What is the 3.5% rule?
The 3.5% rule refers to the assertion that if at least 3.5% of a country’s population has actively opposed the government during a “peak” (significant) event, then that government will not be able to withstand the challenge. The claim was first presented by Erica Chenoweth (they/them), a political scientist, in 2013 at a TEDx Talk about the success of nonviolent civil resistance.
Development and explanation
The rule came from Chenoweth’s 2013 review of their dataset of 323 “campaigns”—i.e., violent and nonviolent movements that had goals of regime change or independence—that occurred between 1900 and 2006. Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan had used the dataset in their 2011 book Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. Chenoweth was curious to see what evidence their large dataset could provide for political scientist Mark Lichbach’s “5% rule” from his book The Rebel’s Dilemma (1995), which held that less than 5% of those supporting a movement become actively involved with it (and suggested that, if 5% of supporters rose up, the movement would succeed). Upon review, Chenoweth found that there were no campaigns that failed after at least 3.5% of the population participated during what were deemed to be peak events.
Chenoweth identified reasons why the active involvement of just 3.5% of the population is enough to achieve a movement’s goal. Though the percentage may seem low, that many active participants are capable of disrupting a country’s status quo, leading to increased pressure on authorities to address the complaints of the movement. Also, that percentage of active participants tends to reflect a far greater percentage of the population that, even if not active, does agree with the goals of the movement, which can later develop into a groundswell of support. As visible support for the movement grows, so does the likelihood that members of government, as well as high-profile supporters outside the administration, will decide to not oppose the movement—or even decide to actively support it.
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Limits and exceptions
There are some caveats for the 3.5% rule. Because the rule was derived from a review of a specific set of historical campaigns, where the movements had the goals of regime change or independence, Chenoweth cautions that it is descriptive, rather than prescriptive, and that there is no way to know if the rule will hold true for future events of a similar nature or for other types of movements with different goals, such as environmental protests. Chenoweth also notes that there are other important factors that affect the success of a campaign, such as leadership, organization, momentum, and sustainability, that were not considered in the review but likely played a part in allowing movements to reach the 3.5% threshold. Furthermore, since the rule’s introduction, it is possible that organizers might intentionally incorporate a 3.5% participation goal into their strategy without necessarily succeeding with some of the aforementioned important factors involved in a campaign’s success—whether or not this approach might affect the general veracity of the rule remains to be seen.
Chenoweth also notes some exceptions to the rule. Alongside associate Christopher Shay, Chenoweth developed another dataset in 2019, which looked at 389 campaigns that began between 1945 and 2013. This dataset included two campaign examples that did not appear to adhere to the 3.5% rule. One—a 1962 uprising in Brunei—had mistakenly been left out of the previous dataset. The other was a more recent event—the Bahrain protests that began in 2011—included for the first time. In both cases the campaigns failed, even though more than 3.5% of the population participated in the peak event. Chenoweth theorized that these specific exceptions might stem from the fact that both countries are small monarchies that had strong outside military support (Brunei had the assistance of British forces; Bahrain, the Gulf Cooperation Council security force and other regional assistance) and were not as susceptible as other countries to large-scale organized resistance. Chenoweth also suggests that although the campaigns in both countries had the numbers, they might not have had enough momentum, one of the factors not taken into account with the 3.5% rule.
