Talk:3.5% rule

Examples?

This article only lists examples of protest movements that had over 3.5% attendance yet ultimately failed. There are no listed examples of movements that prove the rule. Vanilla Wizard 💙 17:44, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's in the article now. Viriditas (talk) 21:08, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I thought it had been added. It looks like it hasn't. I've also just noticed other issues. Viriditas (talk) 21:36, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it would be good to add that. I'll look into it. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:13, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If it helps, I can try to add the list of candidates later tonight on the talk page. They are widely available. Here's a preliminary list that might be a good place to start. I won't have time to verify it until later tonight. These are supposed to be nonviolent protest movements that had over 3.5% attendance and proved the rule, but that has to be verified in the respective sources:

Chenoweth (2021) notes the full list in "Figure 2-4 Revolutions with at least 2% Popular Participation during Peak Mobilization, 1945–2014 (n = 32)". During the period from 1945-2014, the 3.5% threshold was passed in only 18 of 389 resistance movements (less than 5%), but it's hard to determine those 18 movements. She cites two exceptions to the rule: the Brunei revolt (1962) and the 2011 Bahraini uprising. I found the initial data somewhat ambiguous and hard to find and might require further digging around. Viriditas (talk) 00:40, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I made this edit: [1]. I think it's a reasonable list, and I don't think we need to be all-inclusive. What I did was to use the graph on page 6 of [2], and look for ones that she lists there as successful and ≥3.5%, where I can also find pages here that correspond to what she says, and that are treated here as nonviolent. (Sometimes, it was hard to connect her listings to pages here). Anyway, I hope that works well enough. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:50, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One thing that I've noticed here and elsewhere is that we should be careful not to generalize too much. For example, it isn't enough to have 3.5%, there are all sorts of caveats. One of the most significant ones is the creation of coalitions of supporters and opponents, an idea that frankly many in the U.S. right now find distasteful. But the reality is that you have to bring the opponents into your coalition to have a successful movement; numbers aren't enough. One of the most cited examples is how the People Power Revolution was able to get the police/soldiers to join them. These caveats should probably be discussed somewhere in the article. For example, the institutional strength of the right-wing in U.S. politics from 1980 to 2016 arose from a massive coalition-building enterprise network of people and groups who disliked but tolerated each other. They successfully built a working power base that elected candidates and created policy, influenced media and academia, and fought culture wars from high ground. It is not an accident that many of the key players in this movement characterize themselves as countercultural insurgents. Similarly, the 1960s counterculture, which was influential for a decade, failed in terms of their coalition building. The New Left and its coalition members crumbled and fell apart and splintered along separate ideologies, identities, and movements, a split that weakened their power, strength, and reach and left them all but neutered and inconsequential when Reagan came into power. Chenoweth (2021) discusses why movements fail, and these caveats should be briefly mentioned. Viriditas (talk) 01:09, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think at least some of this is covered at the end of the second paragraph of the Formulation section. Let me know if you think it should be expanded any further. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:50, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Origin of the rule

The rule was formulated in 2011 by researchers Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, in their book, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict.

I'm leaning towards this being an error by the media. As far as I can tell, the rule does not appear in that early book at all, but emerged several years later in a TED talk where they pointed to the book as the data source. But the book itself does not discuss the rule. The confusion might have arisen because a similarly named book by Erica Chenoweth called Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know was published in 2021, and it does discuss the rule. Still working on this. Viriditas (talk) 21:42, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I believe I have solved it. The comprehensive history of the rule is found here in the attached PDF. This article needs to be updated. Viriditas (talk) 21:55, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Viriditas (talk) 23:10, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for catching these points. I had missed it. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:39, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for fixing the refs! I apologize for messing that up. Viriditas (talk) 00:12, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know nomination

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... that the 3.5% rule is cited in protests against Donald Trump?

Source: Statement from Hands Off protests organizers: "April 5 was our fourth national day of action, and it won't be our last. We are committed to building our peaceful People's Movement and achieving 3.5% participation. History shows that when just 3.5% of the population engages in sustained peaceful resistance – transformative change is inevitable." source: UPI

Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/The Westerlies

Converted from a redirect by Tryptofish (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 7 past nominations.

Tryptofish (talk) 21:42, 20 June 2025 (UTC).[reply]