MOLLY WALLACE – In a 2015 article for the journal Mobilization, Erica Chenoweth and Kurt Schock examined all nonviolent campaigns from 1900-2006 with radical (i.e. maximalistâ€) goals — such as the “removal of an incumbent national government, self-determination, secession, or the expulsion of foreign occupation†— to see how the presence or absence of armed resistance affected the success of these nonviolent campaigns. Their findings offer compelling evidence that violence is not generally a helpful addition to nonviolent resistance movements. How did they arrive at this conclusion? And what lessons do we learn by adhering to this understanding?