The Activists' Handbook

A Step-by-Step Guide to Participatory Democracy

Aidan Ricketts

• Publisher: Zed Books
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781848135932
• eBook ISBN: 9781780324135
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Freedom
• Index: Politics & International Relations

A priceless resource for everyone ready to make a difference, environmental activist Aidan Ricketts offers a step-by-step handbook for citizens eager to start or get involved in grass-roots movements and beyond. Providing all essential practical tools, methods and strategies needed for a successful campaign and extensively discussing legal and ethical issues, this book empowers its readers to effectively promote their cause. Lots of ready-to-use documents and comprehensive information on digital activism and group strategy make this book an essential companion for any campaign. Including case studies from the US, UK, Canada and Australia, this is the ultimate guidebook to participatory democracy.

ONE | Activism, advocacy and the practice of democracy

Introduction

Activism, social change advocacy and the practice of democracy are inextricably linked. It is the work of activists and social movements which pushes society along, prompts it to deal with its own failings and inequalities and helps to manifest a vision of a better world. In order to be able to be effective as social change agents we need the ability to articulate our message so that ordinary people can identify with the campaign and come to support its goals. This chapter provides the theoretical foundation for understanding the way in which public interest social activism works to bring about useful social change. It provides an essential framework for understanding all of the more detailed and practical chapters that follow.

1.0 Democracy 24/7

Democracy is an idea grounded in the premise that political power derives from the will, or at least the consent, of the people. This is the easiest way to summarize a political idea that has a very long history both intellectually and in practice. There is a wealth of literature available on the theory of democracy, ranging from Plato through to thinkers like Locke and Rousseau and Paine, whose writings helped inform European and American movements towards democracy from the seventeenth century onwards. More recently writers such as Bookchin, Chomsky and Foucault have contributed new perspectives and critiques on the subject. It is not the purpose of this book to become deeply engaged in theoretical debate about the nature of democracy. The way the word democracy is used in this book does, however, go beyond merely describing a system of governance or a set of institutional arrangements involving the election of lawmakers; it describes a wide range of practices in a lived community that influence the direction of the whole society.

Democratic practice involves any actions where individuals or groups of people engage in public activities designed to influence change or direct the way in which society functions. It is intentional that this description refers to public activities, simply to distinguish democratic practice from various covert or private actions that may be undertaken for the purpose of exerting influence.

Understood in this broad sense democracy is a process that is occurring every day throughout society, and only a small part of that process may directly involve elections, governments or institutions of state. When we understand democracy in this way, as processes taking place, then the concept of activism automatically assumes a central place in this community of practice.

Activism is also a very broad term which refers to actions and activities intentionally designed to exert influence within democratic processes. In this sense we could see democracy as the process and activism as the specific actions and activities taking place as part of that process.

A number of terms are used more or less interchangeably throughout this book, including activism and social change advocacy. Activism can be highly organized or it can be sporadic and non-organized. Social change advocacy is a form of activism in which individuals or groups have a clearly defined objective and methodology for promoting change. Frequently an organized process for pursuing change will also be referred to simply as a ‘campaign’.

This chapter will examine some very important contextual issues that frame the work of activists and advocates for social change. It is important to adopt a bigger-picture view of social change work to understand how a particular campaign or issue fits into a broader vision about society and democracy.

1.1 I disagree with your argument but I support your right to make it

A distinction can be made between the immediate issue that a campaign is about and the context within which the campaign takes place. When we take a small-picture approach to a campaign we may simply ask ourselves whether we agree or don’t agree with a particular position. But if we step back we may ask ourselves broader questions, such as whether we support the processes by which individuals and communities are able to exert influence to bring about change in their world. When we ask this question we are considering a deeper issue about our personal or collective commitment to democratic processes. This book examines analyses and provides practical advice for people engaged in democratic practice, irrespective of the cause or issue in which they are involved. It is this approach which exemplifies a deep commitment to democratic practice itself rather than simply an issues-based approach. But it is fair to also make it clear from the outset that this book is primarily about campaigns that are conducted in relation to public interest causes rather than private lobbying, although as we shall see the distinction is not always clear cut.

1.2 Public interest campaigns

Earlier it was observed that democratic actions should be of a public nature. It is important to be able to distinguish between public activity and activity that is purely of a personal nature, designed to secure the private vested interests of individuals, corporations or economic sectors. We could get sidetracked into discussing whether self-interested or corporate activity can ever be considered democratic practice, and it would be hard to define clear dividing lines. A lot of political lobbying, for example, is done by self-interested individuals, industry lobby groups and other vested interest groups. This book is about activism and social change work that has public interest values as core components of the campaign aim and purpose. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with individuals and groups using democratic processes to pursue their self-interest, provided it is done openly and honestly, but for the purposes of this book it is important to maintain some distinction between the kind of self-interested lobbying that big tobacco companies may invest in and genuine campaigns that promote public interest values. It is not an easy distinction to maintain; while we can be clear that the attempts by big companies to dominate and influence the political process of government are not public interest activism, it becomes less easy to define the precise boundaries of public interest work in a host of situations where there is an intermingling of self-interest and public interest motivations in a given campaign. For example, campaigns by trade unions for better wages or conditions clearly have a private interest element for the workers concerned but they are also public interest campaigns because of their role in achieving and maintaining these standards for workers generally. So while we can never be prescriptive about what is and isn’t a public interest campaign we can at least explore some indicia that will help determine whether a particular campaign or action has a public interest focus.

The ability to represent the public interest is a strategically important aspect that underlies almost all genuine community activism and social change work. It is important to develop a broad concept of the public interest and to be able to articulate the way in which your campaign promotes it as distinct from private and vested interests. This distinction is important in a number of ways:

• it can affect how people perceive a campaign;
• it can affect the way the media treat the campaign; and
• it can affect your ability to seek legal redress and other important legal rights.

This distinction between public interest issues and vested interest issues will be explored in more detail later in this chapter, but first it is useful to step back a little farther to explore how we came to have such a distinction.

2.0 Life in a liberalist society

We live in a society that is preoccupied with private concerns, particularly property and financial concerns. Our legal system and our society’s political and economic structures have been deeply influenced by the liberal ideological tradition, which emphasizes individuality as the most fundamental and significant feature of human existence. Our legal system in particular is constructed in a way that sees humans as isolated individuals within a sea of other individuals rather than as a collective community. In a society which so routinely overemphasizes the individualist aspect of human life, the social or community side is often neglected.

To use an example: the law has no problem recognizing the legal rights of one person to the use and amenity of a parcel of land which that person holds (a private right), but much greater difficulty in recognizing the entitlement of people generally to take action to protect important environmental qualities such as clean air, clean water or open space.

One of the challenges faced by public interest advocates, quite apart from achieving a particular outcome on an issue, is to have the issue seen as a legitimate concern in the first place.

Within liberal theory the role of community is often assumed to be entirely encapsulated within the functions of the formal mechanisms of state. A consequence of this is that the idea of community can start to appear vague and intangible. When this occurs the centralized state becomes the only clearly recognizable expression of collective power.

Such a view leads to some significant anxiety about the power of the state. Traditionally, liberalist thinkers tended to view the centralized state with suspicion, as a necessary but dangerous aspect of human social relations. The primary task that liberalist legal thinkers set for themselves was to strike a balance between individual rights and authoritarian state power. While this preoccupation with the assumed dichotomy between individual rights and state power has supported a range of individual rights, it has also tended to marginalize concerns which arise on behalf of the community generally that cannot be linked to an identifiable individual.

A middle position and one that underlies much of the perspective presented in this book is a more community-based understanding of society. This vision of society accepts the outer points of focus of the state and the individual as real but emphasizes the vitally important role of organized communities in mediating the exercise of power within society.

This vision of community power and social organization sees community participation as a vital part of the process of democracy and the concept of the ‘public interest’ as the key focus of genuine social change activity. Looked at in this way, community empowerment and community activism are essential aspects of a healthy democracy and hold the key to protecting individuals, minorities and the environment from exploitation, and are vital for the process of identifying, promoting and even changing widely held social values.

In an age when corporate power is also overwhelming individuals and communities it is more important than ever that human communities become more effectively organized to be able to draw together the power of the human community and use it to resist authoritarian government, exploitative corporate practices and environmental destruction. This important task lies at the heart of the purpose of this book as whole.

2.1 Liberalism and democracy … not the same thing

We often hear the term liberal-democracy expressed as a connected idea. There is a reason the two words need to be put together and that is that they are not one and the same. While liberalism does emphasize the rights of individuals, particularly their private property rights, it does not automatically sit well with a democratic view of the world which ultimately strives to see real power returned to ‘the people’. ‘The people’ used in this sense implies a community of citizens.

Classical liberals feared that the people so assembled might well at times choose to interfere with property ...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• About the Author
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Figures
• Introduction: cycles within cycles
• 1. Activism, advocacy and the practice of democracy
• 2. Building successful social movements
• 3. Strategy: the art of activism
• 4. Planning and mapping your campaign: practical tools and processes
• 5. Media, publicity and research
• 6. Public sector activism: how to change the law and influence government policy
• 7. Corporate activism
• 8. Direct action, protest and your rights
• 9. Digital activism
• 10. Strategic litigation
• 11. Social change and conflict resolution
• 12. Empowerment and personal sustainability: staying active and avoiding burnout
• References
• Index