Brent Scowcroft Center Nonresident Senior Fellow Maria Stephan cowrites for Forreign Affairs on when and why civil resitance works:
Over the past three years, the world has witnessed a surge of nonviolent resistance movements. Pictures of huge demonstrations in public squares have become a staple of international news broadcasts, and Time named “the protester” as its Person of the Year for 2011. These days, it seems that at any given moment, thousands of people are mobilizing for change somewhere in the world.