The Effects of Violence on the Opposition

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Violence produces its own opposition, so that the harsher you behave. You have more enemies to morrow than you did yesterday. It can end up having great costs for your campaign in the long term. I think most of what we know about incidents of violence is that it does harden the opposition rather than softening the opposition and allowing it to fracture.

Does power truly flow from the barrel of a gun? Pop culture and conventional history often teach us that violence is the most effective way to produce change. But is that common assumption actually true? Political scientist Erica Chenoweth, who has studied more than 100 years of revolutions and insurrections, says the answer is counterintuitive.

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