Erica Chenoweth, the Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment at Harvard Kennedy School, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
Chenoweth, who is also a Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, is one of 261 scholars, including 16 from Harvard, recognized this year for their accomplishments and leadership in academia, the arts, industry, public policy, and research.
“We are celebrating a depth of achievements in a breadth of areas,” said David Oxtoby, president of the American Academy. “These individuals excel in ways that excite us and inspire us at a time when recognizing excellence, commending expertise, and working toward the common good is absolutely essential to realizing a better future.”
Chenoweth is a leading scholar in the study of political violence and its alternatives. At Harvard, Chenoweth directs the Nonviolent Action Lab, an innovation hub that provides empirical evidence in support of movement-led political transformation.
Chenoweth has authored or edited nine books and dozens of articles on mass movements, nonviolent resistance, terrorism, political violence, revolutions, and state repression. The most recent book, “Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know,” explores what civil resistance is, how it works, why it sometimes fails, and the long-term impacts of such resistance. Chenoweth’s next book with Harvard Kennedy School Professor Zoe Marks, “Rebel XX: Women on the Frontlines of Revolution,” investigates the impact of women’s participation on revolutionary outcomes and democratization.
Chenoweth also maintains the NAVCO Data Project, one of the world’s leading datasets on historical and contemporary mass mobilizations around the globe. Along with Jeremy Pressman, Chenoweth also co-directs the Crowd Counting Consortium, a public interest and scholarly project that has documented political mobilization in the United States since January 2017.