police are of mixed race and protesters are of mixed race, white Americans become confused and ambivalent about which side to support. There is an opening here to make them more sympathetic to the protesters.
This racist status quo is unacceptable, and progressives must work to change it. But in the meantime, these findings reveal important practical considerations regarding the current American polity. First, the findings speak to the strategic value of white allies showing up in actions to confound observers who would otherwise support police brutality. The findings also speak to the wisdom of longer-term efforts by many communities to bring racial and ethnic diversity into their police forces.
What do you think efforts to stop or remove Trump most depend on?
Once democracies begin the slide into authoritarianism, institutions cannot save them. The only protection against total failure is the capacity of civil society to effectively mobilize collective action. So, basically, we’re it! The ability to protect (and improve) the republic depends on whether a diverse coalition of progressive groups can restore, sustain, and mobilize an effective civil society.
How to Topple a Dictator (Peacefully)
https://canvasopedia.org/new-york-times-topple-dictator-peacefully/
Originally published in the New York Times. By Tina Rosenberg.
Several years ago, before their protest movement was co-opted by violence, a group of young Syrians looking for a way to topple President Bashar al-Assad traveled to an isolated beach resort outside Syria to take a weeklong class in revolution.
The teachers were Srdja Popovic and Slobodan Djinovic — leaders of Otpor, a student movement in Serbia that had been instrumental in the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. After then helping the successful democracy movements in Georgia and Ukraine, the two founded the Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (Canvas), and have traveled the world, training democracy activists from 46 countries in Otpor’s methods.
These two Serbs start with the concepts of the American academic Gene Sharp, the Clausewitz of the nonviolent movement. But they have refined and added to those ideas. In a new book, “Blueprint for Revolution,” Popovic recounts Canvas’s strategies and how people use them.
Photo
Srdja Popovic. Credit Darko Vojinovic/Associated Press“Blueprint” strains a bit too hard to be funny, but the title is no exaggeration. Otpor’s methods and signature — a stylized graphic clenched fist — have been adopted by democracy movements around the world. The Egyptian opposition used them to topple Hosni Mubarak. In Lebanon, the Serbs helped the Cedar Revolution extricate the country from Syrian control. In Maldives, their methods were the key to overthrowing a dictator who had held power for 30 years. In many other countries, people have used what Canvas teaches to accomplish other political goals, such as fighting corruption or protecting the environment.
I met Popovic and Djinovic in Belgrade five years ago, wrote about Otpor in a book and later met them in an Asian city to watch them train democracy activists from Burma.
I have lived in two dictatorships and seen dozens of democracy movements in action. But what the Serbs did was new. Popovic cheerfully blows up just about every idea most people hold about nonviolent struggle. Here are some:
Myth: Nonviolence is synonymous with passivity.
No, nonviolent struggle is a strategic campaign to force a dictator to cede power by depriving him of his pillars of support.
In the first hours of the Syrians’ workshop, some participants announced that violence was the only way to topple Assad. Every workshop begins this way, in part because some people think the Serbs are going to teach them to look beatific and meditate. Popovic said out loud what many were thinking: “So you just ask Assad to go away? Please, Mr. Assad, please can you not be a murderer anymore?” Popovic whined. “It’s not nice.”
Just the opposite, said Djinovic: “We’re here to plan a war.” Nonviolent struggle, Djinovic explained, is a war — just one fought with means other than weapons. It must be as carefully planned as a military campaign.
Over the next few days, the Serbs taught the young Syrians the techniques they had developed for taking power: How do you grow a movement from a vanload of people to hundreds of thousands? How do you win to your side the groups whose support is propping up the dictator? How do you wage this war safely when any kind of gathering can mean long prison terms, torture or death? How do you break through people’s fear to get them out into the street?
Myth: The most successful nonviolent movements arise and progress spontaneously.
No general would leave a military campaign to chance. A nonviolent war is no different.
Myth: Nonviolent struggle’s major tactic is amassing large concentrations of people.
This idea is widespread because the big protests are like the tip of an iceberg: the only thing visible from a distance. Did it look like the ousting of Mubarak started with a spontaneous mass gathering in Tahrir Square? Actually, the occupation of Tahrir Square was carefully planned, and followed two years of work. The Egyptian opposition waited until it knew it had the numbers. Mass concentrations of people aren’t the beginning of a movement, Popovic writes. They’re a victory lap.
In very harsh dictatorships, concentrating people in marches, rallies or protests is dangerous; your people will get arrested or shot. It’s risky for other reasons. A sparsely attended march is a disaster. Or the protest can go perfectly, but someone — perhaps hired by the enemy — decides to throw rocks at the police. And that’s what will lead the evening news. One failed protest can destroy a movement.
So what do you do instead? You can start with tactics of dispersal, such as coordinated pot-banging, or traffic slowdowns in which everyone drives at half speed. These tactics show that you have widespread support, they grow people’s confidence, and they’re safe. Otpor, which went from 11 people to 70,000 in two years, initially grew like this: three or four activists staged a humorous piece of anti-Milosevic street theater. People watched, smiled — and then joined.
Myth: Nonviolence might be morally superior, but it’s useless against a brutal dictator.
Nonviolence is not just the moral choice; it is almost always the strategic choice. “My biggest objection to violence is the fact that it simply doesn’t work,” Popovic writes. Violence is what every dictator does best. If you’re going to compete with David Beckham, Popovic says, why choose the soccer field? Better to choose the chessboard.
The Syrians who came to the workshop, needless to say, had little influence over the strategies that were later chosen by other groups opposed to Assad. Violence eventually prevailed — with devastating results.
But that is Popovic’s point: violence often brings devastating results. The scholars Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan analyzed campaigns of violent and nonviolent revolution in the last century (their book, “Why Civil Resistance Works,” uses Otpor’s fist as its cover image) and found that nonviolence has double the success rate of violence — and its gains have been more likely to last.
Only a handful of people will join a violent movement. Using violence throws away the support of millions — support you could have won through nonviolence.
Milosevic’s base of support was Serbia’s senior citizens. Otpor won them over by provoking the regime into using violence. Once Otpor’s leaders realized that its members who were arrested were usually released after being held for a few hours, it staged actions for the purpose of getting large numbers of members detained. Grandparents didn’t like having their 16-year-old grandchildren arrested, or the regime’s hysterical accusations that these high school students were terrorists and spies. Old people switched sides, becoming a key pillar of the Otpor movement. If there had been any truth to the accusations that Otpor used violence, the grandparents would have stayed with Milosevic.
Myth: Politics is serious business.
According to the Pixar philosopher James P. Sullivan, laughter is 10 times more powerful than scream. Nothing breaks people’s fear and punctures a dictator’s aura of invincibility like mockery — Popovic calls it “laughtivism.” Otpor’s guiding spirit was Monty Python’s Flying Circus, a television show its members had grown up watching, and its actions were usually pranks.
Popovic writes about a protest in Ankara after the Turkish government reacted with alarm to a couple kissing in the subway. Protesters could have chosen to march. Instead, they kissed – 100 people gathered in the subway station in pairs, kissing with great slobber and noise. You are a policeman. You have training in how to deal with an anti-government protest. But what do you do now?
Myth: You motivate people by exposing human rights violations.
Most people don’t care about human rights. They care about having electricity that works, teachers in every school and affordable home loans. They will support an opposition with a vision of the future that promises to make their lives better.
Focusing on these mundane, important things is not only more effective; it’s safer. In their Canvas workshop, the Burmese knew it was too risky to organize for political goals — but decided they could organize to get the Yangon city government to collect garbage. Gandhi wisely began his campaign of mass civil disobedience by focusing on Britain’s prohibition on collecting or selling salt. Harvey Milk failed in several campaigns for the San Francisco City Council. He won when he campaigned not on gay rights, but to rid the city’s parks of dog poop. A benefit of such campaigns is that their goals are achievable. Movements grow with small victory after small victory.
Talking about the miseries of life under a dictator is also a bad strategy for mobilizing activists. People already know — and they react by becoming cynical, fearful, atomized and passive. They might be angry, but they’re not going to act on it. Anger is not a motivator.
This was Otpor’s biggest obstacle. Most Serbs wanted Milosevic out. But the vast majority believed that was impossible to accomplish, and too perilous to attempt.
Otpor got people into the streets by making the movement about their own identity. Young people flocked to Otpor because it made them feel cool and important. They had great music and great T-shirts, adorned with the fist. Boys competed to rack up the most arrests. Young Serbs stopped feeling like passive victims and started feeling like daring heroes.
Myth: Nonviolent movements require charismatic leaders who give inspiring speeches.
Otpor had no speeches, ever. And while its strategies were meticulously planned, the people who did the planning were behind the scenes. Its spokesperson changed every two weeks, but it was usually a 17-year-old girl. (“Terrorists? Us?”)
In a traditional party, even parties in opposition to the dictator, the leaders’ job is to make speeches, and their followers listen and applaud. Not Otpor. Its messages were tested in focus groups, and its strategies carefully planned. It was not at all anarchic on the strategic level. But on a tactical level, decentralization was critical. Otpor had only two rules: You had to be anti-Milosevic and absolutely nonviolent. Follow those rules, and you could do anything and call yourself Otpor. This kept activists feeling busy, useful and important.
Myth: Police, security forces and the pro-government business community are the enemy.
Maybe, but it’s smarter to treat them like allies-in-waiting. Otpor never taunted or threw stones at the police. Its members cheered them and brought flowers and homemade cookies to the police station. Even the interrogations after arrest were an opportunity to fraternize and demonstrate Otpor’s commitment to nonviolence.
It paid off. The police knew that if the opposition won, Otpor would make sure they were treated fairly. During the last battle, police officers walked away from the barricades when the opposition asked them to. A dictator who can’t be sure his repressive orders will be obeyed is finished.
I lived in Chile when the opposition to Augusto Pinochet made mistake after mistake; advice from Otpor might have shortened the dictatorship by years. Had the Occupy movement in the United States adopted these tactics, it might still be a relevant force.
But nothing is more tragic than contemplating what Syria could have been now, had the nonviolent activists in the opposition movement prevailed — and followed Popovic’s blueprint.
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