Unpacking nonviolent campaigns

Abstract

Recent studies indicate that strategic nonviolent campaigns have been more successful over time in achieving their political objectives than violent insurgencies. But additional research has been limited by a lack of time-series data on nonviolent and violent campaigns, as well as a lack of more nuanced and detailed data on the attributes of the campaigns. In this article, we introduce the Nonviolent and Violent Campaigns and Outcomes (NAVCO) 2.0 dataset, which compiles annual data on 250 nonviolent and violent mass movements for regime change, anti-occupation, and secession from 1945 to 2006. NAVCO 2.0 also includes features of each campaign, such as participation size and diversity, the behavior of regime elites, repression and its effects on the campaign, support (or lack thereof) from external actors, and progress toward the campaign outcomes. After describing the data generation process and the dataset itself, we demonstrate why studying nonviolent resistance may yield novel insights for conflict scholars by replicating an influential study of civil war onset. This preliminary study reveals strikingly divergent findings regarding the systematic drivers of nonviolent campaign onset. Nonviolent campaign onset may be driven by separate – and in some cases, opposing – processes relative to violent campaigns. This finding underscores the value-added of the dataset, as well as the importance of evaluating methods of conflict within a unified research design.