Methodology · Actor coverage

Study the actor, not the approval status.

Built To Resist does not treat nonviolence, legality, moderation, democracy, or institutional approval as prerequisites for research inclusion. Methods are evidence. Conduct is evidence. Outcomes are evidence. Operational instruction is outside the project.

Inclusion rule

Methods are evidence fields.

Violent, nonviolent, armed, unarmed, insurgent, extremist, terrorist-designated, state, non-state, legal, illegal, and mixed-method actors may all be included when they are relevant to revolutionary dynamics, political transition, repression, legitimacy, institutional fracture, resistance, or recovery.

These descriptors must be attached to the correct actor, incident, jurisdiction, and period. A violent faction does not automatically define a wider movement; a state label does not replace a description of conduct; peaceful branding does not erase unlawful conduct or coercion.

Symmetry rule

State and non-state violence use the same evidentiary discipline.

Government repression, torture, unlawful killing, collective punishment, civilian harm, censorship, arbitrary detention, and coercive action are documented with the same care used for insurgent attacks, terrorism, political assassination, riots, guerrilla warfare, or other non-state violence.

The objective is not false equivalence. It is consistent classification: evidence determines what happened and the legal/historical context determines how it should be described.

Question	BuiltToResist rule
Does violence exclude an actor?	No. Violence changes the analytical fields, consequences, legal questions, and source requirements—not eligibility for study.
Does a terrorism/extremism designation settle the history?	No. Record the designation precisely and also describe the underlying conduct, ideology, organization, civilian impact, political objective, and contested interpretations.
Does nonviolence confer automatic credibility?	No. Nonviolent actors can misstate facts, coerce internally, fail politically, or produce harmful outcomes. Evidence standards do not change.
Does anti-government orientation trigger exclusion?	No. Anti-government and anti-authoritarian politics are central subjects of the project.
How is hate treated?	Racism, supremacism, and protected-class dehumanization are separate classifications. Strong advocacy for one people is not presumed racist merely because it is strongly group-centered.
What remains out of scope?	Recruitment, membership facilitation, attack planning, target selection, weapons/sabotage guidance, evasion, clandestine access, coercive recruitment, and step-by-step violent escalation.

Source-routing rule

When an active actor’s own site primarily serves recruitment or operational violent instruction, BuiltToResist can still study the actor through archives, court records, scholarly work, public legal documents, and reputable reporting. Source routing protects the research function without erasing the actor.

External link policy →