Effective Activist
October 16, 2022 12:18 AM Subscribe
An Evidence-Based Guide to Progressive Social Change (pdf) - The guide covers the most effective actions you can take as part of an activist campaign, within your organization, and in your everyday life in order to build a better world for us all to live in.
GUIDE
Here's links to the non-pdf version. But if you read it this way, note that many of these sections have sub-sections that you can get to by following links.
intro
Learning from Successful Movements
Part 1: Activist Campaign Tactics
Part 2: Building Strong Progressive Movements
Part 3: Integrating Activism into Everyday Life
Effective Activist Planning
Conclusion: Your Impact as an Activist
References
POPULAR PAGES
Activist careers
Prevent burnout
Lobbying
Education tips
GUIDE
Here's links to the non-pdf version. But if you read it this way, note that many of these sections have sub-sections that you can get to by following links.
intro
Learning from Successful Movements
Part 1: Activist Campaign Tactics
Part 2: Building Strong Progressive Movements
Part 3: Integrating Activism into Everyday Life
Effective Activist Planning
Conclusion: Your Impact as an Activist
References
POPULAR PAGES
Activist careers
Prevent burnout
Lobbying
Education tips
I will also find this useful for groups I am part of. Unfortunately, I have been studying a local proto-fascist group and their tactics, and I hate to say it but they are diligent students of this kind of literature too. It can be used for good or bad. And the same goes for counter-strategies: I probably need to start looking into what the CIA advises for busting up successful movements :(
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 1:13 AM on October 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 1:13 AM on October 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
Just read almost the entire website and found...a weird mix of stuff I found good and bad? Some of it reads like thoughtful, evidence-based overviews of what's worked and what hasn't, whereas other parts read like a deradicalizing conversion guide aiming to steer would-be progressives away from progressivism and towards moderate liberalism, effective altruism, etc.
Some of my criticism:
I'm skeptical of their view of "the science" regarding activism -- science itself is politically created, never nearly as generalizable or correct as you'd want it to be, and scientists themselves are in general pretty far removed from activism work. E.g., blanket statements like "violence is less effective than nonviolence" seem overly reductive. Too much deference to poorly powered/nonrigorous quantitative study designs, very little focus on the theory that drives much of current activist discourse (CRT? decoloniality? queer studies? abolitionism? etc)
I'm highly suspicious of the branding and its relationship to effective altruism. Effective Altruism may align with progressivism/social justice causes in some areas, but is by and large not a progressive movement. Neartermism (e.g., the "donate to buy malaria bed-nets" brand of EA) somewhat aligns with social justice, and longtermism (e.g., stop spooky AI from happening by donating to corporate AI research!) aligns more closely with libertarianism/neoliberalism/billionaire fetishization. The non-critical recommendation to follow 80,000 hours (a mostly longtermist EA org) for career advice strikes me as dangerous and perhaps even telling of their true ideology.
Which leads to to my last point, which is that I'm not convinced the authors actually have much experience with community organizing or activism. For starters, the language of the guide reads like an effective altruist wrote it, not a career social justice activist. E.g., fixation on what "research tells us," lack of usual social justice jargon, etc. Their claim that "protests do not require much technical knowledge or expertise in order to be effective" is laughable, and their fixation on tangible policy wins seems to misunderstand much of progressive protest strategy. I trained in community organizing by an Alinskyist group (problematic in its own right imo, but neither here nor there), and one of the earliest things they taught us was that protests are typically a way of building community over the long-term and getting phone numbers from people to mobilize when needed, not necessarily to demand an immediate small-scale policy change. The debate between organizing for long-term solidarity+structural change vs short-term policy wins is a valid one, but I'm not seeing much critical engagement here for that debate.
briefly, the stuff I liked:
I'm always happy to see more "evidence-based" approaches to activism, flaws notwithstanding. The stuff about voter mobilization was very interesting, and I found the deep references list to be a valuable source of information. I'll definitely find myself going back to this to look at the original research articles behind it. I don't think their conclusions drawn from a lot of the studies are as causally generalizable as they suggest, but I really liked seeing all the different studies they cited.
Anyway, I'm a scientist and find myself straddling that line between social justice/activism and "evidence-based" approaches -- I think it's important to engage with activists where they are, and from a place of humility. There are way too many people who are eager to tell activists that they're doing it wrong, or that they're being too "emotionally-driven" instead of "rational", and while there's certainly always room for improvement, there's also often reasons things are done the way they are that outsider scientists are not privy to. My tldr personal recommendation would be to go read Mariame Kaba's works.
posted by bongerino at 2:14 AM on October 16, 2022 [33 favorites]
Some of my criticism:
I'm skeptical of their view of "the science" regarding activism -- science itself is politically created, never nearly as generalizable or correct as you'd want it to be, and scientists themselves are in general pretty far removed from activism work. E.g., blanket statements like "violence is less effective than nonviolence" seem overly reductive. Too much deference to poorly powered/nonrigorous quantitative study designs, very little focus on the theory that drives much of current activist discourse (CRT? decoloniality? queer studies? abolitionism? etc)
I'm highly suspicious of the branding and its relationship to effective altruism. Effective Altruism may align with progressivism/social justice causes in some areas, but is by and large not a progressive movement. Neartermism (e.g., the "donate to buy malaria bed-nets" brand of EA) somewhat aligns with social justice, and longtermism (e.g., stop spooky AI from happening by donating to corporate AI research!) aligns more closely with libertarianism/neoliberalism/billionaire fetishization. The non-critical recommendation to follow 80,000 hours (a mostly longtermist EA org) for career advice strikes me as dangerous and perhaps even telling of their true ideology.
Which leads to to my last point, which is that I'm not convinced the authors actually have much experience with community organizing or activism. For starters, the language of the guide reads like an effective altruist wrote it, not a career social justice activist. E.g., fixation on what "research tells us," lack of usual social justice jargon, etc. Their claim that "protests do not require much technical knowledge or expertise in order to be effective" is laughable, and their fixation on tangible policy wins seems to misunderstand much of progressive protest strategy. I trained in community organizing by an Alinskyist group (problematic in its own right imo, but neither here nor there), and one of the earliest things they taught us was that protests are typically a way of building community over the long-term and getting phone numbers from people to mobilize when needed, not necessarily to demand an immediate small-scale policy change. The debate between organizing for long-term solidarity+structural change vs short-term policy wins is a valid one, but I'm not seeing much critical engagement here for that debate.
briefly, the stuff I liked:
I'm always happy to see more "evidence-based" approaches to activism, flaws notwithstanding. The stuff about voter mobilization was very interesting, and I found the deep references list to be a valuable source of information. I'll definitely find myself going back to this to look at the original research articles behind it. I don't think their conclusions drawn from a lot of the studies are as causally generalizable as they suggest, but I really liked seeing all the different studies they cited.
Anyway, I'm a scientist and find myself straddling that line between social justice/activism and "evidence-based" approaches -- I think it's important to engage with activists where they are, and from a place of humility. There are way too many people who are eager to tell activists that they're doing it wrong, or that they're being too "emotionally-driven" instead of "rational", and while there's certainly always room for improvement, there's also often reasons things are done the way they are that outsider scientists are not privy to. My tldr personal recommendation would be to go read Mariame Kaba's works.
posted by bongerino at 2:14 AM on October 16, 2022 [33 favorites]
The broader problem here is that both "activism" and "altruism" are self-defeating frameworks that center the activities of a specific narrow group of ideologically-motivated individuals (usually dominated by college-educated nonprofit professionals) in achieving "social change" (a terminally vague phrase that usually elides the fact that what is ultimately being sought are changes in power relations). The rise of "activism" as a set of practices that effectively amounts to something between a subculture and a technocratic expert class is a problem, not a solution, especially when it envisions "mobilization" as something that "activists" do in relation to an otherwise inert mass of "members" that exist primarily as phone numbers and email addresses in someone's Airtable. You can read Jane McAlevey for more on this if you want.
The Chenoweth nonviolence stuff is a shibboleth at this point--if you see someone mention it, it's usually because they're invested in precisely the kind of always-already-recuperated activist pseudo-organic mobilizational practice that has failed so resoundingly to achieve the "structural change" they've been talking about for decades.
posted by derrinyet at 6:25 AM on October 16, 2022 [13 favorites]
The Chenoweth nonviolence stuff is a shibboleth at this point--if you see someone mention it, it's usually because they're invested in precisely the kind of always-already-recuperated activist pseudo-organic mobilizational practice that has failed so resoundingly to achieve the "structural change" they've been talking about for decades.
posted by derrinyet at 6:25 AM on October 16, 2022 [13 favorites]
Just read almost the entire website and found...a weird mix of stuff I found good and bad? Some of it reads like thoughtful, evidence-based overviews of what's worked and what hasn't, whereas other parts read like a deradicalizing conversion guide aiming to steer would-be progressives away from progressivism and towards moderate liberalism, effective altruism, etc.
I got a pretty similar impression.
Which leads to to my last point, which is that I'm not convinced the authors actually have much experience with community organizing or activism.
More like a master's project than a collective working on a phd or something.
posted by aniola at 8:21 AM on October 16, 2022
I got a pretty similar impression.
Which leads to to my last point, which is that I'm not convinced the authors actually have much experience with community organizing or activism.
More like a master's project than a collective working on a phd or something.
posted by aniola at 8:21 AM on October 16, 2022
Good so far, except that the section advocating non-violent over violent activism really could use more meat. I know why I believe non-violent activism is effective (and I do), but this presents correlative studies like they prove causality (understandable, it's hard to study -- and who knows, maybe the studies do hint at causality -- but that should be mentioned. The logical people of the world matter!).
More, though, there's no attempt to imagine or describe _why_ the public would be more supportive of non-violent activism, or what other mechanism might explain its success.
This is really important when we can easily understand why violence makes people do stuff, but the effects of non-violent activism involve more logical steps and/or other people being more thoughtful than the media representations of them.
posted by amtho at 9:04 AM on October 16, 2022
More, though, there's no attempt to imagine or describe _why_ the public would be more supportive of non-violent activism, or what other mechanism might explain its success.
This is really important when we can easily understand why violence makes people do stuff, but the effects of non-violent activism involve more logical steps and/or other people being more thoughtful than the media representations of them.
posted by amtho at 9:04 AM on October 16, 2022
Can't activism be fun? Could we maybe picture somewhere we want to be and work to get there?
I understand that a core audience of progressive activists feeds itself on terror. But my God, from the intro:
We feel unsafe when we go outside. We are worried for the well-being of our families and our neighbors. We miss being able to see the stars at night, to take a deep breath of fresh air, to sip clean water from our local stream. We watch the news in fear, anxiously awaiting the day another decision will be made that will further strip us of our rights.
What sort of miserable, dour rallying cry is this? I'm not claiming that any of this is inaccurate per se; I'm saying that building the energy of your movement on this kind of foundation is spectacularly uninviting. Come join us: We feel terrified and helpless is an awful idea to march to. Come join us: We see a good future and we need your help getting there may entice the non-neurotic to join with you.
How about:
We have the power to reclaim our skies and make them clear again. We join hands with our neighbors and create a world of decency and caring for our children. We're going to clean up our streams and revitalize the natural world. We have a future of clean energy and justice in front of us: Let's get there together. And our rights belong to us!
It's small wonder to me that one of the major conclusions of this document is to stay within friendly confines, politically. That's a doomed approach. If you learn to speak only to the converted (presumably in the friendly language of neurotic helplessness) then you are condemned to permanent irrelevance on the national level.
posted by argybarg at 10:04 AM on October 16, 2022 [26 favorites]
I understand that a core audience of progressive activists feeds itself on terror. But my God, from the intro:
We feel unsafe when we go outside. We are worried for the well-being of our families and our neighbors. We miss being able to see the stars at night, to take a deep breath of fresh air, to sip clean water from our local stream. We watch the news in fear, anxiously awaiting the day another decision will be made that will further strip us of our rights.
What sort of miserable, dour rallying cry is this? I'm not claiming that any of this is inaccurate per se; I'm saying that building the energy of your movement on this kind of foundation is spectacularly uninviting. Come join us: We feel terrified and helpless is an awful idea to march to. Come join us: We see a good future and we need your help getting there may entice the non-neurotic to join with you.
How about:
We have the power to reclaim our skies and make them clear again. We join hands with our neighbors and create a world of decency and caring for our children. We're going to clean up our streams and revitalize the natural world. We have a future of clean energy and justice in front of us: Let's get there together. And our rights belong to us!
It's small wonder to me that one of the major conclusions of this document is to stay within friendly confines, politically. That's a doomed approach. If you learn to speak only to the converted (presumably in the friendly language of neurotic helplessness) then you are condemned to permanent irrelevance on the national level.
posted by argybarg at 10:04 AM on October 16, 2022 [26 favorites]
I had a similar sniff-test reaction. It's odd that there is no "about the authors" or "who we are" section to help bring some light to the sourcing and ideological perspective. Turns out two of the authors (and many of the citations) from from this group: NASCO, the North American Students for Cooperation. This book seems to be used as a manual in their training events. That gives me a little more texture, as much of this approach characterizes the work of community organizers and activists who are primarily working between agencies, official bodies and organizations and the wider public, and that requires a certain less disruptive approach. In other words, this doesn't cover every kind of activism; it covers getting policy and funding wins for social causes.
NASCO on Wikipedia
posted by Miko at 10:28 AM on October 16, 2022 [5 favorites]
NASCO on Wikipedia
posted by Miko at 10:28 AM on October 16, 2022 [5 favorites]
Ya I googled the author and couldn't find anything. Don't think this is worth reading.
I'm a former professional union organizer and scanning the doc, there don't seem to be any insights from labor organizing, a glaring oversight. If you want to learn an effective method of creating "progressive" change please this instead.
posted by Hume at 11:05 AM on October 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
I'm a former professional union organizer and scanning the doc, there don't seem to be any insights from labor organizing, a glaring oversight. If you want to learn an effective method of creating "progressive" change please this instead.
posted by Hume at 11:05 AM on October 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
What do they think about throwing soup on a painting and gluing yourself to a wall?
posted by Marky at 11:17 AM on October 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Marky at 11:17 AM on October 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
This is actually very practical and organized. There are checklists! The word 'you' is in there a lot -- it's a good antidote to the defeatism you here sometimes. One really significant effect is making it easier to picture all the other people who are actively doing things in their lives to make the world better. That's a bigger deal than commonly understood, I believe.
posted by amtho at 11:17 AM on October 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by amtho at 11:17 AM on October 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
I've only read the first section about communication and tactics, but it is well cited and does a good job of summarizing relevant social science. Because it's fairly easy to measure, there has been a lot of good psychology/political science research into different tactics for changing people's minds. Most of the advice is based around the idea of making positive change that won't create destructive backlash effects. This is really important because conservative backlash is very powerful in the current climate. Activists tend to ignore the potential negative side effects (either backlash or accidental damage) of their activism.
More, though, there's no attempt to imagine or describe _why_ the public would be more supportive of non-violent activism, or what other mechanism might explain its success.
Yes, I do wish there was more detail, but from what I've read a lot of the difference is tied to the much higher chance of negative side effects for violent tactics. If you organize a peaceful sit in for a cause, you will either convince people to support your cause or create a moderate amount of disruption that people are likely to forgive. But, if you start a protest to actively destroy property, there's a high chance this will spiral out of control (looters love to hang around protests) and result in destroying other property that has nothing to do with the cause. This will then encourage people who owned or appreciated that property to join an activist group directly opposed to yours. Obviously for a fully violent military-style resistance there is a very high chance of innocent bystanders dying, and that inspires revenge which can be very bad for a cause.
For starters, the language of the guide reads like an effective altruist wrote it, not a career social justice activist.
That's pretty obvious from the title of report and I didn't feel like they were trying to pretend otherwise. The authors are trying to take some of the good ideas of EA (not the ones about superintelligent AI) and apply it to a related area. The EA movement is splintering because of the very stupid directions the current leaders are taking it, and I think many of the individual members want to find other ways to help make the world better.
Reaction to this report will depend on if you believe "career social justice activists" have been generally successful over the last 20 years. Western social justice movements from around 1960-2000 were clearly effective at creating practical change. If you ignore negative side effects and conservative backlash, the last 20 years of activism has obviously been very impactful at changing the minds and behavior of people already sympathetic to those movements. But, I think it's way less clear that modern social justice movements have been effective at creating lasting change.
I'm not saying this report is perfect, but I'm glad someone is writing things like this. I am kind of worried about the 3rd section on integration into daily life because the science on those topics is less reliable, so we'll see how I feel after reading the whole thing.
posted by JZig at 11:43 AM on October 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
More, though, there's no attempt to imagine or describe _why_ the public would be more supportive of non-violent activism, or what other mechanism might explain its success.
Yes, I do wish there was more detail, but from what I've read a lot of the difference is tied to the much higher chance of negative side effects for violent tactics. If you organize a peaceful sit in for a cause, you will either convince people to support your cause or create a moderate amount of disruption that people are likely to forgive. But, if you start a protest to actively destroy property, there's a high chance this will spiral out of control (looters love to hang around protests) and result in destroying other property that has nothing to do with the cause. This will then encourage people who owned or appreciated that property to join an activist group directly opposed to yours. Obviously for a fully violent military-style resistance there is a very high chance of innocent bystanders dying, and that inspires revenge which can be very bad for a cause.
For starters, the language of the guide reads like an effective altruist wrote it, not a career social justice activist.
That's pretty obvious from the title of report and I didn't feel like they were trying to pretend otherwise. The authors are trying to take some of the good ideas of EA (not the ones about superintelligent AI) and apply it to a related area. The EA movement is splintering because of the very stupid directions the current leaders are taking it, and I think many of the individual members want to find other ways to help make the world better.
Reaction to this report will depend on if you believe "career social justice activists" have been generally successful over the last 20 years. Western social justice movements from around 1960-2000 were clearly effective at creating practical change. If you ignore negative side effects and conservative backlash, the last 20 years of activism has obviously been very impactful at changing the minds and behavior of people already sympathetic to those movements. But, I think it's way less clear that modern social justice movements have been effective at creating lasting change.
I'm not saying this report is perfect, but I'm glad someone is writing things like this. I am kind of worried about the 3rd section on integration into daily life because the science on those topics is less reliable, so we'll see how I feel after reading the whole thing.
posted by JZig at 11:43 AM on October 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
Echo the commenters who are concerned that the website doesn't identify who the authors are. No photos, bios, experiences? One necessity in being a good activist is to be savvy about who is giving advice and registering "effectiveactivist.com" with no transparency
posted by rogerroger at 11:56 AM on October 16, 2022
posted by rogerroger at 11:56 AM on October 16, 2022
Can't activism be fun? Could we maybe picture somewhere we want to be and work to get there?
Somewhere else in the document it agrees with you and cites something, too.
the website doesn't identify who the authors are.
Page 4 of the main link:
Somewhere else in the document it agrees with you and cites something, too.
the website doesn't identify who the authors are.
Page 4 of the main link:
The Effective Activist guide was produced by the following people:posted by aniola at 12:04 PM on October 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
Nico White – research and writing
Ratih Sutrisno – cover and figure art
Laurel Hecker – editing
Noah Compo – editing support
aniola, I'm referring to effectiveactivist.com, the host site of this booklet, which, when you click "About us" reads: "We are activists who became burned out when our tireless work wasn’t seeming to make any real change. We went to graduate school to learn how to research social movements and develop more effective activist strategies. Now we are working to share what we learned with you." That says absolutely nothing.
Also, in the guide, it does not list who these people are, what they've done, what they're affiliated with. I Googled "Nico White" and did not find anything illuminating. This is not transparency.
posted by rogerroger at 12:44 PM on October 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
Also, in the guide, it does not list who these people are, what they've done, what they're affiliated with. I Googled "Nico White" and did not find anything illuminating. This is not transparency.
posted by rogerroger at 12:44 PM on October 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
This will GiveWell.
posted by Daily Alice at 1:33 PM on October 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Daily Alice at 1:33 PM on October 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
Activism is only one component of really large social changes, jZig and derrinyet. Activism makes sense for narrower non-radical goals too, like what's mostly being discussed here. Any radical changes typically have economic or political reasons outside activists' control, but activists help shape their enactment:
Although the women's rights movement pre-dates the world wars, women's rights really took off due to those total economic wars, but even after the world wars women's rights gave companies more workers while also moving much women's work into the corporate sector. Gay rights were similarly non-threatening or beneficial to corporations.
As I understand it, the CIA cautioned presidents against permitting Hoover's FBI to crush the Civil Rights Movement, and maybe otherwise supported the movement, in part because the USSR used segregation against the US, both in propaganda and in recruiting, but maybe the CIA originally learned this path from activists.
We're limited in ecological activism by the "economy first" model: We deploy wind and solar power but we do not replace fossil fuels really, only increase power generation and human activity, which even increases risks for other planetary boundaries.
We rarely benefit from the "politics first" model in ecological activism, because mostly countries either ignore one anothers' ecology, or else push one another into being worse, via evil shit like ISDS or ECT.
Although fiction, Ministry for the Future by KSR tells a fairly realistic story by "politics first" solving climate change: An eco-terrorist organization starts shooting down air liners, blowing up pipelines, etc. and suddenly the western powers all magically say "oh what a good idea we should stop burning oil, stop eating meat, etc." At least India backs these eco-terrorists off-page however, so implicitly India has presumably deployed a large nuclear arsenal to say "go along with this or else." Anything like this story remains far away though but maybe..
posted by jeffburdges at 1:38 PM on October 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
Although the women's rights movement pre-dates the world wars, women's rights really took off due to those total economic wars, but even after the world wars women's rights gave companies more workers while also moving much women's work into the corporate sector. Gay rights were similarly non-threatening or beneficial to corporations.
As I understand it, the CIA cautioned presidents against permitting Hoover's FBI to crush the Civil Rights Movement, and maybe otherwise supported the movement, in part because the USSR used segregation against the US, both in propaganda and in recruiting, but maybe the CIA originally learned this path from activists.
We're limited in ecological activism by the "economy first" model: We deploy wind and solar power but we do not replace fossil fuels really, only increase power generation and human activity, which even increases risks for other planetary boundaries.
We rarely benefit from the "politics first" model in ecological activism, because mostly countries either ignore one anothers' ecology, or else push one another into being worse, via evil shit like ISDS or ECT.
Although fiction, Ministry for the Future by KSR tells a fairly realistic story by "politics first" solving climate change: An eco-terrorist organization starts shooting down air liners, blowing up pipelines, etc. and suddenly the western powers all magically say "oh what a good idea we should stop burning oil, stop eating meat, etc." At least India backs these eco-terrorists off-page however, so implicitly India has presumably deployed a large nuclear arsenal to say "go along with this or else." Anything like this story remains far away though but maybe..
posted by jeffburdges at 1:38 PM on October 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
And the same goes for counter-strategies: I probably need to start looking into what the CIA advises for busting up successful movements
WINTERHORN is an excellent game which is also a training in counter-activist techniques deployed by the US government.
posted by kaibutsu at 4:55 PM on October 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
WINTERHORN is an excellent game which is also a training in counter-activist techniques deployed by the US government.
posted by kaibutsu at 4:55 PM on October 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
How about:
We have the power to reclaim our skies and make them clear again.
Reminds me of "Tomorrow is a highway, broad and fair, and hate and greed shall never travel there."
Framing with hope, not fear, has been a great way to energize people for...a long time. I hope we have people as skilled as Pete Seeger to carry us forward.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 5:02 PM on October 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
We have the power to reclaim our skies and make them clear again.
Reminds me of "Tomorrow is a highway, broad and fair, and hate and greed shall never travel there."
Framing with hope, not fear, has been a great way to energize people for...a long time. I hope we have people as skilled as Pete Seeger to carry us forward.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 5:02 PM on October 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
What do they think about throwing soup on a painting and gluing yourself to a wall?
I think it could be interesting to take various aspects of irl actions and compare/contrast them with various aspects of this document.
posted by aniola at 11:13 PM on October 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
I think it could be interesting to take various aspects of irl actions and compare/contrast them with various aspects of this document.
posted by aniola at 11:13 PM on October 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
I’ve actually read some of the pamphlet and some of the sources now and its worse than I thought. Malcom Gladwell ass scientistic bullshit. Cute sounding, intuitive conclusions that you, the audience, will like, set next to complicated state of the art research, which you will also like, because it makes it seem like your intuitions were right all along. But it turns out the cute conclusions are pat, simplistic and not really accurate representations of the research they’re ostensibly justified by. Two examples are the advice that you should mobilize frequently and the advice you should use non-violent tactics.
The mobilizing advice is sketchy and highlights a major gap in the research: lack of insight from labor organizing.
“Staying at the forefront of people’s minds and on the front page is crucial for long-term sustainability and success. Do not doubt the power of mobilizing!”
Gratingly inaccurate in a labor organizing environment. Everyone wants to mobilize for big, visible actions like strikes, press conferences and pickets because its fun. The best labor organizers will dissuade people from using their energy on big and constant mobilization and instead focus on 1:1 relationship building and leadership development. Obviously, strikes and pickets are important but if you’re going to succeed it’s the outcome of a shitload of non-mobilizing type work and if you’re good enough at that non-mobilizing work you never actually need to mobilize! Favorable contracts are generally settled under the threat of a strike whether its realized or not, but strikes don’t always lead to successful contracts. Pat advice that everyone will like but can easily be counterproductive, in labor organizing or elsewhere. Please feel free to doubt the usefulness of mobilizing when its appropriate for your situation.
The non-violence stuff also infuriates me. Its like they imagine people just choose tactics in a vacuum and have no ability to consider circumstances. The pamphlet's boiled down, oversimplified, and even dangerous advice: violent tactics make you less likely to succeed.
The book they cite to support non-violence seems solid and thorough based on the three chapters I read/skimmed. I like the idea that non-violence is generally more persuasive than we think (according to the stats about twice as effective). One of their main points is that non-violence is effective because it has a better chance of persuading the public to support the cause. True enough, but the scientific advice to draw from this data is to consider the persuasive potential of non-violence, not to just sort of default to non-violence.
The best stance to take on this is that we should be non-violent when its appropriate and effective, violent when its appropriate and effective, and both when its both. Some “progressive” movements absolutely need to be violent (or prepared for violence) and advising against it is dangerous and foolish.
The book does a fairly good job of addressing potential confounding variables that undercut the success of non-violence. While they consider regime power as a factor influencing their data (and show its not a major influence), they only look at internal regime factors rather than external diplomatic influence in the same way. This obviously misses a major regime power factor (CIA involvement, US diplomatic pressure, US arms sales, etc.) and is one of just many unaddressed variables that make me skeptical about the result. Not saying I could do a better job of parsing the data or figuring things out (not even sure how you’d statistically represent some of the potentially influential factors), or even that I doubt the book's overall conclusion, I just don’t think the statistic tells us much about what we need to know as on-the-ground activists.
The book’s case study of the overthrow of the Philippines is also inconclusive to say the least. They correctly point out that non-violence succeeded while violence failed for decades, but not that the different groups defined success and failure differently. The violent groups weren’t just trying to overthrow Marcos. They were trying to create a worker run communist country. Non-violence didn’t succeed where they failed; it just succeeded at doing something easier. Really difficult to imagine the Philippines, or most other countries, becoming worker led off pure non-violence. Can you imagine the petit-bourgeious or security forces supporting worker control the way they supported the removal of Marcos? (the authors do some statistical work to show that maximalist goals aren’t a major factor in their result, but for them, maximalist sort of stops at “regime change” with no mention of further vision, giving credence to the criticism that this pamphlet is too de-radicalizing).
I know Fillipino organizers who lived in an IRL caught lackin challenge for years even after Marcos fell. They organized with non-violent methods but their organizing was also inherently a violent thing. It would have been dangerous to advise them to stick to non-volent methods like this freakin pamphlet does. The book authors are also too quick to dismiss the argument that the violent movements were necessary for the non-violent ones. They correctly point out that labor organizations were important incubators and building blocks of the non-violent movement but don’t mention that the labor organizations needed to engage in violent conflict to survive up to that point. I hope today’s Fillipino organizers ignore the pamphlet’s glib advice and protect themselves because things will probably get bumpy.
Find a pat conclusion your readers will like to hear, find an ostensibly rigorous study that sort of supports the conclusion, then stick to that pat conclusion rather than give a nuanced but less likeable evidence based take. I guess this is good as a master’s thesis. As advice for anyone outside of academia, not really.
posted by Hume at 12:42 AM on October 17, 2022 [4 favorites]
The mobilizing advice is sketchy and highlights a major gap in the research: lack of insight from labor organizing.
“Staying at the forefront of people’s minds and on the front page is crucial for long-term sustainability and success. Do not doubt the power of mobilizing!”
Gratingly inaccurate in a labor organizing environment. Everyone wants to mobilize for big, visible actions like strikes, press conferences and pickets because its fun. The best labor organizers will dissuade people from using their energy on big and constant mobilization and instead focus on 1:1 relationship building and leadership development. Obviously, strikes and pickets are important but if you’re going to succeed it’s the outcome of a shitload of non-mobilizing type work and if you’re good enough at that non-mobilizing work you never actually need to mobilize! Favorable contracts are generally settled under the threat of a strike whether its realized or not, but strikes don’t always lead to successful contracts. Pat advice that everyone will like but can easily be counterproductive, in labor organizing or elsewhere. Please feel free to doubt the usefulness of mobilizing when its appropriate for your situation.
The non-violence stuff also infuriates me. Its like they imagine people just choose tactics in a vacuum and have no ability to consider circumstances. The pamphlet's boiled down, oversimplified, and even dangerous advice: violent tactics make you less likely to succeed.
The book they cite to support non-violence seems solid and thorough based on the three chapters I read/skimmed. I like the idea that non-violence is generally more persuasive than we think (according to the stats about twice as effective). One of their main points is that non-violence is effective because it has a better chance of persuading the public to support the cause. True enough, but the scientific advice to draw from this data is to consider the persuasive potential of non-violence, not to just sort of default to non-violence.
The best stance to take on this is that we should be non-violent when its appropriate and effective, violent when its appropriate and effective, and both when its both. Some “progressive” movements absolutely need to be violent (or prepared for violence) and advising against it is dangerous and foolish.
The book does a fairly good job of addressing potential confounding variables that undercut the success of non-violence. While they consider regime power as a factor influencing their data (and show its not a major influence), they only look at internal regime factors rather than external diplomatic influence in the same way. This obviously misses a major regime power factor (CIA involvement, US diplomatic pressure, US arms sales, etc.) and is one of just many unaddressed variables that make me skeptical about the result. Not saying I could do a better job of parsing the data or figuring things out (not even sure how you’d statistically represent some of the potentially influential factors), or even that I doubt the book's overall conclusion, I just don’t think the statistic tells us much about what we need to know as on-the-ground activists.
The book’s case study of the overthrow of the Philippines is also inconclusive to say the least. They correctly point out that non-violence succeeded while violence failed for decades, but not that the different groups defined success and failure differently. The violent groups weren’t just trying to overthrow Marcos. They were trying to create a worker run communist country. Non-violence didn’t succeed where they failed; it just succeeded at doing something easier. Really difficult to imagine the Philippines, or most other countries, becoming worker led off pure non-violence. Can you imagine the petit-bourgeious or security forces supporting worker control the way they supported the removal of Marcos? (the authors do some statistical work to show that maximalist goals aren’t a major factor in their result, but for them, maximalist sort of stops at “regime change” with no mention of further vision, giving credence to the criticism that this pamphlet is too de-radicalizing).
I know Fillipino organizers who lived in an IRL caught lackin challenge for years even after Marcos fell. They organized with non-violent methods but their organizing was also inherently a violent thing. It would have been dangerous to advise them to stick to non-volent methods like this freakin pamphlet does. The book authors are also too quick to dismiss the argument that the violent movements were necessary for the non-violent ones. They correctly point out that labor organizations were important incubators and building blocks of the non-violent movement but don’t mention that the labor organizations needed to engage in violent conflict to survive up to that point. I hope today’s Fillipino organizers ignore the pamphlet’s glib advice and protect themselves because things will probably get bumpy.
Find a pat conclusion your readers will like to hear, find an ostensibly rigorous study that sort of supports the conclusion, then stick to that pat conclusion rather than give a nuanced but less likeable evidence based take. I guess this is good as a master’s thesis. As advice for anyone outside of academia, not really.
posted by Hume at 12:42 AM on October 17, 2022 [4 favorites]
I am going to guess that there are people who will find utility from this guide and that I will be one of them. I will also note that I am not going to read a guide that recommends violence. That’s because I am a privileged person living in an actual democracy in Europe. So I am happy this guide exists and I’m glad it was posted despite its imperfections, which I acknowledge.
If anyone knows of other resources that are better from their perspective, by all means post those links. Especially more labor-related stuff! But as something of a newbie, this gives me a place to start. That’s why I was happy to see it posted.
posted by Bella Donna at 2:59 AM on October 17, 2022 [2 favorites]
If anyone knows of other resources that are better from their perspective, by all means post those links. Especially more labor-related stuff! But as something of a newbie, this gives me a place to start. That’s why I was happy to see it posted.
posted by Bella Donna at 2:59 AM on October 17, 2022 [2 favorites]
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