Erica Chenoweth is one of the leading scholars on authoritarian regimes and how to overthrow them. In her book, she compiled 323 cases of nonviolent and violent campaigns in order to assess which were more successful in achieving their stated goals of regime change. Much to her surprise, Chenoweth discovered that nonviolent campaigns were nearly twice as effective as armed campaigns over the past century. In this interview, Chenoweth says the most effective variable in toppling a dictator is the number of people participating in a movement.