Research on the relationship between nonviolent and violent dissent has focused on explicit shifts in organized strategies, disregarding less-organized forms of violence such as riots. Even though disorganized violence is common, we know little about how it influences the onset and fate of antigovernment nonviolent campaigns. Activists frequently argue that nonviolent discipline is essential and disorganized violence is counterproductive for effective large-scale mobilization. However, others emphasize how disorganized violence could have a mobilizing effect on large-scale protest and revitalize a nonviolent campaign. We detail these competing perspectives on how riots can influence the onset and outcomes of nonviolent campaigns. We then evaluate these contending claims empirically by examining how riots affect the initial emergence of nonviolent campaigns and the likelihood that campaigns will terminate. We find that nonviolent mobilization is less likely to emerge after riots, and ongoing campaigns are more likely to collapse under higher rates of rioting.

Recent world events have renewed interest among social movement scholars in strategies and associated outcomes in campaigns against nondemocratic regimes. Most comparative work is limited to large-scale mobilization and takes violent/nonviolent tactics as given, thereby overlooking prior group mobilization and initial tactic choice. While a chosen tactic is plausibly related to group characteristics and resources, we argue that the mobilization process underlying large-scale campaigns begins when groups stake claims and assess those claims' potential. The proposed framework can help to explain both the specific tactics chosen and whether campaigns take on violent or nonviolent forms. We focus on grievances and the origins of mobilization through formulation of claims-making disputes over regime type, government composition, and electoral legitimacy—independent of mobilization—and consider how resources provide a comparative advantage for violence or nonviolence. An application to states in the former Soviet Union demonstrates the framework's utility for understanding when claims evolve to violent and nonviolent mobilization.