A new study analyzing 323 violent and nonviolent resistance movements between 1900 to 2006 has found that non violent struggles are twice as likely to succeed than violent ones.
The study, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Non Violence by Erica Chenoweth, assistant professor of government at Wesleyan University, and Maria J. Stephan, a strategic planner with the U.S. Department of State, concluded that “major nonviolent campaigns have achieved success 53 percent of the time, compared with 26 percent for violent resistance campaigns.”
The successful nonviolent movements covered by the study included India’s independence movement, Poland’s Solidarity movement, and the civil rule restoration in Nepal and Maldives, as well as revolutions in Serbia, Madagascar and Ukraine.