When Ethnics Rebel Nonviolently : Evaluating Opportunities for Civil Resistance in Ethno-Exclusive Regimes

Abstract: This thesis seeks to understand which opportunities make excluded ethnic groups use nonviolence. The research question is: Under which conditions do politically-excluded ethnic groups initiate nonviolent resistance rather than violent resistance? The study challenges an existing assumption that ethnic exclusion creates opportunities for violence and hinders nonviolence, by exploring if constraints to violence favor nonviolence. I hypothesize that two opportunities from nonviolence theory – autocracy and mass participation – and two constraints to violence – the state having a powerful ally and high territorial outreach – constitute alternative pathways to nonviolence. I make a joint evaluation of these contrasting theoretical views with Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), using a comprehensive dataset of 79 campaigns initiated by excluded ethnic groups. The theory evaluation is complemented by three informative within-case studies: the Lithuanian Sajudis campaign (1988), the Druze resistance in Israel (1981) and the Malawian Anti-Banda campaign (1992). I find that opportunities from both theoretical strands work in combination. One pathway – mass participation in a state with high outreach and no powerful ally – leads to nonviolence in almost 71% of the cases occurring in that setting, and explains roughly 63% of all nonviolent campaigns initiated by excluded groups.