When Do Protests Actually Work? — with Erica Chenoweth

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway

Episode Title: When Do Protests Actually Work? — with Erica Chenoweth
Date: April 9, 2026
Host: Scott Galloway
Guest: Erica Chenoweth, Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School
Episode Number: 391

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Episode Overview

In this conversation, Scott Galloway interviews Erica Chenoweth, a leading scholar on political violence, civil resistance, and social movements, best known for research on the effectiveness of nonviolent protest. The discussion centers on the dynamics that make movements succeed or fail, how mass mobilization translates into tangible political change, the “3.5% rule,” the challenges of building momentum and securing defections, and lessons from protest movements around the world.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Four Factors of Successful Movements

[03:17] Erica Chenoweth outlines four major criteria that determine whether a protest movement is likely to succeed:

• Large and diverse participation: Building broad momentum draws in more supporters.
• Driving defections from pillars of support: Targeting key supporters (political institutions, security forces, business elites) to defect from the regime.
• Methodological flexibility: Shifting between public protest, non-cooperation, and mutual aid.
• Resilience and discipline: Maintaining nonviolent discipline even under repression.

“There are really four things that make movements more likely to succeed… The first is very large and diverse participation… The second is the ability to leverage that participation into creating defections within the opponent's pillars of support… The third is the ability to shift between methods of protest… And then the fourth is the ability to maintain resilience and discipline even as repression against the movement escalates…”
— Erica Chenoweth [03:17]

Common Pitfalls: The Challenge of Defections

[04:51] Chenoweth discusses the difficulty movements face in driving defections among key pillars, referencing computational research comparing three protest strategies:

• Mass mobilization alone fails if it doesn't target defectors.
• Naive targeting is only modestly effective.
• Informed targeting—focusing on likely defectors—creates cascades and has the greatest impact.

“The third strategy is by far the most likely to succeed in the least amount of time… It's actually very challenging both to build a strategy that creates defections and to understand how to do that…”
— Erica Chenoweth [05:47]

No Kings Protests: A Case Study

[06:22–09:30] Chenoweth evaluates the ongoing “No Kings” protests in the U.S. using her four criteria:

• Participant base is growing and diversifying, especially post-ICE incidents;
• Some defections, but more are needed for a pro-democracy outcome;
• Maintains strong discipline and nonviolent credibility;
• Suggests the movement aligns with patterns of past successful movements but has more progress to make.

Demographic Diversity and Efficacy

[09:30–11:42]
Scott highlights perceptions that U.S. protests skew older and whiter; Chenoweth acknowledges some geographical variation, but notes recent actions have drawn in more varied participants, especially in areas with intense ICE operations. The more diverse, the more powerful the movement.

Protest Impact on Electoral Outcomes

[12:17–14:26]
Discusses research linking one-day protests (e.g., the 2017 Women's March, Black Lives Matter) to:

• Higher candidate diversity, voter turnout, and significant midterm/presidential “wave” elections.
• Tea Party protests had measurable downstream impacts for Republicans in 2010.

“Even a single day of protest can have those types of electoral impacts… So people shouldn't underestimate how important it is…”
— Erica Chenoweth [13:20]

The “3.5% Rule” and Its Limits

[19:19–22:23]
Scott asks about the famous “3.5%” threshold for protest participation (where no movement in Chenoweth's data failed if >3.5% of the population mobilized). Chenoweth clarifies:

• It's a historical observation, not a guaranteed rule.
• Exceptions (e.g., Bahrain 2011) occurred when key pillars (security forces) didn't defect—even at high participation.
• Regimes can adapt to resist mass mobilization; movements need multiple complementary strategies.

“It was defeated because there were no defections… there have been adaptations on the government side and that movements shouldn't take for granted...”
— Erica Chenoweth [21:09]

Insights from Global Movements (Iran, Syria, South Africa)

Iran ([22:23–26:56])

• Severe repression can destroy movement “shock troops” before support can build.
• *Absence of unified opposition and international support complicates strategy and limits organizing.

South Africa ([28:38–31:01])

• Business and economic elites proved decisive when security forces wouldn't defect.
• Persistent economic pressure (boycotts/strikes) eventually leveraged reform from inside.

“That's the way that apartheid ultimately fell—by a variety of economic actions… that is ultimately what pressured the business class to pressure the National Party…”
— Erica Chenoweth [29:25]

Role of Corporate Elites and Economic Pressure

[26:56–31:01]
Scott laments corporate silence during critical political moments, drawing parallels to Weimar Germany. Chenoweth echoes that economic elites can be pivotal linchpins—either by enabling autocracy or catalyzing reform, as in South Africa.

Protest Forms: Marches vs. Economic Noncooperation

[33:19–35:23]
Scott asks what’s more impactful: nine million marching or nine million stopping spending and work for a week?
Chenoweth: Context matters—effective protest can be adversarial (imposing costs) or persuasive (negotiating/quiet organizing). Sometimes, subtle behind-the-scenes strategies with business elites yield more defection than public blame.

“Sometimes more private, behind the scenes quiet organizing and persuasion work is going to go a longer way than kind of public adversarial approaches.”
— Erica Chenoweth [34:14]

Building Effective Resistance Infrastructure

[36:45–41:00]
Scott: If you were CEO of “the movement,” what would you focus on?

• Umbrella formations for coordination and communication (as in South Africa, Chile, South Korea).
• Capacity for nonviolent discipline, rapid mobilization, and clear public messaging.
• Media-savvy transparency (videoing ICE operations) proved crucial in shaping narratives after high-profile cases.
• A united front is essential to amplify disparate efforts and resources.

South Korea: A Contemporary Success Story

[39:38–42:17]
Chenoweth recounts South Korea’s peaceful thwarting of a coup—unions threatened an orderly national strike, scuttled the coup, pursued impeachment, and secured accountability without civil war. The power lay in their credible threat to shut down the country, demonstrating deterrence potential.

“They could credibly commit that they could bring the country to an orderly standstill, and that's why it worked.”
— Erica Chenoweth [41:44]

Personal Journey & Research Motivation

[42:17–44:31]
Chenoweth describes her path from terrorism studies to nonviolent resistance, the genesis of her empirical research (with Maria Stephan), and how the literature’s grown to support the four key pillars she champions today.

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Memorable Quotes

• On protest effectiveness:
  “It's actually very challenging both to build a strategy that creates defections and to understand how to do that in a way that creates the cascade of defections, not just an occasional defection here or there…” — Chenoweth [05:47]

• On the “3.5% rule”:
  “First of all, it's a historical observation, not a prediction… there have been adaptations on the government side and that movements shouldn't take for granted…” — Chenoweth [21:09]

• On economic elites:
  “Business and economic community is so important… In other cases of autocratic breakthrough… if big business had acted a different way, it probably would have created huge amounts of friction.” — Chenoweth [30:22]

• On South Korea’s umbrella movement:
  “That's the way both a successful movement works and how to stop a coup…” — Chenoweth [41:24]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [03:17] The Four Pillars of Movement Success
• [04:51] Common Pitfalls: Securing Defections
• [06:22–09:30] Evaluating the “No Kings” Protests
• [12:17–14:26] Protest Impact on Elections
• [19:19–22:23] The Origins and Limits of the “3.5% Rule”
• [22:23–26:56] Observations on Protests in Iran and Syria
• [28:38–31:01] Economic Elites’ Role in South Africa’s Transition
• [33:19–35:23] Tactics: Marches vs. Economic Noncooperation
• [36:45–41:00] Designing Effective Movement Infrastructure
• [39:38–42:17] The South Korea Case Study
• [42:17–44:31] Erica Chenoweth’s Research Journey

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Notable Moments

• “No Kings” movement cited as among the most disciplined and nonviolent in recent years — an evolving, positive protest culture.
• Scott’s critique of corporate silence and comparison to historical moments where business could have swayed the course of democracy.
• Chenoweth’s call for a unified ‘umbrella’ organizational structure to magnify the impact of disparate U.S. democracy efforts.
• Rare recent success story in South Korea—rapid, coordinated, nonviolent resistance directly derailing a coup attempt.

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Conclusion

This episode offers a practical and data-driven exploration into protest efficacy, the conditions that fuel real change, and the lessons U.S. movements can glean from global counterparts. Chenoweth emphasizes that movements succeed not merely by numbers, but by strategic diversity, disciplined organization, and focusing on creating visible cracks in the system’s core supports. Galloway’s probing questions and Chenoweth’s nuanced answers provide a roadmap for activists and observers seeking to understand or leverage the dynamics of political resistance.

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Welcome to the 391st episode of the Prof. GPOD. Didn't see that coming, did you? Didn't see that coming. What's happening? In today's episode, we speak with Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist and professor at Harvard's Kennedy School whose research focuses on political violence, civil resistance, and social movements. Professor Chenoweth is widely known for their work on the effectiveness of nonviolent protests, something we've spoken a lot about. We've even quoted their work many times in our newsletter, no Mercy, no Mouth, specifically on the topic of Resist and Unsubscribe. Anyways, with that. Here's our conversation with Erica Chenoweth. Professor, where does this podcast find you?

[A]

I'm in Cambridge today.

[B]

All right, let's bust right into it. You spent your career studying how nonviolent movements succeed or fail, and we've cited your work in our newsletter several times. We even launched our own economic resistance campaign earlier this year. But I want to make sure. Well, I love just your insight. How would you describe what your research actually says in your own words?

[A]

I think the most relevant research here is about what is it that makes movements more likely to succeed or fail. And I think the sort of synthesis I would offer from a huge range of research studies on this, my own and others, is that there are really four things that make movements more likely to succeed than others. The first is very large and diverse participation that builds momentum. The second is the ability to leverage that participation into creating defections within the opponent's pillars of support, whether those are the sort of political institutions, the social and cultural institutions, security forces, the business and economic elite that uphold a sort of authoritarian status quo, if you will. The third is the ability to shift between methods of protest to methods of non cooperation, like your campaign, and methods of alternative institutions. You're building mutual aid networks and things along those lines. And then the fourth is the ability to maintain resilience and discipline even as repression against the movement escalates. And the movements that do those things well tend to succeed more often than the movements that struggle with one or more of those four factors.

[B]

Where do you think most movements get it wrong? Because my sense is becoming just a sophomore student in this recently and listening to you and Timothy Snyder and some other people is that the vast majority fail. Which of the four hurdles do you think trips people up most often?

[A]

I think getting defections is the hardest. In a study that I did with Zoe Marks and Andrew Hawking, we did a sort of computational study that ran three different types of strategies. The first is the mass mobilization strategy. Just get as many people in the streets as possible as quickly possible and hope for the best. With regard to pillars defecting, the second strategy was what we called a naive pillar strategy, which is protest in a way that's trying to get those defections, but you don't know in advance which pillars are most likely to defect. You just go to the nearest one and protest and hope for the best. And then the third strategy is what we call an informed pillar strategy, and that's where the activists have some advanced information about which of the pillars are already kind of on the fence. And, and they focus on those first. And that then creates early defections in the movement that can create a cascade of defections. And that third strategy is by far the most likely to succeed in the least amount of time. And the first strategy, the mass mobilization strategy, is to get as many people into the streets as possible as quickly as possible and hope that the pillars defect is the least likely to succeed. And so I think part of it is just, it's actually very challenging both to build a strategy that creates defections and to understand how to do that in a way that creates the cascade of defections, not just an occasional defection here or there, because they happen to push the right button one day.

[B]

So using those four criteria, evaluate the no Kings protests.

[A]

Yeah, my sense is that the no Kings protests, and by this. Let's just talk about the national days of protest, right. Which is not all that it is, but the protests themselves. I mean, we are seeing growth in numbers over time. We're seeing a diverse range of people from all walks of life coming out and participating in those protests. You could argue it's building momentum in the sense that there are lots of protests that happen between those very large scale days of action. For example, my team at the Crowd Counting consortium documented that June 2020 actually had the third most protest events in a month in the entire first and second Trump administrations. And that was largely in reaction to ICE in Minneapolis and the killings that happened there. But that just speaks to the fact that the pace of protests and the pace of protest mobilization is quite high and increasing over time, even between these big days of protest. And then when it comes to defections, I think that there are kind of cases where we see that happening, then there are cases where we don't and where you'd otherwise expect them to happen. And I think that's a pretty natural thing to expect at this stage of a movement, which is to say the mobilization against autocratic consolidation in the US has been going on now for the entirety of the second Trump administration, but has. You know, the average movement takes about two and a half years or three years to sort of run its course in creating the defections cascades that are sort of necessary to bring about a pro democratic outcome. And so I think it's sort of on pace, but still with the way to go. And then when it comes to diversity or sort of a broader range of methods of protest. So it's clear that the large scale days of action are important in both bringing in new participants to the movement and in encouraging existing and New participants about the power of their collective action. The key here is channeling it into political power through encouraging people then to meet in their communities, to build more community based organizations, to channel it into electoral power, to potentially channel it into methods of non cooperation and other strategies of dissent. And then the last thing I'll note is I think it probably is one of the most disciplined movements we've seen in recent years in terms of the ability to not overreact to provocations and to maintain basically nonviolent discipline, even as repression has been escalating in a way that signals that the movement is both prepared for that repression and that when the repression happens, the movement can respond to it in a way that shifts the balance of power rather than sort of succumbing to potential disarray or indiscipline.

[B]

Yeah, that really struck me. Nine million people and I have yet to see any reports of any type of violence or civil disobedience. Any thoughts on. One of the criteria was that the participants in the protests are from a diverse group. My understanding is these protests, no Kings. And by the way, I find them inspiring. And I don't mean in any way to be critical of them, but people have brought up the notion they seem to be. The participants seem to be older and whiter. Any thoughts on their ability or the importance of reaching across different demographic groups to make these more effective?

[A]

It really depends on where it's happening, for one thing. So I think that the people who have actually done surveys and done demographic counts in those surveys have noted from some of the big cities that they've seen this kind of that demographic description that you just gave. But you know, there were over three, probably over 3,000 events that happened on Saturday, Many of them in places that have never seen a protest in the last generation.

[B]

Many of them a lot of rural towns. Right. That are mostly Republican.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. And I think really there's also kind of a convergence, I would say, in some places where ICE operations have been very intense that has drawn in a lot of younger people and people from different walks of life into the movement. And so I actually think this last no Kings saw the convergence of. It was probably more demographically diverse than the prior, in part because of how many streams of opposition and resistance are kind of verging in those big days of action. Clearly, the more people from the more walks of life who take part, the more powerful the movement will be. And it's often the case that movements, different formations appeal to different demographics, and the more those formations come Together, the more powerful they will be in shoring up the capacities of those different segments of society.

[B]

I wonder. I'll just put forward a thesis and I literally, I'm flying on instruments here, but I wonder if some of it is that younger Americans, the most recent protests, Black Lives Matter, and the women's marches, which were inspiring, but I'm not sure those groups felt like they registered a lot of change, whereas older Americans still remember the protests, the Vietnam protests, civil rights protests, or at least learned about them in school, which had a huge impact. I wonder if it's just one group says, this is worth my Saturday, and another group is maybe a little bit more cynical.

[A]

You could be onto something in some cases. I would just note that there's some interesting research out there that shows that, for example, the Women's March of 2017 was. The participation in women's marches just in that single day had a really powerful predictive effect on the diversity of candidates that ran in the midterm elections in 2018 and the blue wave that came in 2018 flipping Congress to be a Democratic Congress. They can show a strong correlation between the numbers of people who participated on that day and the outcome of that election. And the same is true for the 2020 election. Actually, that large participation in Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020 were also correlated with outcomes in the presidential election result and in shifts in public opinion and in changes substantive around, for example, progressive attorneys general or DAs being elevated in local and state elections. So I think that there are reasons to be skeptical, but also those types of stories aren't necessarily very prominent out there in the world. And I think it can be really important to elevate the ways that even a single day of protest can have those types of electoral impacts. Same for the Tea Party. The Tea Party protests, there was a paper by economists that showed that it was powerfully correlated with the 2010 midterm election result. Right. So people shouldn't underestimate how important it is, and they shouldn't overestimate how important it is compared to the other things that also lead mass movements to succeed.

[B]

Yeah. So one, a thesis and then an observation. If the connection between inspiring candidates and people to turn out to the voting booth, and at a minimum, this creates infrastructure and makes you more invested in outcomes. Right. It sounds as if, if this holds, and I don't see any reason why it wouldn't, it's going to be a very ugly November for Republicans.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, if. If the pattern obtains in this case, then we would expect we would expect a a loss in the midterms. Now I also think that none of these models have predictive power, right? So lots of things can be different. But I think yes, if what we saw in 2017 and 2018 tracks in this case, then we would expect in a normal kind of election year and under normal circumstances to see a similar outcome in the 2026 midterm.

[B]

We'll be right back after a quick break. Support for the show comes from LinkedIn it's a shame when the best B2B marketing gets wasted on the wrong audience. Like imagine running an ad for cataract surgery on Saturday morning cartoons. Or running a promo for this show on a video about Roblox or something. No offense to our Gen Alpha listeners, but that would be a waste of anyone's ad budget. So when you want to reach the right professionals, you can use LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn has grown to a network of over 1 billion professionals and 130 million decision makers according to their data. That's where it stands apart from other ad buys. You can target your buyers by job title, industry, company role, seniority, skills, company revenue, all so you can stop wasting budget on the wrong audience. That's why LinkedIn Ads boasts one of the highest B2B return on ad spend of all online ad networks. Seriously, all of them. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com Scott that's LinkedIn.com Scott Terms and conditions apply. Support for the show comes from Nutrafol, the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand. Trusted by over one and a half million people, Nutrafol now offers hair growth supplements tailored to men at every age because the root causes of hair thinning change over time and your routine should too. Nutrafol men for ages 18 to 49 can help improve hair growth and achieve thicker, fuller hair in three to six months. And their new product, Nutrafol Men 50 plus is the first and only hair growth product specifically formulated for men 50 and older. Adding Nutrafol to your daily routine is easy. You can order online, no prescription needed. Plus, with a Nutrafol subscription, you can save up to 20% and get added perks to support your hair growth journey. Start Nutrafil today and make the hat optional. Visit nutrafil.com and enter promo code PROPCHI for $10 off your first month subscription and free shipping. Find out why Nutrafol is the best selling hair growth supplement [e-mail] spelled n u t r a f o l.com promo code profile that's nutrafol.com promo code prop g. Support for the show comes from Nutrafol, the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand trusted by over one and a half million people. Nutrafol now offers hair growth supplements tailored to men at every age. Because the root cause of hair thinning change over time and your routine should as well. Nutraful men for ages 18 to 49 can can help improve hair growth and achieve thicker fuller hair in three to six months. And their new product, Nutrafol Men 50 plus is the first and only hair growth product specifically formulated for men 50 and older. You can feel great about what you're putting into your body. Since Nutrafol hair growth supplements are backed by peer reviewed studies and NSF Content certified, the gold standard in third party certification for supplements, adding Nutrafol to your daily routine is easy. You can order online, no prescription needed. Plus with a Nutrafol subscription you can save up to 20% and get added perks to support your hair growth journey. Start Nutrafol today and make the hat optional. Visit nutrafol.com and enter promo code PROFG for $10 off your first month subscription and free shipping. Find out why Nutrafol is the best selling hair growth supplement [e-mail] spelled n u t r-a f o l.com promo code Prof. G that's nutrafol.com promo code Prof. G. The other question I have for you is I keep hearing this 3.5% number and that is if you get to this 3.5% hurdle and I think it's 350 million people to sat, that would be 12.25 million. I think if I'm doing my math correctly, somewhere in there, right, 12 plus million. That that's when you see real change, that that's when the government can't ignore it. Where did that number come from? And it strikes me that my understanding is the no Kings protest went from 7 million to 9 million. So it's building momentum, it's in no way fizzling out. And why is it we need to get to 12 and a quarter million? Do you buy that 3.5% number? Where did it come from?

[A]

Yeah, so the 3.5% statistic is based on a historical observation of 323 mass movements between 1900 and 2006. And it came from a conversation I was having with an activist actually who asked Me if there was some kind of critical threshold above which no movements had failed in terms of mass participation. And so this was after a study that Maria Steffan and I did. Our book had come out, and I was doing some workshops and talks about it, and so just looked at the data and then found that observation that among the campaigns that we had documented and for which we had kind of peak participation estimates, none of the campaigns that had moved above that 3.5% national population threshold had failed. So I think the things to know about that are, first of all, it's a historical observation, not a prediction. Second of all, as you know, historical observations are always just that. They're not also prescriptive, which is the sense that if we try to aim for 3.5%, knowing that that's the target, are we doing something different than what people did historically when they didn't know about that kind of a threshold and wouldn't have been trying to game it, as it were? And then the third piece is that there have been, since that period, exceptions to the rule, which is to say, like Bahrain, for example, had its own attempted Arab Awakening in 2011 that fizzled out fully by 2014. And in that case, it looks like during their peak moment, they had about 6% of the population mobilized in their sort of central area. And that ended up failing. And one of the reasons that it was defeated is important and instructive. It was defeated because there were no defections. And there were no defections because in that case, the monarchy decided not to send its own troops out to repress and got help from Saudi Arabia to do it. And that is a really important technique of preventing defections that we've then seen happen elsewhere. And the logic is that if there are fewer kind of social connections between the security forces and the people protesting, that there will be less hesitation and brutality toward the protesters. That's just something that has been an adaptation on the side of pretty persistent authoritarian regimes at this point, and kind of taking the wind out of the sails of these movements, even when they get very large. And it's something that we should know is just that there have been adaptations on the government side and that movements shouldn't take for granted that if they hit a historical threshold, that the same effects will naturally obtain without other types of strategy and organization building and leadership.

[B]

So granted, it's probably harder to get more granular data, but the protests in Iran, a different complexion much, I would argue, I don't know, more complex, more severe, whatever the term is. What are Your observations. What do you think the media is getting wrong about the protests to date in Iran?

[A]

I guess I have two observations about it. I mean, first of all, the repression that took place against the civilian population there, massacres that took place, are some of the worst we've seen since, for sure, the Syrian revolution in 2011 and 2012. You know, one of the things that I remember happening at that point is that after the US Extracted Maduro and brought him to the United States, there was strong and powerful signaling by the United States that Iran would be next. And that coincided with a period of improvised protests in response to basically economic concerns like, you know, a currency crisis and other things that people were reacting to on the ground. And then when it sounded like there was going to be some kind of external intervention, from what I understand there was, there was a sense of now or never among many of the protesters who were aware of that, and it allowed for or even enabled more risky action than they otherwise would have taken. And then the fact that the US didn't actually intervene at that time or do a similar operation, as it were, just kind of speaks to the very tricky global dynamics of these things and the, as they say, moral hazard problem of signaling different types of international support when none is necessarily forthcoming, and that the people on the ground pay the price, I think. And there are some similar dynamics with that and the Syrian revolution. In fact, I remember in those days there were people who were exiles from Syria or had recently departed from there, trying to lobby foreign governments to intervene the way that they had intervened in Libya. And there was a sense that was almost inevitable that it was going to happen in Syria, and more risky action was taken as a result of that, in a way. So I think that's really very tricky. The second observation I would have is that what happens on the ground in Iran is so hard because there is not really a formal opposition or opposition groups that have the capacity to even connect with one another, much less organize a strategic mass movement or spokespeople.

[B]

Isn't that keto resistance that you have spokespeople that people can rally around?

[A]

Spokespeople, for sure, but also just strategy, right? Like thinking about beyond the just going to the streets and trying to amass large shows of force, but also like how to tap into the different sources of weakness in the government and begin to, you know, chip away at loyalties. Like, those types of things are really important and necessary, particularly against an authoritarian regime as durable and as formidable as the Iranian regime. And so what organizational capacity does exist is outside the country. Right. So you have people who are sort of more recent departures from Iran, from, say, the reform era, who have more ties to people on the ground, but fewer kind of resources to help mobilize. And then you have people from the previous era, like the previous Iranian Revolution, many of whom are kind of organizing around the Crown Prince and the like. And so even the external opposition is quite divided. And those who are rallying around Reza Pahlavi don't have nearly as much legitimacy on the ground as the more recent departures, but they don't have the capacity that he has and the resources. So it's just a very, very tricky situation that I think helps to illuminate a lot of the fact that when people rise up anymore, it's not just against their own government. They're in this sort of global environment that's changing very quickly and it's creating very challenging terrain.

[B]

At Admiral James Stavridason, who was the NATO Supreme Allied Commander, and he said something obvious but insightful, and that is the shock troops, kind of the Marines of the protest, the ones who are most aggressive and quite frankly willing to give up their lives. And they did. There was 30,000 of them, and they're dead now. And that they kind of. Our timing was just wrong, right. That you wanted support from America or perhaps military action before those 30,000 people took to the streets. And there's going to be a limited supply of people who are willing to give their lives for a movement like this. I have been shocked at the lack of resistance and the lack of protest amongst corporate leaders. I'm convinced that of the 500 Fortune 500 leaders, 490 of them wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and say, hello, madam, or Mr. President. I think they're all waiting to be drafted to run for president. And I have been. The silence is deafening. And whatever your politics are, I think there's a very solid argument that what is going on right now is not good for business at a very capitalist level. And there has been crickets. Have you done any research on the importance of. I go back to Weimar Germany, when a lot of the industrial captains of industry in Germany stayed quiet or kind of did a deal with Hitler, if you will. But any parallels or any historical references around the lack of protest or resistance from the corporate world in your studies?

[A]

So this is a really important issue. It's not my primary area, but what I'll say is if you think about cases like South Africa, for example, this is a case where clearly, the linchpin in the sustainability of apartheid ended up being the corporate and business elite. And that was a case where the security forces were never going to defect to the United Democratic Front and the black opposition. But the sort of implication of that was that if the security force pillar is not available, then what about the business and economic elites that are upholding the apartheid state? And so that is the way that apartheid ultimately fell was by a variety of economic actions. Whether those were boycotts of white owned businesses, whether they were ultimately multinational corporations pulling out of the country, whether it was strikes and work stoppages combined with massive protests and marches, that is ultimately what pressured the business class to pressure the National Party, which was the pro apartheid party, to elect a reformer in De Klerk when they had the opportunity to do so. And when he came to power in the National Party, he immediately pushed through legislation to unban the ANC and start negotiations. And they found a path to a democratic transition without a civil war in a country that looked like it was on the path to either continued military garrison state with a white supremacist government, or it was on the path to civil war. And so they found that way. And it was because of the pressure put on the business community to change what they viewed as their own interests and in the stakes. And so, like I think they are, the business and economic community is so important. And as you mentioned, there are other cases of, you know, autocratic breakthrough moments where, you know, if big business has had acted a different way, it probably would have created huge amounts of friction. And instead they didn't. And so it didn't.

[B]

We'll be right back.

[A]

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[B]

We're back with more from Professor Erica Chenoweth. So do you think we constantly as a term, there's a difference between being right and being effective, and the no Kings protests are both. But I'll put forward a thesis or a question, and obviously it's a loaded question because I have a bias here. What would be more effective? The protests of 9 million people, or potentially 9 million people stopping all spending and not going into work for a week?

[A]

I'm going to give a totally unsatisfying response because it depends on the context, which is to say.

[B]

You mean nuanced. Yeah, there's some nuance here.

[A]

I think it depends on the durability of it. Right. And actually how much cost is imposed. I also think that imposing costs is not the only way to change behavior. Right. So there are other ways to change behavior. Negotiating inducements, trying to get, you know, sometimes an oppositional approach or an adversarial approach like that is necessary to demonstrate what can happen or what the consequences are of inaction or complicity. And sometimes there's low hanging fruit and just finding a way to identify shared interest and then go with that is another way. There's a study out by one of my colleagues, Jonathan Pinkney, who together I think with another author or two was talking about methods of inducing defections. And particularly I think for the business community, they were saying that sometimes more private, behind the scenes quiet organizing and persuasion work is going to go a longer way than kind of public adversarial approaches. Now there's always going to be a range, right, of, of interests and where different businesses and corporations place themselves on that spectrum. And the ones that are the most tightly aligned with the, with an authoritarian or aspiring authoritarian regime are going to be the hardest to, to, to get at. But others who are a little bit further or just trying to stay out of the fray or Whatever, those are the ones to sort of think about focusing on first. And then, you know, the more adversarial approaches then can be applied to those who are kind of further along in the sort of authoritarian direction. So I think that's an intriguing proposition, and it hasn't been fully tested in the US Case, I think, but is an interesting way to think about it

[B]

isn't an interesting insight, and again, it's kind of hiding in plain sight. But the thing about the no Kings protests is they are very positive. They have a really nice feel to them. You bring your kids, the signs are funny. You feel a sense of citizenship, camaraderie. They are very, very positive. And I think it's hard to be critical of them. They just look like good people doing good things. Imagine there's a large swath of the population that is really upset by the administration's activities, and they believe that action absorbs anxiety and they want to do something. And they all got together and elected a board of directors and said, all right, who do we reach out to to organize the next big form of resistance or protest? And I said, okay, we're going to reach out to Professor Chenoweth. And you were given the ability to organize a protest or a form of resistance, to shape it and say, this is. I want to be focused on effectiveness, whether it's getting a mass secret police out of cities or changing our policies on immigrants, whatever it might be. But if you were given, if you were, if you will, the CEO of this thing, and you got to shape it, what elements would be incorporated? What would it look like?

[A]

Do you mean on the infrastructure side or on the tactical and strategic side?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Okay. If it's on the infrastructure side, it's an interesting question about what capacities are needed right now and at what scale. And I think that, you know, my argument would be that in other cases where we've seen successful kind of democratic U turns take place, usually there's been some kind of umbrella formation, like the United Democratic Front and South Africa, or like its comparison in Chile under Pinochet, or more recently in South Korea, there was sort of a united alliance. And I would argue that we need some kind of kind of umbrella formation that's giving shape to what already exists in the US A huge number of ingredients for what makes for a successful democracy movement. And I think that in terms of the capacities needed, there's clearly the sort of mobilization capacity that exists already, but then also kind of an ability to communicate broadly about what's happening in a way that that brings common knowledge to the population at large about what's going on and what they should know about it and what they might do about it. Like I said earlier, I think what we're seeing right now in the US Is consistent with what we've seen in a lot of different successful democracy movements, in part because there has been such robust training infrastructure set up for things like, you know, observing ICE operations. And because of that, the killings of Renee Good and Alex Preddy backfired. It's only because cameras were rolling and people were there observing because they knew how to do that and they knew how to get the information out that those stories ended up being the sort of official narrative about those stories ended up being contested in the first place. Right. And then there's training in nonviolent discipline, there's training in non cooperation, like all of those things are happening. There's so many people the country in organizations trying to support that work. And I think that's part of why we've seen it play out the way it has. So I think in terms of it's hard to focus on more than the sort of four things that I mentioned that successful movements do. Right. And I think those things are happening. So I guess this is all to say I wouldn't really suggest that that much is different in the country, except what I mentioned about a sort of broader umbrella formation helping to make it more than the sum of its parts.

[B]

You brought up something that I hadn't thought of before that I think is an outstanding example that we don't talk enough about. Can you talk about what went down in South Korea?

[A]

So the really abbreviated version of this is that last December there was an attempted coup by the incumbent president. And while it was underway, meaning after he declared martial law and was enacting the coup, there was a huge umbrella formation, largely represented by trade federation and unions, that came out and said, by declaring martial law, you've declared the end of your presidency and we're going to bring the country to an orderly standstill tomorrow morning if this thing goes down. And they were able to bring thousands of people to within minutes of the declaration of martial law, also to a nonviolent protest outside of the like a main government building. And by the morning had made such a credible commitment to being able to shut down the country that the people who were doing the coup blinked basically like the senior military kind of hesitated and said they. They didn't think they would go along with it. And the president had to basically cancel the martial law order and effectively try to cancel the coup. And then, you know, by the next day, the trade unions and the sort of pro democracy movement had come out and said, we're really glad the coup has ended, but that's not enough. Like, you tried to have a coup, and so you're going to be impeached. And they launched impeachment proceedings after one failed attempt because the ruling party tried to get around a quorum rule so that they didn't have to show up and actually participate in the impeachment proceedings. The movement basically demanded that they show up and vote, and they did, and the president was impeached. And then he's. He tried to appeal it. He lost the appeal in the Supreme Court. Like, he's out and going to be held accountable for it. So that's the way both a successful movement works and how to stop a coup and prevent it from happening again. I think one of the things that's so powerful about the example is that they could credibly commit that they could bring the country to an orderly standstill, and that's why it worked. And so I think the deterrent impact that they were able to have was profound. And it's just a lesson to learn.

[B]

I think this is such fascinating material just for. There are a lot of young people listening to the podcast. How did you stumble on, or was this more deliberate? How did you stumble upon this domain?

[A]

It was actually when I was finishing my PhD in Political Science that I was invited to apply to go to a workshop on how to teach about nonviolent resistance. And this was a topic I had never learned about, had not encountered in my research. I studied terrorism and political violence exclusively at that time. And so I wanted to go to the workshop to put it on my CV and, you know, draw on my network and get free books and learn how to teach this topic. And I just thought that the material was very interesting. But I noticed that there hadn't really been, like, a quantitative treatment of the question about whether nonviolent resistance was actually a realistic alternative to violence in different difficult settings, like in settings where we would typically expect people to use armed conflict to promote their agenda. And so my colleague Maria Stefan and I, whom I met there, decided to team up and do such a study. And so that's what led to our 2011 book, which is called why Civil Resistance Works. And in that book, we start with the descriptive observation that the nonviolent mass campaigns that we studied from 1900 to 2006 had a higher success rate than the violent campaigns that we studied. And we set about trying to understand why that was the case. And so the book sort of has two parts. The front is trying to understand the strategic advantages of nonviolent resistance, and the second half of the book is trying to explain why some movements succeed while others fail. And there's been then a very large literature that's emerged on this topic which has both been critical and reinforcing of the findings, depending on what they are. And as I mentioned, I think there's this sort of consensus now, 16 or so years later about the things that make movements more likely to succeed. And so that's the four things I mentioned.

[B]

Erica Chenoweth is a political scientist and professor at Harvard Kennedy School whose research focuses on political violence, civil resistance and social movements. Professor Chenoweth joins us from Cambridge. Professor, such a nice moment for you, unfortunately, under not great circumstances, but it's rewarding to see people who have devoted their life or their professional life to becoming an expert in something that feels fairly germane at the time and then all of a sudden becomes incredibly important. And relev, congratulations on your good work and what is well earned prestige and attention and relevance right now. It's weird to say a nice moment for you, but an important moment for you. And thanks for all your good work.

[A]

Thanks to you. And thanks for the opportunity to share with your listeners as well.

[B]

This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez and Laura Geniere. Cami Reek is our social producer, Bianca Rosario Ramirez is our video editor, and Drew Burroughs is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the propg pod from PropG Media.