On Thursday, March 30, Consuelo Amat visited Vassar’s Alumnae House to explain her research related to nonviolent resistance. Amat is currently the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute Assistant Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. The event, led by the Engaged Pluralism program, was centered around discussing the definitions of violence, how to build broad coalitions to resist state and local repression, and the role of nonstate agencies in providing aid to communities in conflict.
Amat’s previous research has been centered around state repression, armed and unarmed resistance, political violence, and the development of civil society under authoritarian regimes. Amat was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, and then moved to the United States once she graduated high school. She received her Ph.D. in political science from Yale University, holds an M.A. in conflict resolution from Georgetown University, as well as B.A. degrees in international affairs and philosophy from the University of Colorado in Boulder.
Amat started the discussion by highlighting the unique circumstances that led to her family’s migration from Chile to Venezuela before she was born. In the early 70s, Chile was governed by socialist politician Salvador Allende, who was ultimately overthrown in 1973. “My grandfather worked for the Allende government and he was put in a concentration camp when in 1973 there was a coup against the Allende and the rest of my family had to flee as a consequence,” said Amat. In Spain, dictator Francisco Franco’s decade-long regime deeply impacted her father’s family, causing them to also move to Venezuela.
Amat then moved into a discussion of her research, starting with her own definition of nonviolent resistance. “Ordinary citizens get together in a collective and they use nonviolent tactics such as boycotts or strikes, protests marches, vigils; all these are nonviolent tactics that are using collectives, right? And the purpose of those tactics is to get at the pillars of the regime. So if you want to reform a regime and put political pressure on that regime you need to build in part coalitions with the pillars that are sustaining that regime,” she explained. Amat asserted that pillars of regimes can take different forms depending on the country, some being business elites, religious elites or government officials themselves.
The power of a regime is lost when the governed body pushes back against a regime, Amat claimed. “You go from mass participation of these types of tactics that are used in concert. When you have enough people taking part in these tactics then you impose costs on states,” she stated. This shift eventually forces a government to listen to the governed. She noted that the typical notion that lower levels of mobility are not necessarily associated with increased oppression. In Amat’s opinion, this makes the study of mobilization particularly hard to follow.
Amat referenced the book “Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict” by Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, which examined every maximalist, mass, nonviolent and armed movement from the 1900s to 2006. According to Amat, the fundamental finding of the book is that nonviolent resistance is infinitely more successful due to a lack of military interference, increased participation and an increased likelihood of gathering cross-sectoral coalitions. However, Amat noted that the data is outdated. “We have seen a dramatic decline in the success rate of mass nonviolent movements in the last two decades. So you had the top 65 percent that had the highest success rate of nonviolent movements that occurred in the 1990s. And then today is 34 percent.”
She made the point, however, that it is not just nonviolent movements that have seen a decline. “The success of armed resurgences have also declined from a height of 43 percent in the 1970s to eight percent of armed resurgences today.” According to Amat, this decline can be attributed to the overly accessible, highly saturated climate of social media. “Even though mobilizations become easier, the problem with those mobilizations and why the success rate has sharply declined is because there is no organization behind those protests,” she said. Along with social media’s influence, Amat believes those in power have been benefiting from this influx of mobilizations. “We actually have a lot of evidence that dictators are listening and learning from these tactics.”
In reference to Chenoweth and Stephan’s book, Amat highlighted the role of minority populations when comparing the types of protests. “Their argument is that it makes no difference whether you use violence or nonviolence if you are a minority population. When minority populations lead those protests, people perceive those protests as violent even if people are using nonviolent tactics,” she asserted. Amat then further dissected the levels and intricacies of repression. “Our big finding here is that if you look at the extremely repressive places in the past, we find that there are exactly zero nonviolent movements that emerge in places that have high levels of repression in the past.” It is in these same places where armed resurgences are more likely to occur: “In extremely repressive settings, you see a complete divergence of the emergence of these types of movements. You just don’t see mass nonviolent mobilization,” she noted.
She ended her talk with her own theory on the five mechanisms to build social power. “By providing social services autonomously, you are implementing your political project at the local level, ” she began her proposition. According to Amat, by following this action, populations can break free of the “material dependence” that fuels oppression. It is through this allocation that entire movements and peoples can gain independence and increased social capital. Amat then looked at the infrastructure of power itself. “During an extremely repressive moment, in the history of the country, [the regime is] basically demonstrating governance capacity,” she claimed. According to Amat, this complete release of mass repression causes the complex questioning of government control. “So when you have a repressive setting or state that is controlling information and all these things. Generally, opposition is seen as very threatening, so people start really comparing what they have today, which is bad, but then thinking that the opposition could be worse. So there is a lot of uncertainty about whether supporting an alternative is better for their lives.” Amat’s final mechanism centers around the psyche of those oppressed: “By working with victims during this period, what you’re doing is reducing the level of fear that the most aggrieved population in the country feels and therefore increasing the likelihood that they will end self-censorship,” she concluded.
“One thing I’m thinking about right now is how to create sustainable and connected social movements that aren’t just one-off Instagram posts. Actually connect and intertwine with everyone rather than more surface level resistance,” noted Nathaniel Dover ‘27 when asked about a major takeaway from the event. “I’m just interested in ways to organize around a common goal, especially in their current political climate,” shared Kayla Malcom-Joseph ’26 about her initial attraction to the event. “How to dismantle facism in a way that’s productive and beneficial for the greatest number of people,” responded Malcom-Joseph when asked about her biggest takeaway from the event.