By Maria Trovato

Civil resistance is more likely to lead to a successful democracy when the mobilization of the people is maintained and street radicalism is avoided, said Jonathan Pinckney in a lecture organized by the Bahá’í Chair For World Peace Oct. 9 in Marie Mount Hall.

Pinckney, a research fellow from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, discussed the findings of his recent monograph, “When Civil Resistance Succeeds: Building Democracy after Popular Nonviolent Uprisings,” during the lecture.

He said his research was largely inspired by the 2011 Arab Spring Uprisings, in which a series of largely nonviolent protests ousted dictators in many Middle Eastern countries. These countries were ultimately unsuccessful in maintaining democracy and fell back into authoritarian rule.

“How did we get from this incredible moment of hope in places like Egypt and in places like Yemen, to this reversion to authoritarianism?” Pinckney asked. “Why do these moments of peaceful protests where ordinary people come together to achieve political change sometimes lead to democracy, sometimes lead to great political representation, and sometimes not?”

His research examined 78 instances where regimes have transitioned through civil resistance movements from 1945 to 2011. Of the 78 transitions, 60 of them led to some form of democracy, which is a higher proportion than any other type of transition, Pinckney said.

“Nonviolent resistance has a very strong democratizing impact,” Pinckney said.

It became clear to Pinckney that all of the successful nonviolent movements he had researched maintained the mobilization of the people after the dictator had been ousted.

“Nonviolent resistance involves a lot of people coming together in order to achieve major political changes,” Pinckney said.  “But oftentimes, once the old guy’s gone, once the dictator is out, once political change is actually initiated, people tend to go home.”

Pinckney said maintaining mobilization when starting a movement usually requires setting a goal to create democracy, as opposed to getting rid of a leader. It may also require holding new leaders accountable. While leaders of civil resistance movements are often mythologized, they are human and not immune to the effects of power.

“Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” Pinckney said.

Pinckney said another commonality with these movements is that they avoided street radicalism. He said this is can be accomplished by not completely shutting out members of the former government, supporting new representative institutions and avoiding extreme protest tactics.

“Extreme tactics can….cause significant disruption to ordinary people’s lives,” Pinckney said. “This can often backfire against the creation of democratic institutions and create a sense of longing, a sense of desire to go back to the way things were.”

Jessica Coghlan, a junior government and politics major who attended the lecture, said Pinckney’s findings reflect much of what she has learned in her class on comparative politics.

“I liked hearing how the theories he was talking about relate to actual examples in history,” Coghlan said.

Naomi Zabasajja, a junior Government and Politics Major with a concentration in International Relations, said a lot of what Pinckney said sounded familiar to a class she is taking on nationalism and ethnic conflict. She was surprised, however, at the amount of successful civil resistance movements.

“One thing that stood out to mewas how many civil resistance transitions, as he calls them, have happened in less than a century, mostly because we seem to hear about the same cases,” Zabasajja said. “I think it would be really cool if more courses actually tried to diversify which conflicts and which events they taught.”