Abstract
To date there are few studies that dig deeper into the question: how does nonviolent discipline contribute to successful nonviolent civil resistance campaigns? This research makes an important theoretical and practical contribution to a topic that has attracted much attention but has not been studied in a methodical manner. It makes an innovative contribution to the literature by systematically studying how maintaining NVD should make campaigns more likely to succeed.
Measuring Instances of Nonviolent Discipline (MIND) is an original dataset constructed for this research to collect data on levels of nonviolent discipline, to investigate whether nonviolent discipline matters to nonviolent civil resistance campaigns. MIND used observations of participant behaviour in daily newswire reports within thirteen nonviolent campaigns in Africa (1990–2006) to assess levels of nonviolent discipline.
Two campaigns, considered to be “deviant case studies”, were selected for robust interrogation of whether nonviolent discipline contributes to their success. The South Africa case study examines a successful campaign that reported the lowest percentage of nonviolent discipline yet mobilised one of the largest campaigns. The Egypt case study examines a campaign that reported higher percentages of nonviolent discipline than South Africa yet failed, unable to mobilise large numbers and struggled to manage low-level violent repression.
Using a mixed-methods approach, the findings conclude that nonviolent discipline does increase the likelihood for successful nonviolent campaigns. Moreover, nonviolent discipline appears to be linked to the mobilisation of large numbers, increased chances of resilience, and the potential for a wide and diverse range of nonviolent tactics. These findings are supported by three points: nonviolent discipline can be observed and measured; high levels of nonviolent discipline and mobilisation, resilience, and leverage have a relationship; and nonviolent discipline impacts the interaction between internal and external campaign behaviour.
This thesis and its findings contribute to a topic that is crucial yet overlooked in academic scholarship. The findings from this thesis open the door to future research opportunities to discuss how nonviolent discipline can be measured, and ways to optimise the contribution of the MIND dataset. This thesis, therefore, takes a small step towards better understanding how nonviolent discipline contributes to civil resistance success.