Civil Resistance Project

The Nonviolent and Violent Campaigns and Outcomes (NAVCO) Data Project collects data on major nonviolent mass campaigns from 1900-2011 so that researchers can better understand the origins, dynamics, and outcomes of civilian-based resistance movements.

The project, which includes Erica Chenoweth and Orion Lewis of Middlebury College, involves a multilevel effort to look inside both nonviolent and violent campaigns, notably at the type, sequence, and outcomes of different tactics employed by armed insurgents and unarmed civilians during their campaigns. Three different levels of aggregation are involved.

NAVCO 1.1: Consensus data on nonviolent and violent campaigns (aggregated to the campaign level) from 1900-2006 
Download NAVCO 1.1 (.zip file with Stata 11 files plus a .pdf file containing replication commands for Chenoweth and Stephan 2011).
Errata (pdf; 1 page).
Supplementary materials
Suggested citation: Erica Chenoweth. 2011. Nonviolent and Violent Campaigns and Outcomes Dataset, v. 1.1. University of Denver.

NAVCO 2.0: Campaign-year data from 1945-2006 (to be released May 2013).
Suggested citation: Erica Chenoweth and Orion A. Lewis. 2013. Nonviolent and Violent Campaigns and Outcomes Dataset, v. 2.0. University of Denver.

NAVCO 3.0: Daily data from 1987-2011 (projected release 2016).

This data collection effort is the first of its kind to systematically explore the sequencing of tactics and their effects on the strategic outcomes of the campaigns. Variables under collection focus on (1) the number of groups or movements associated with the campaigns; (2) growth and demise of movement membership or participation; (3) types of tactics used, identifying several hundred possible tactics as diverse as protests, sit-ins, massive noncooperation, and internet blog postings in opposition to the regime; (4) the sequencing of tactics used, and the outcome of sequencing on the evolution of the campaign; (5) full spectrum of possible regime responses, from no response to massive repression; (6) public sympathy or opinion toward the regimes and the campaigns; (7) the effects of socio-psychological factors on the evolution of the campaigns; (8) a catalogue on the inputs of external actors (such as NGOs, foreign states, and civil society groups.

Researchers will use dynamic computer modeling to analyze (1) the interactions between campaigns, their allies, and their opponents; (2) how these interactions affect the strategic outcomes of the campaigns; and (3) the long-term consequences of these outcomes of social, economic, and political conditions within the country. The findings will have implications for scholars and practitioners of civil resistance.

Specific questions under inquiry include: (1) how diverse groups maintain unity during the course of the conflict; (2) which organizational structures are most resilient in the face of repression; (3) which tactical sequences are most effective against opponent responses; (4) the conditions under which backfire against regime responses occur (whereby regime repression recoils against it); (5) how different types of international actors can best time their assistance to resistance groups and/or sanctions against regime; (6) how campaign outcomes impact long-term political, economic, and social conditions within each case.

 The project has received support from the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict as well as Wesleyan University (2008-2011) and the University of Denver (2012-present).

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