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Between Mao and Gandhi: the Social Roots of Civil Resistance

Why are some groups able to adopt and sustain a strategy of nonviolent civil resistance while others are either unwilling or unable to do so? Drawing on cases from Nepal and Syria, as well as global cross-national data, the book details the processes through which challenger organizations collect information, deliberate, and decide on whether a strategy of exclusively nonviolent resistance may be viable. I develop a relational theory, showing how the social ties that underpin challenger organizations shape their ability and willingness to attempt regime change using nonviolent means alone.