In 2013, political scientist Erica Chenoweth proposed the 3.5% rule, which argued that according to historical data from 1900 to 2006, whenever nonviolent protests against an authoritarian regime reached the tipping point of 3.5% of a country’s population, that government was almost always certain to fall. There was something about that number that created a tipping point that would go on to engulf the entire country and eventually cause regime change.
