How you can more effectively advance multi-racial democracy

Dr. Maria Stephan, co-lead of the Horizons Project, discusses her work to strengthen multi-racial democracy in the US and globally. The Horizons Project is working to help disparate groups find common ground and build a movement of movements to advance racial justice and democracy at a time of rising political violence and authoritarianism.

Maria Stephan and Erica Chenoweth may be by far the leading researchers comparing the relative effectiveness of violence and nonviolence. Others study violence or nonviolence. Key summaries of their work appear in two books:

• (2011) Why Civil Resistance Works (Columbia U. Pr.) 
• (2021) The Role of External Support in Nonviolent Campaigns: Poisoned Chalice or Holy Grail? (International Center on Nonviolent Conflict)

In 2012, the American Political Science Association gave their Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award to Why Civil Resistance Works. That honor is given for “the best book published in the U.S. during the previous calendar year on government, politics, or international affairs.” In 2018 Chenoweth joined the faculty at Harvard in recognition of the value of their work. Chenoweth is now the Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment and Academic Dean for Faculty Engagement at Harvard.

The nonviolence of the First Intifada (1988-1993) is by far the most effective thing that Palestinians have done since the Balfour Declaration of 1917 to convince the Israeli electorate that their future would most likely be enhanced by supporting a neighboring Palestinian state. Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli Defense Minister when the Intifada began, was elected Prime Minister on a platform of negotiating with Palestinians. That led to the Oslo Accords and the creation of the current State of Palestine. To try to defeat that nonviolence, Israel sent in agents provocateurs, who were initially exposed and neutralized. As the nonviolence continued, Israel expelled 481 leaders of the nonviolence and arrested between 57,000 and 120,000 more. Then Israel got the violence needed to justify overwhelming counterviolence.

Nonviolence works, when it does, as supporters of one’s opposition gradually come to see a gap between events and the narrative used by the side they have supported to justify what they have done. An Israeli General told Stephan, “We don’t do Gandhi well,” meaning that violent responses to nonviolence are often perceived as excessive, eroding the support of those who use violence.

Stephan mentioned the follow resources:

• Protect Democracy is a national organization “focused on various attacks on democracy and authoritarianism in the US. It is trying to prevent the United States from backtracking and becoming autocratic. … [T]hey have a lot of useful resources.” Stephan recommends especially their Authoritarian Playbook, which “outlines the seven fundamental tactics used by aspiring authoritarians,” documented with examples inside and outside the US.  A new edition The Authoritarian Playbook for 2025, follows the same outline, “taking the statements and propose actions of … Donald Trump and his closest advisors. What they’ve said, they will do. … [W]hen … you study… authoritarianism, one of the key lessons is that when an autocrat says they will do something, believe them: They will try to do it.”
• Just Security has an “American Autocracy Threat Tracker” that Stephan recommends.
• “[T]he 22nd Century Initiative … has been working with different movement organizations. They have a network meeting once a month that … brings people together from very different movements, … states and parts of the country.”
• “Race Forward … is very focused on the nexus of … racial justice and democracy.”

Copyright 2024 Maria Stephan and Spencer Graves Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 international license.

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