Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement (review)

Wendy Pearlman's outstanding book Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement addresses a fundamental question in the study of politics, the answer to which is of tremendous importance to scholars and policy makers alike: when and why do some national movements resort to violence and others employ nonviolent strategies of protest? Though various explanations for social movements' use of violence have been proffered over the years, ranging from instrumental rationality in strategic interactions with the state to ideational explanations based on cultural norms or framing to intra-group competition, Pearlman demonstrates the shortcomings of these approaches — especially in explaining the use and timing of nonviolent protest — and suggests an alternative organizational approach. Tracing the evolution of the Palestinian national movement over 90 years, along with brief comparisons to South Africa and Northern Ireland, she identifies striking patterns in the relationship between a movement's internal organizational structure and its external strategies. In short, she argues that "a movement must be cohesive to use nonviolent protest, and fragmented movements are more likely than cohesive ones to use violent protest" (p. 11).

In the first chapter, Pearlman lays out her compelling, though complex, "organizational mediation theory of protest." She defines cohesion as "cooperation among individuals that enables unified action" (p. 9), and assesses it in terms of three variables: leadership (the extent to which it is unified and legitimate); institutions (the political rules of the game within the movement); and a population's sense of collective purpose (clear, agreed-upon objectives). Cohesion increases the possibility of nonviolent protest in several ways: it facilitates mass mobilization, enforces discipline among movement members, and improves a movement's ability to formulate and carry out coherent strategies. In contrast, fragmentation increases the likelihood of violent protest due to internal competition, outbidding, and weak constraints on escalation. It also leads to spoiling, which hinders attempts to end hostilities, and invites outside interference, further aggravating fragmentation. Pearlman's contention that only cohesive movements can successfully engage in nonviolent protest because of the coordination and restraint nonviolence requires is quite convincing; there are too many ways that efforts at nonviolence by fragmented movements can break down. Furthermore, the multiple mechanisms Pearlman identifies by which fragmentation can lead to undisciplined or internal violence are persuasive. However, none of this logically implies that cohesive movements should be less likely to employ violent strategies than fragmented movements; it is plausible that, given their unified leadership, strong decision-making institutions, and agreed-upon goals, cohesive movements might employ, and be quite effective in the use of, strategic violence. Pearlman addresses this possibility later, especially in the South African and Northern Irish cases.

Drawing on extensive fieldwork and a wide range of secondary sources, Pearlman applies her organizational mediation theory to a detailed historical analysis of the Palestinian national movement. With a careful research design that employs process tracing to identify causal mechanisms, she divides her narrative into distinct historical periods to delineate multiple observations within the same movement against which to test her theory. In the first period, Pearlman considers the development of the Palestinian national struggle against British colonialism and Zionism. She shows how the movement's cohesion contributed to nonviolent protest in the early part of the Grand Arab Rebellion in 1936, but as its cohesion began to erode, protest activity became increasingly violent (1937-39). Next, she considers the roots and development of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), a deeply fragmented organization repeatedly driven to violence through factional outbidding, attempts to overcome its own factionalism, and external interventions.

Pearlman's analysis of the first and second intifadas and the intervening years of the Oslo Peace Process is especially adroit. She demonstrates how movement cohesion enabled nonviolent protest for much of the first intifada; internal fragmentation within the Palestinian Authority and Yasir 'Arafat's inability to overcome it ultimately undermined the peace process; and disappointment with the failed peace process, absence of clear leadership and institutional structure, lack of consensus on goals, and factional competition...