In 2020, me and four other authors (Markus Bayer, Felix Bethke, Matteo Dressler and Véronique Dudouet) published a book called Nonviolent Resistance and Democratic Consolidation. It was the culmination of a four-year research effort into how and why mass nonviolent resistance during transition helps the resulting democracies survive longer and be stronger than democracies that emerged through top-down liberalization or those rare cases where violent resistance actually led to democracy. Last year, the publisher approached us. They were testing AI translation tools (specifically DeepL) and wanted to create a German version of our book. Somewhat sceptically, we agreed. The raw…