Our new interactive map lets you explore data on violent and nonviolent campaigns around the world. Filter and sort by country, outcome, campaign type, years active, and more.
Under the direction of Faculty Associate Erica Chenoweth and fellow/colleague Christopher Shay, The Nonviolent and Violent Campaigns and Outcomes (NAVCO) data project is the first of its kind to collect systematic data on both violent insurgencies and nonviolent civil resistance campaigns around the world, from 1900 to 2014. The coverage is global but includes only maximalist campaigns, that is, movements seeking to overthrow an incumbent government, expel a foreign military occupation, or claim territorial independence.
Utilizing a subset of this data, the Weatherhead Center has created an interactive map that allows users to study trends in the onset and outcomes of all reported mass mobilizations from 1945–2014. The map shows activity across regions, patterns of participation in mass movements, retaliation against mass movements, the success or failure of the campaign, and more parameters.
Chenoweth and coauthor Maria J. Stephan first published their data in the 2011 book, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. In this book, the authors aggregated data from 1900–2006 and concluded that nonviolent civil resistance was more successful in achieving outcomes than campaigns that use violence. The more recent dataset confirms this trend and shows that this trend extends into the last decade.
NAVCO is an active project that continues to collect data on mass mobilizations worldwide. Chenoweth and Shay expect to release the next iteration of the data, covering maximalist campaigns through 2019, early this year.
VISIT: navcomap.wcfia.harvard.edu
Erica Chenoweth is the Berthold Beitz Professor in Human Rights and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, and Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University.
Christopher Shay is a Research Fellow with the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School, and PhD Candidate, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver.