Why Protest Works—The 3.5% Rule with Erica Chenoweth

We Can Do Hard Things

Treat Media and Glennon Doyle

Society & Culture, Relationships, Education, Self-improvement

4.8 • 41.1K Ratings

🗓️ 8 July 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

426. Why Protest Works—The 3.5% Rule with Erica Chenoweth Harvard professor and leading expert on political resistance, Erica Chenoweth, joins us to answer a critical question: Is the United States still a democracy, or have we already slipped into authoritarianism? Professor Chenoweth lays out where we stand—and shares a powerful, evidence-based strategy for reclaiming our collective power while we still can. -The warning signs of democratic decline—and how they’re unfolding in America right now -How just 3.5% of the population can spark unstoppable, long-term change -Why nonviolent resistance works—and why it’s our most underused superpower -What it really means to defect—and how to reclaim power from authoritarian forces Erica Chenoweth is professor at Harvard University who studies political violence and its alternatives. Erica directs the Nonviolent Action Lab, an innovation hub that provides empirical evidence in support of movement-led political transformation. Erica has authored nine books including, with Maria Stephen, Why Civil Resistance Works and Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know. Erica maintains the NAVCO Data Project, one of the world’s leading datasets on historical and contemporary mass mobilizations around the globe. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. Hi Pod Squad.
0:15.3	I wish I could give you all a big hug right now. I think we all need it.
0:19.6	Instead of a hug, today, we are going to be talking to
0:24.5	Erica Chenoweth, who is a professor at Harvard University and who can tell us once and for all where we are in
0:32.2	this American moment. Are we still even a democracy? Are we officially in authoritarianism? We're going to answer that
0:39.0	question today. And then we are going to talk about exactly what are the most effective ways
0:44.5	that we, the people, can reclaim our democracy. What can we do better today to make change?
0:52.8	Let's go.
1:00.1	Erica Chenoweth is a professor at Harvard University who studies political violence and its alternatives. Erica directs the nonviolent action lab, an innovation hub that provides
1:05.8	empirical evidence in support of movement-led political transformation.
1:10.8	Erica has authored nine books, including Civil Resistance,
1:14.4	what everyone needs to know, as well as, with Maria Stephan,
1:18.8	why civil resistance works.
1:21.1	Erica meticulously studied a period of 106 years,
1:25.2	and each of the 323 civil resistance campaigns worldwide during that time,
1:31.4	1900 to 2006, and discovered every single civil resistance campaign that mobilized 3.5% of the
1:41.8	people to be engaged in sustained, nonviolent protest. Every single one of them
1:48.4	achieved its stated aim within a year. This is some good damn news on a perpetual bad news day. That's a hopeful sentence. It's a hopeful sentence.
2:05.0	We're just going to close out the podcast with that. Thank you so much. Thank you for coming and
2:10.2	listening to our TED Talk. We have Erica Chenoweth here with us today. We are very, very thrilled
2:16.4	to have this. And here is what we are thinking.
2:19.5	It feels like we should have the humility to learn from the other side that those who have spent
	...

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