Erica Chenoweth

Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard Kennedy School

Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know Audiobook by Erica Chenoweth

📅 Oct 01, 2026 Free Audiobook 30 MIN 10 VIEWS 61 SEGMENTS · 2 SPEAKERS

Listen to free audiobook on Audible : https://amzn.to/4hopIfn Title: Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know Author: Erica Chenoweth Narrator: Erica Chenoweth Length: 10:45:17 Release date: 05-10-2022 Publisher: Tantor Media Genres: Global Politics, Political Advocacy, Political Science Language: English Description: Civil resistance is a method of conflict through which unarmed civilians use a variety of coordinated methods (strikes, protests, demonstrations, boycotts, and many other tactics) to prosecute a conflict without directly harming or threatening to harm an opponent. Someti...

What Erica Chenoweth said

Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.

Chenoweth recounts her evolution from skeptic to participant in civil resistance research, describing how a 2006 workshop led her to co-design a study with Maria Stephan comparing nonviolent and violent campaigns from 1900 to 2006. She reports being shocked that over half of nonviolent campaigns succeeded versus about a quarter of violent ones, with no structural factors explaining the difference. She notes that 2010-2020 saw more revolutionary nonviolent uprisings than any prior period, with more such campaigns in the first two decades of the 21st century than the entire 20th. Chenoweth warns of rising authoritarianism globally, digital authoritarianism's threat, and four concerning trends in modern movements: smaller size, over-reliance on demonstrations, leaderless structures, and less discipline. She defines civil resistance, distinguishes it from protest, and stresses it is not pacifism or institutional action alone.

Key takeaways

Nonviolent campaigns succeeded more than half the time from 1900-2006, versus about a quarter for violent ones, according to Chenoweth's study with Maria Stephan.
The first two decades of the 21st century saw more revolutionary nonviolent uprisings than the entire 20th century.
Governments are defeating revolutionary nonviolent movements more often than in prior decades, Chenoweth says.
Civil resistance requires coordinated, multi-method, non-institutional action; isolated protests or institutional methods alone do not qualify.

Numbers and commitments

Figure	What it refers to	Type	At
1900 to 2006	Study period for nonviolent and violent campaigns	timeline	4:02
2011	Year Chenoweth and Stephan published findings	timeline	5:02
2010 to 2020	Period with most revolutionary nonviolent uprisings in recorded history	timeline	5:41
April 2019	Month and year Sudanese revolution toppled Omar al-Bashir	timeline	27:20
1994	Year Zapatista movement embraced political resistance	timeline	29:26
February and April 1989	Period of Polish roundtable talks	timeline	29:26

Chapters

0:00Skepticism and Discovery of Civil Resistance
3:42Study Design and Statistical Findings
5:41Global Rise of Nonviolent Uprisings
6:33Personal Evolution and U.S. Movements
8:19Rising Authoritarianism and Digital Threats
9:51Concerns About Modern Movements
11:27Myths About Civil Resistance
12:54How to Use This Book
17:57Defining Civil Resistance
27:32What Civil Resistance Is Not

Narrator 0:02 ↗

Tantor Audio, a division of Recorded Books, presents Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know by Erica Chenoweth, narrated by Erica Chenoweth. Publisher's note: this audiobook will refer to visual elements included in the print and ebook editions of the book.

2 more exchanges in this transcript

Cite this transcript

APA, MLA, BibTeX

APA

Chenoweth, E. (2026, October 1). Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know Audiobook by Erica Chenoweth [Interview transcript]. Free Audiobook. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3122385/

MLA

Erica Chenoweth. "Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know Audiobook by Erica Chenoweth." Free Audiobook, 1 Oct. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3122385/.

BibTeX

@misc{chenoweth2026_3122385,
  author       = {Erica Chenoweth},
  title        = {Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know Audiobook by Erica Chenoweth},
  howpublished = {Interview transcript, Free Audiobook. CEOInterviews.AI},
  year         = {2026},
  month        = {oct},
  url          = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3122385/},
  note         = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}

▶

Key Quotes (2)

“After two years of data collection and vetting with subject experts, I ran the numbers. I was shocked. More than half of the campaigns that had relied primarily on non-violent resistance succeeded, whereas only about a quarter of the violent ones did. Moreover, when I ran a variety of regression models that included features of the regime as control variables, I could find no systematic statistica”

▶ 4:30 CONTROVERSIAL

“The past decade, 2010 to 2020, has seen more revolutionary nonviolent uprisings around the world than in any other period in recorded history. In fact, there have been more such campaigns in the first two decades of the 21st century than there were during the entire 20th century. From Armenia to Sudan, from Belarus to India, from Chile to Hong Kong, from Thailand to Burkina Faso, large-scale movem”

▶ 5:55

Mentioned in this interview

Maria Stephan: Challenged Chenoweth to design a study and co-authored it

Mohandas Gandhi: Coined the term civil resistance while struggling against British colonialism

Gene Sharp: Adopted the term civil resistance as a practitioner

Reverend James Lawson: Adopted the term civil resistance as a practitioner

Walt Whitman: Quoted at the opening of the book

Leonard Cohen: Quoted at the start of the first chapter

Omar al-Bashir: Dictator toppled by the Sudanese revolution in April 2019

Otpor: Movement that initiated the downfall of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia

Earlier, on the same topics

“The number of civil resistance movements around the world struggling for major goals like independence or anti-military occupation or self-determination or the ouster of a dictator has grown in historic proportions. So there are more people in the past decade using civil resistance techniques than i”

May 14, 2025 at 9:01 →

“The success rates of mass democracy movements or revolutionary movements that are trying to oust incumbent national regimes, usually dictators, or create independent territories out of colonized territories or through secession or self-determination, have succeeded really twice as often as their arm”

Apr 16, 2025 at 5:11 →

“Scholars have learned from countries that have come back from the brink and they have found that civil society can do a great deal and it matters what civil society does. In almost every major historical example over the past hundred years, movements that stand up to aspiring autocrats are what make”

May 07, 2025 at 4:23 →

“I would say that the United States civil society has all the ingredients it needs. Zoe Marks and I wrote a paper a couple of years ago just saying that if there was some kind of major backsliding episode, it would be very useful to think about what other countries have done in that context and tryin”

May 06, 2025 at 48:45 →

Every Erica Chenoweth interview →

More interviews with Erica Chenoweth

The Breakdown with Erica Chenoweth and Steve Levitsky - September 16, 2026Sep 16, 2026 · Harvard Ash Center · 57 min
The Breakdown with Erica Chenoweth and Steve Levitsky (Seventh Session)Jun 10, 2026 · Harvard Ash Center · 59 min
The Breakdown with Erica Chenoweth and Steve Levitsky - April 30, 2026Apr 30, 2026 · Harvard Ash Center · 59 min
Why Most Protests Fail ft. Erica Chenoweth | Prof G ConversationApr 09, 2026 · The Prof G Pod – Scott Galloway · 42 min
The Breakdown with Erica Chenoweth and Steve Levitsky - March 24, 2026Mar 24, 2026 · Harvard Ash Center · 59 min
Episode 685: WHY CIVIL RESISTANCE WORKS-ERICA CHENOWETH (2019) - When nonviolent mass protests in...Jan 16, 2026 · Terrence McNally · 52 min

All Erica Chenoweth transcripts →

About Erica Chenoweth

Erica Chenoweth, the Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment at Harvard Kennedy School, has been actively engaged in public scholarship on civil resistance and American democracy. In September 2026, she co-hosted the eighth session of "The Breakdown," a webinar series with Steven Levitsky, where they discussed ongoing challenges to U.S. democratic institutions. During the session, Chenoweth stated that U.S. civil society and the Democratic Party are "much more aware and much better prepared" than in 2020 to contest potential election crises, while also expressing concerns about potential disputes over close House races. She advocated for structural reforms, saying "we need to abolish the Electoral College" and that the electoral system should be more proportional, while acknowledging such changes are not "low-hanging fruit." Chenoweth's recent work also includes her audiobook "Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know," released in May 2022, which she narrates herself. In the book, she describes her initial skepticism about nonviolent resistance before finding that "more than half of the campaigns that had relied primarily on non-violent resistance succeeded, whereas only about a quarter of the violent ones did." She has noted that the first two decades of the 21st century have seen more revolutionary nonviolent uprisings than during the entire 20th century, citing examples from Armenia to Hong Kong. In her public commentary, she has distinguished civil resistance from isolated protests, arguing that the former involves "continual coordinated collective action using a mix of techniques toward a decisive outcome."

All Erica Chenoweth appearances → Free Audiobook on YouTube →