Erica Chenoweth
Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment
Nonviolent Action Lab
Understanding how nonviolent action can achieve democratic aims.
Related Programs
Crowd Counting Consortium, Nonviolent and Violent Campaigns and Outcomes Data Project, Women in Resistance Data Project
Nonviolent resistance movements defended democratic values and institutions throughout the 20th century and into the 21st. However, the trend seems to have shifted. Over the past decade, authoritarian backsliding has occurred across the globe, and mass movements demanding democracy have been defeated in about 90% of cases since 2010.
The Nonviolent Action Lab is an innovation hub for activists, researchers, and supporters who share common goals around defending and advancing democracy worldwide through civil resistance — protests, demonstrations, and other actions. The Lab produces and disseminates up-to-date knowledge on nonviolent action, how it works, and global trends in success and failure.
“Authoritarianism is winning — particularly against pro-democracy movements. Movements need a new playbook for responding to these developments![]()
Erica Chenoweth
Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment
Now Streaming: Nonviolent Action Lab Podcast
The new Nonviolent Action Lab Podcast brings you the latest research, insights, and ideas on how nonviolent action can — or sometimes fails — to transform injustice. Each week, Nonviolent Action Lab’s Jay Ulfelder welcomes experts from the field, scholars, organizers, and advocates to discuss nonviolent movements around the world. Find new episodes listed below, via Simplecast, or on your favorite podcast platform.
Meet the Team
Freddy Guevara
Democracy Visiting Fellow, AY2024-2025
Soha Hammam
Nonviolent Action Lab Research Associate
Thomas Hayes
Fellow, Nonviolent Action Lab
Jonathan Jayes-Green
Democracy Visiting Fellow, AY2024-2025
Jie (Jason) Lian
Democracy Visiting Fellow, AY2024-2025
Jay Ulfelder
Research Project Manager, Nonviolent Action Lab
The latest news, resources, and research
Podcast
Episode One: Meet the Nonviolent Action Lab
Host Jay Ulfelder sits down with Professor Erica Chenoweth for the first episode in the new podcast series.
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: U.S. Protest Rhetoric Tracks Looming Famine in Gaza
The imminent famine in Gaza shows up in Crowd Counting Consortium (CCC) data as a sharp increase in references to hunger and starvation in protesters’ chants and signs.
Video
Confronting Dictators: Lessons from Egypt, Russia, and Venezuela
Panelists from the Nonviolent Action Lab discuss their experiences, lessons learned, and perspectives on their respective struggles, nations, and roles have evolved during their time at Harvard.
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: Israel/Palestine Protest Data Dashboards
To make it easier to find up-to-date information on pro-Palestine and pro-Israel protest activity in the United States since October 7, 2023, the Crowd Counting Consotium recently created a pair of interactive data dashboards separately covering the two.
Video
Crowd Counting Consortium – Data on Pro-Israeli and Pro-Palestinian Protests in the U.S.
On Tuesday, December 5th, 2023, experts from the Crowd Counting Consortium, a network of researchers tracking political demonstrations across the U.S., shared their most recent data on the multitude of pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian protests held nationwide since October 7.
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: Update on Israel/Palestine Protests
Since October 7, the Crowd Counting Consortium (CCC) has recorded nearly 2,300 U.S. protests, rallies, marches, caravans, demonstrations, vigils, banner drops, and direct actions in support of Palestine or Israel, with hundreds of thousands of total participants on different sides of this mass mobilization.
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: Pro-Palestine Wave Persists and Grows
Over the past few weeks, the burst of pro-Palestine protests, rallies, demonstrations, vigils, and direct actions in the U.S. that followed Hamas’ October 7th attacks on Israel and Israel’s military response to them has swelled into a sustained wave that is almost certainly broader and larger than any previous pro-Palestine protest wave in U.S. history.
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: Pro-Palestine Wave Accelerates
Over the past 10 days, the wave of U.S. street activism supporting Palestine has accelerated. Since October 7, 2023, when Palestinian militants launched attacks on Israel that killed more than 1,400 people, CCC has logged 420 pro-Palestine rallies, protests, demonstrations, and vigils in more than 180 different cities and towns across 46 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam.
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: Recent U.S. Protest Activity in Support of Israel and Palestine
Since the October 7 attacks on Israel, the U.S. has seen hundreds of vigils, rallies, demonstrations, and protests in response to those attacks and the political and military reactions to them.
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: Tracking the Growth of Active Clubs
Q+A
As youth and LGBTQ+ protestors increasingly take to the streets, are their voices being heard?
In a new study, Erica Chenoweth and Zoe Marks examine youth and LGBTQ+ nonviolent protest participation rates and the impact they might be having on evolving patterns of civil resistance around the world.
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: Love Won
After a year that saw historic levels of anti-LGBTQ+ protest activity, legislative action, and online jawboning, millions of people turned out in May and June 2023 for hundreds of LGBTQ+ pride celebrations across all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: Housing Crisis Begets Housing Protests
On Saturday, May 20, 2023, more than 1,000 tenants, union members, community organizers, and politicians gathered at Cadman Plaza in the rain and then marched across the Brooklyn Bridge to call for lower rents in New York City and the passage of state legislation to protect tenants from eviction without good cause.
Commentary
Crowd Counting Consortium: The Hate Drags On
In late 2022, I guessed that the surge in anti-LGBTQ+ right-wing protests we saw in the summer and fall of last year would ebb after the elections.
Feature
Hope Persists for Champion of Egyptian Democracy
Shady ElGhazaly Harb MC/MPA 2023, a prominent youth activist during the 2011 uprising, finds new ways to understand the continuing struggle for democracy in Egypt during his time at Harvard Kennedy School.
