While scholars of nonviolent resistance recognize that large-scale campaigns are more likely to be successful campaigns, scholars and policymakers currently have little understanding of why some nonviolent protests grow into mass movements while others do not. In this article, the authors explore campaign size and, in particular, the role of individual and collective motives in facilitating the growth of nonviolent campaigns.

The authors write that this may be the largest wave of nonviolent mass movements in world history. What comes next? Social media has made mass protests easier to organize — but, perhaps paradoxically, harder to resolve.