peter gelderloos how nonviolence protects the state

Only in the face of a major, countrywide rebellion were longstanding demands for police abolition ever given consideration by the general public. This uprising conclusively demonstrated that police are only held accountable for their murders when people rise up, riot, and fight back, or when recent experience makes it clear people will do so if no accountability measures are immediately forthcoming.

It is probably no coincidence that in the wake of the George Floyd uprising the statistical study by political scientists Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan about the supposed effectiveness of nonviolence is once again making the rounds. Having seen the power of a diversity of tactics and the state’s continual prioritization of profit over people during the pandemic, Gelderloos’ rebuttal is even more compelling this time around. Following sustained, militant resistance alongside massive demonstrations in Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., and Philadelphia, city councils have moved toward defunding the police, and Minneapolis may abolish its force entirely. His revamped analysis is contextualized for the current moment. In 2013, he critiqued the study’s flawed methodology that uses statistics to “obscure complex realities,” which, according to Gelderloos, “became popular because it offers a very comfortable view of social change that allows white activists to preserve their privilege and physical safety…” In the essay that follows, Peter Gelderloos, author of several books including How Nonviolence Protects the State and Anarchy Works, addresses the shortcomings of a well-known study by Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan promoting non-violence, darling of pacifists, politicians and both progressive and corporate media. Media and politicians tokenize “Black leadership” at the service of the ruling class, platforming establishment groups that argue militant resistance somehow detracts from the Black liberation message.

Impatient politicians, including Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, pointed to the disproven “ outside agitator” myth in a desperate attempt to delegitimize the protests. A counterhegemonic and politically radical viewpoint became perplexingly commonsensical overnight.

Yet, it was not until the mass uprisings in hundreds of cities across the country in response to the murder of George Floyd when, suddenly, abolitionist ideas were propelled to the forefront of the American imagination. For decades, police and prison abolitionists have repeated the same argument: police and prisons do not prevent violence, healthy communities do.

Peter gelderloos how nonviolence protects the state