Non-violent resistance is more effective at rallying greater networks of people to support a particular campaign. More people can confidently rally and become politically active in peaceful protests, many are not willing to pick up weapons and fight in a violent rally. Radical change can only occur if there are large numbers of people who support movements that protest for change. By using passive methods of protest, a singular movement is able to garner more supporters and widen its sphere of influence. Increasing the number of supporters of a particular movement increases the probability of action being taken towards a particular cause. Passive protests also decrease the likelihood of police and military involvement that might cause a campaign to collapse. This reduces the chance of de-escalation within a rally, as there is less reason for police forces to respond with brutality to a passive movement. As non-violent resistance is more likely to prevent an aggressive intervention from militia, peaceful protest creates less casualties in comparison to violent rallies and is therefore the safer form of resistance. Statistics also prove that peaceful protest has been able to create positive change more so than violent demonstrations. The research by political scientist Erica Chenoweth exemplifies this, she states that ‘countries in which there were nonviolent campaigns were about 10 times likelier to transition to democracies within a five-year period compared to countries in which there were violent campaigns — whether the campaigns succeeded or failed’. [1] Most notably the non-violent campaigns of Martin Luther King Jr and Gandhi have shown the success of peaceful methods of resistance. The peace in their campaigns proved the violence amongst the groups that they were protesting against and created empathy which generated more supporters to create change. [1]. Erica Chenowth in Michelle Nicholasen’s interview. The Harvard Gazette, 9th February 2019, (https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/02/why-nonviolent-resistance-beats-violent-force-in-effecting-social-political-change/)

Great point - I agree with the fact that peaceful protest can be an effective force of change, and I also agree with Anna's point that non-violent protests can create more empathy for the cause, since these protests embrace and actualise the peaceful ethics they uphold. You are what you do, and this is a nice example! Protests have multiple ways of affecting and disseminating ideas, and knowledge is indeed power! By focusing on a more informed and unified effort for protest, change can more easily / lastingly be promoted.

This is a great opinion piece and I agree that peaceful protests are the most effective. The fact a protest is peaceful will encourage more people to join which in turn will make the protest more powerful. The more people involved will attract more people to listen to the reasons and importance of the protest.

These are all very good ideas! Peaceful protesting can lead to great change as seen throughout history. Although, sometimes in the past, more militant protests have increased the impact, such as the Suffragette movement developing from the more peaceful Suffragists. Then again, that was over 100 years ago and there has been changes in society since then

Violence should be put off until 1) there is no other choice and 2) victory is ensured. Otherwise you will only harm your cause and go down as the villains.

So long as the state exists all political power ultimately depends on violence or the threat of it. To reject the use of violent struggle is to cripple your movement in the face of a government which can use all means including violence to defend the existing order. Additionally peaceful protest cannot make the fundamental changes to society which only the use of violence makes possible. Peaceful protest cannot and has not ever made the ruling class peacefully relinquish power. Only through armed struggle can the power of the ruling class be replaced by popular power. Those who dispute this often cite the work of Erica Chenoweth, whose work hinges on a faulty definition of revolution or successful resistance. For example many of the movements which bolster Chenoweth's arguments fall in line with the so-called color revolutions of the early 2000s. The problem is that these protest movements sought modest goals: unseating a president, anti-corruption legislation, new elections, etc. And because of these modest goals it is intellectually dishonest to say these movements are equatable to the world-historic revolutions of France, Russia, and China which sought to fundamentally reorder society and create an entirely new state machinery. As one might expect it is much harder to achieve the much more comprehensive change that violent revolutions seek to enact. It is not that violence isn't effective, rather that it the goals violent movements seek tend to much harder to reach.

I think protests of all kinds have a function; all movements start with intellectual discourse and justification for the cause, but at some point, some do become violent, and this is often what captures mainstream attention. Wiki has a good selection of different [protest types](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Protests_by_type) and quoted that unaddressed protests grow and widen into civil resistance, dissent, activism, riots, insurgency, revolts, and political or social revolution. So, therefore, whilst peaceful protests have a function, those that disrupt power, systems, and the status quo are also necessary, and this is where protesters are likely to experience resistance. Peaceful protests are rare and take decades for results to be achieved (Gandhi, Mandela), but they can run simultaneously with other forms of protests for the same objective.