The '3.5% rule': How a small minority can change the world (2019)
bbc.com246 points by choult 8 hours ago
246 points by choult 8 hours ago
(2019)
Chenoweth has backed off her previous conclusions in recent years, observing that nonviolent protest strategies have dramatically declined in effectiveness as governments have adjusted their tactics of repression and messaging. See eg https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2025/07/erica-chenoweth-demo...
One current example of messaging can be seen in the reflexive dismissal by the current US government and its propagandists of any popular opposition as 'paid protesters'. Large attendance at Democratic political rallies during the 2024 election was dismissed as being paid for by the campaign, any crowd protesting government policy is described as either a rioting or alleged to be financed by George Soros or some other boogeyman of the right. This has been going on for years; the right simply refuses to countenance the possibility of legitimate organic opposition, while also being chronically unable to provide any evidence for their claims.
That's a misreading of Chenowith's argument which itself is heavily based on Timur Kuran's Revolutionary Thresholds concept.
The thesis is once mass mobilization of non-violent protesters occurs, it reduces the threshold for elite defection because there are multiple different veto groups within a selectorate, and some may choose to defect because they either view the incumbent as unstable or they disagree with the incumbent's policies.
I also recommend reading Chennowith's discussion paper clearing up the "3.5%" argument [0]. A lot of mass reporting was just sloppy.
Tl;Dr - "The 3.5% figure is a descriptive statistic based on a sample of historical movements. It is not necessarily a prescriptive one, and no one can see the future. Trying to achieve the threshold without building a broader public constituency does not guarantee success in the future"
[0] - https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/2024-05/Eric...
> Trying to achieve the threshold without building a broader public constituency does not guarantee success in the future
Goodhart's law
well, aside from alleged riots there have been actual ones and those have unfortunate effect of making it easier to dismiss the cause
Am American "riot" is a European city after a football game.
Would that Americans use the term more accurately.
How often do people die during football riots?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests says $1-2B in damage and more than 19 deaths.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/31/americans-kill... says 25 deaths.
Considering Americans get shot during riots, I would say you're wrong.
Even the Rodney King riots didn't have as many deaths (gunshots or otherwise) as the worst EU football events. Guns are scary or whatever, and the US should definitely handle them better or ban them or something, but I still think I'd rather take my chances in an average US riot (give or take recent ICE murders) than something heated in the EU.
In many countries, it does work, and continues with some regularity:
2011: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring
2013: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity
2018: https://www.occrp.org/en/project/a-murdered-journalists-last...
2025: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aqBls-qpRM
2026: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2026/01/iran-authorit... -- outcome TBD ?
The example of Ukraine is complicated, and that situation has become a nightmare With what followed - though in fairness to the Ukrainians, the west could have done a hell of a lot more, and still could.
The Arab Spring turned into The Arab Winter in a wave of repression. Some good has come out of it but the link you have provided says this:
Although the long-term effects of the Arab Spring have yet to be shown, its short-term consequences varied greatly across the Middle East and North Africa. In Tunisia and Egypt, where the existing regimes were ousted and replaced through a process of free and fair election, the revolutions were considered short-term successes.[337][338][339] This interpretation is, however, problematized by the subsequent political turmoil that emerged in Egypt and the autocracy that has formed in Tunisia. Elsewhere, most notably in the monarchies of Morocco and the Persian Gulf, existing regimes co-opted the Arab Spring movement and managed to maintain order without significant social change.[340][341] In other countries, particularly Syria and Libya, the apparent result of Arab Spring protests was a complete societal collapse.[337]
The tring that Ukraine and Arab Spring have in common - is that same folks that managed to bring Milošević down in Serbia (known as Resistance/Otpor), later went on to talk/teach protestors in Ukraine, Egypt ...etc.
Check out #Post Milošević; and #Legacy; sections on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otpor (couldn't figure out how to get deeplinks on mobile).
TL;DR: Besides Ukraine and Egypt, they went to a few more places, in some it worked, in others it didn't. And there were revelations of foreign (e.g. USAID) funding.
It's always ironic seeing Arab Spring in hindsight. I've seen western observers celebrating Arab countries society upheaval, when the very same thing will also happen to them in less than 10 years.
Yes. I am definitely no fan of regime change through revolution. It has an extremely bloody track record.
I am just pointing out that nonviolent protests usually get it done, especially after crackdowns.
I think the article talks about nonviolent protests - the first two were anything but.
The Slovakian incident worked, because Slovakia has a working representative democracy.
In a deeply flawed, or downright nondemocratic system, like Serbia or Georgia, it's very hard to drive change through nonviolent protests.
It also bears mentioning, that the key issue with protesting, is that it, legally speaking does nothing. Legal representatives are under no obligation to do anything in response to protests.
It in itself does nothing, but it is necessary to embolden anyone who can do something.
If nobody protests, people who have the choice to do something will see that nobody gives a shit... And why should they stick their necks out for a cause that nobody gives a shit about?
"Paid" demonstrators has been an accusation used by governments for several decades.
Edit: https://www.yourdictionary.com/rent-a-crowd (Rent a crowd/mob is often used to claim the protest is attended by people paid to be there, and was first coined in the mid 20th century, but apparently the actual accusation (though) is as old as demonstrations)
The usual boogie man.
Did you read that link? It’s hardly damming.
“Through a fund, the foundation issued a $3 million grant to the Indivisible Organization that was good for two years "to support the grantee's social welfare activities.” The grants were not specifically for the No Kings protests, the foundation said.”
If 7 million people protested, that 3 million over 2 years sure went a long way. They work for pennies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_2025_No_Kings_protests
I'm not sure why you are attacking me, I am clearly replying to someone who is claiming that recent times the retort of "paid demonstrators" is effective, and I have pointed out that the claim of people being paid to demonstrate has been made for decades, if not centuries.
Thank you for articulating the accusation, giving me the opportunity to respond, but try to take your own advice and read what's actually being said.
You appear to have edited your comment after I replied.
When I replied to you, the link in your comment was the below one.
https://abc6onyourside.com/news/nation-world/no-kings-protes...
Uhh - My client is showing that my comment was up for a couple of hours before you replied
That's around the maximum time allowed to edit a comment on Hacker News.
For the level of attack you injected in your previous comment, and now a claim of dishonesty, I would need to see some actual evidence of your claims (I know that I never posted that link, and am confused why you would try such a bizarre claim)
There appears to be a few factors combining in the U.S. right now that make protests less effective than they once were.
1. Politics are religion more than ever before. There is a solid MAGA core that will not turn on Trump for any reason. When confronted by uncomfortable truth, they dismiss it as lies. When they can't dismiss it as a lie, they choose not to care. The Democrats have people like this too, but they haven't been hired and turned into a paramilitary goon squad the way ICE has. Yet. The "unreasonables" on both sides of the spectrum are not going anywhere. After Trump dies they could easily be harnessed by someone else. When so many people cannot be swayed, the impact of protests are dulled. The "unreasonables" aren't swayed when the other side protests, and the mushy middle will tend to dismiss many protests as products of people they view as extremists.
2. There is a ruling class (i.e. Billionaires) with a firm grip on power (through both parties) and complete insulation from the public. In his discourses on Livy, Machiavelli observed that Roman officials who protected themselves from those they ruled with forts or castles tended to rule in a more brutal and less productive manner than those who lived among the governed. If you want good government, those governing should feel vulnerable enough to behave reasonably. U.S. billionaires, and the politicians they own, are completely sealed off from public wrath. Minnesota could burn and none of them would get more than a warm fuzzy watching it on the news. If a protest doesn't scare billionaires it will have no impact on how the U.S. is governed.
3. "Flood the zone" is just one of the tactics being used to numb people and encourage them to switch off from politics. The nastiness of hyper-partisan politics is, at times, a distracting entertainment, but it's fatiguing the rest of the time. People rightly observe that both of the U.S.'s diametrically opposed parties tend to do similar things (e.g. tax breaks for the rich) and are funded by the same billionaires every election. If people will scream at you for picking a side in what looks like a sham of false choice, why not just stay home, plug in, and tune out? When a big protest happens, people who are numb and tuned out are just going to change the channel and consume some more billionaire-produced pap.
As a Canadian, what's going on in the U.S. has been terrifying to watch. We're so culturally similar that what happens in the U.S. could easily happen here. Even if it doesn't, we're still subject to the fallout. A classic pattern of authoritarian regimes is to lash out at allies and neighbours in order to give their people threats to fear more than their own government. Well, that's us. If MAGA isn't checked, Canada will likely be subjected to far more than tariff's and threats.
It's hard for Canadians to appreciate how nations elsewhere in the world can harbour such bitter and long-lived enmities against one another. We're now experiencing how they're created. It's not hatred yet, but the trust we once had for Americans is gone and won't return for generations. For the rest of my life, we'll always be four years or less away from what could be the next round of American insanity.
[flagged]
I think you are making assumptions that are not correct. And as a ‘normal person’ surrounded by ‘normal people’ at the last No Kings protest, I very much object to your framing.
There’s a big difference between funding organizing groups like Indivisible (which, yes, foundations linked to Soros do - although I suspect not at the magnitude you’re imagining), and directly paying protestors (which doesn’t happen to any notable degree)
Want to understand this? Go to a local Indivisible or Democratic Party meetup and you will see the normal people with your own eyes. Go to a big protest like ‘No Kings’, or a rally during campaign season and you’ll be surrounded by ‘normal people’.
I’d personally be fine with restrictions on where funding for political organizations comes from (although I’m not sure how you make that compatible with the 1st amendment) - but what you’re saying is ridiculous, and it’s a worrying symptom of our current political climate that people can be so out of touch as to believe it.
>I’d personally be fine with restrictions on where funding for political organizations comes from (although I’m not sure how you make that compatible with the 1st amendment)
Despite what the proponents of Citizen's United might have us believe, money != speech, and adding restrictions to political donations is perfectly compatible with the first amendment.
Would-be donors are allowed to advocate for political positions just the same as anybody else. Nobody is stopping them. That would still be the case with donation limits. They can still get on TV and argue their case.
There is already a precedent for limiting donations. Try donating money to ISIS or Hezbollah and see if the government considers that an exercise of your first amendment rights.
> No normal person engages in this stuff
On top of being false, that's kind of a non-statement. You probably don't see average people around you protesting because if the average person was engaging in this then that'd imply close to half the country protesting. But they're definitely out there even if a small minority.
The average person doesn't have the time to protest (because how do you protest when you need to go to a job to put food on the table and keep health insurance). Or they're doing fine with the current state of affairs even if they don't like what's happening. Protesting is naturally always going to be a fringe thing and you better hope for everyone's sake that it stays that way or else you end up with a coup or revolution like in less developed nations.
[flagged]
who cares if there are professional organizers? the accusations of fake/paid protests are about the crowds and participants, not the people that paid to print the posters and get some permits.
both sides have paid activists because it's a full time job. but those paid activists aren't the crowd.
As someone who really hates what this unlawful administration is doing, I went to my local progressive club meeting for the first time expecting at least a fraction of what MAGA folks fantasize about - elite schemers developing an actual strategy to fight back.
Instead what I found were a bunch of kind mostly elderly people sharing news that I had read online a week before, and some folks gathering signatures for positions running for office.
You are doing a huge disservice to yourself by staying indoors and making assumptions about stuff that you aren't investigating in person.
That entire argument is designed to discredit.
Of course organizing takes time and money. The amount can vary.
This is like complaining about water being wet.
If you're just going and printing flyers and putting them on poles that still takes time and money.
[flagged]
It’s also a bit disingenuous.
So if a single dollar goes to a cause, it’s funded?
You can apply this to protests of all political causes.
What does it mean to "fund protests"? I'm also a "normal" person who has been to a couple No Kings protests, and no one paid me. Someone spent some money on fliers, I suppose.
The major No Kings events were in June and October last year. January is not a great time for outdoors protests in much of the country. Does it somehow make the protests inauthentic if focus has now shifted towards ICE?
> No normal person engages in this stuff, it’s hyper activists part of organized groups with real financing
I guess I'm not a normal person then. I didn't realize that I was a hyper activist because I drew on some cardboard and that my group of friends was being financed. I better go demand for my Soros-check from them.
Are you planning on going to a Tesla dealership again to protest? This was top of my Reddit algorithm for several months, no one even mentions it anymore
Over that timeframe, did anything change about the relationship of the CEO of Tesla and the US government?
Doesn’t Musk own the “Nazi social media” website now? Shocking that people literally destroyed Tesla dealerships out of anger and now no one even bothers to show up anymore
Is it possible that you did not fully understand the reasons people were protesting at Tesla dealerships?
Perhaps the protests were less about Twitter than you may be assuming, and more about something else that happened much later than the Twitter acquisition?
They protested un-elected president Musk who will stay in power forever. Then he left his position exactly like communicated from the very start and people now think that they won, even tho they only annoyed tesla dealership employees and tesla owners.