Under what conditions will successful nonviolent revolutions be followed by democratization? While the scholarly literature has shown that nonviolent resistance has a positive effect on a country\u27s level of democracy, little research to date has disaggregated this population to explain which cases of successful nonviolent resistance lead to democracy and which do not. In this study I present a theory of democratization in civil resistance transitions in which I argue that political actors\u27 behavior in three strategic challenges: mobilization, maximalism, and holdovers policy, systematically affect the likelihood of democratization. I test this theory using a nested research design that begins with statistical testing on a dataset of every political transition from authoritarian rule in the post-World War II period and continues with three in-depth case studies informed by interviews with key decisionmakers. The testing supports the important of two out of the three challenges: differences in mobilization and maximalism have strong, consistent effects on democratization after civil resistance
