ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies three primary objections lodged by various scholars to recent empirical work on the strategic effectiveness of nonviolent resistance. It lays out some of the theoretical, empirical, or methodological advances provoked by these challenges - most of which advance the field of civil resistance in important ways. The chapter suggests that these ongoing debates provide fertile soil for the study of mobilization and resistance more generally, since unresolved controversies and the push for greater rigor have provoked various methodological innovations, a potentially productive normative dialogue between critical and empirically orientated scholars, and new resources and data from which to further study the causes, dynamics, and outcomes of mass mobilization. One of the primary challenges to the field of civil resistance concerns measurement of “nonviolent” and “violent” resistance as ideal, static categories.
