Dr. Jack Goldstone

They're willing to go into the streets, but they're usually not willing to join a military revolutionary guerrilla force, right?

Yeah.

So the model of let's organize for protest.

Now, I will also say that you have to point to the success of Gandhi in India and Martin Luther King in America as showing the way forward.

And we've had recent research that has shown nonviolent protest.

mass protest has as good a chance of success, especially against one of these weak governments that have lost support from their own elites, nonviolent protest is just as able to push those out as anyone else.

And so as people have learned that lesson and people have realized that older populations are willing to go in the streets but not take up arms, the model of nonviolent protest and belief in its efficacy has spread.

But I will say the most recent data shows that dictators are aware of this and they've become more effective in suppressing nonviolent protest early.

How are they doing that?

They're basically being very alert.

And instead of treating large nonviolent protest as, oh, that's not a problem.

It's just people out in the street expressing themselves.

They're not a threat to us.

They say any effort to mobilize people against the government is a threat.

They round up the ringleaders knocking on their doors at night, put them in prison.

They commandeer the media and warn people, don't go out on the street.

You'll be at risk.

They threaten people's families if they have to.

Dictators have learned that nonviolent protests have a propensity to grow and are a threat to them.

And so they've reacted more severely.