The 3.5% Rule

I started writing this post on Friday, and hit “publish” instead of save when I was pausing midway because we had to leave. I finished it up this morning. An explanation in case you saw the title come through on Friday.

A friend linked to an article that gave me a glimmer of hope and provided an answer for the Wolvog when he lamented that the problems in America feel too overwhelmingly big and it is daunting to turn the figurative ship. Well, yes. But we try anyway.

The BBC article starts out: “Nonviolent protests are twice as likely to succeed as armed conflicts – and those engaging a threshold of 3.5% of the population have never failed to bring about change.” It goes on to list moments when a group of people created change through nonviolent action. The examples are a little different because they apply the 3.5% rule to situations such as the toppling of a single dictator vs. changing a mentality, but the article continues to look at how nonviolent protests get the job done.

Overall, nonviolent campaigns were twice as likely to succeed as violent campaigns: they led to political change 53% of the time compared to 26% for the violent protests. This was partly the result of strength in numbers.

People are more willing to join something nonviolent than violent—on average (from the events studied) four times more likely. More people = more disruption to everyday life = more people paying attention to the cause = more people thinking about where they stand = actual change.

The researcher of the paper states: “There weren’t any campaigns that had failed after they had achieved 3.5% participation during a peak event.”

So how many people would that be in the US? “It would involve 11 million citizens – more than the total population of New York City.”

11 million people. Yes, I get that it sounds like a lot, but I also feel strangely hopeful that there are 11 million people out there willing to actively participate. 11 million people out there who actively support reform initiatives. They’re willing to go to the polls and encourage other people to vote in representatives who will work to dismantle systemic racism in this country.

We took the twins to a socially-distant, masks-on protest down 16th Street in DC on Friday. People honked in support or had tears streaming as they drove down the road. It was impossible to not have hope (even knowing the history of hope) when you saw so many people coming out and lining the streets (10 feet apart!) to say Black Lives Matter.

And if we can get 3.5% of people actively caring and working towards a goal, we can accomplish a step in the right direction.