The movement power method also aims to resolve the main contradictions that have plagued social movements throughout history.
‘Movement power’ is a method for individual activists and organisations engaged in mass movements for designing and deploying direct action protests that can shift public opinion, transform the policy landscape and bring down authoritarian governments.
The methodology is complex and prescriptive, but has been shown to be effective. The Ayni Institute in the US developed a complete and coherent iteration of the method by assimilating lessons from the Pirate Party in Sweden, Отпор! in Serbia, and other civil rights groups globally. This work has then been interpreted and shared in the UK by NEON and Tipping Point. It has been improved following the engagement of frontline activist groups and NGOs including Extinction Rebellion (XR), Positive Money, Sisters Uncut, and War on Want.
This article aims to provide a practical summary and step-by-step guide for activists. It endeavours to describe the strategy as an organic whole, and explain its constituent parts. This is an attempt to describe the Ayni Institute method, but I have imposed my own structure, prioritisation and lexicon. Those interested in the history and development of the practice can read the full Movement Power series from The Ecologist.
PHILOSOPHY
The movement power method rests on two philosophical approaches. The first is a systems theory analysis that suggests that some natural processes can provide insight into how social processes can work. This ‘ecological’ theory includes the claim that activists should “seed” multiple organisations and campaigns and allow a form of selection to take place within the movement to see which has the best structure. The second is a ‘dialectical’ approach that sees the value of combining seemingly opposing ideas and methods.
Rick Falkvinge founded the Pirate Party in Sweden and explained its success in his book Swarmwise: The Tactical Manual to Changing the World. As the title suggests, natural processes provide both inspiration and metaphor. He compares the movement to army ants in the Amazon rainforest, references the hivemind, and explains that “the leadership is seeding new teams, it must water and fertilise - but the seed does its own growing.” Even mundane tasks come to life. “The workflow becomes an iterative, evolutionary process of trial and error, of constantly adapting and improving.”
The influence of systems theory from the domain of biology is made explicit by Paul Engler and Carlos Saavedra from the Ayni Institute. The central claim is that the movement must be born with an immutable DNA which includes the information - a constitution - that ensures its survival and success while “inoculating” it against common problems. The strategy is an organic whole that requires each of its parts to function and effect change within its environment.
The movement power method also aims to resolve the main contradictions that have plagued social movements throughout history.
The movement power method also aims to resolve the main contradictions that have plagued social movements throughout history. The claim is the movement can include - or sublate - apparently opposing approaches and in doing so improve its effectiveness. These antinomies include unity and autonomy; the hierarchical and horizontal; centralisation and decentralisation; prefigurative and strategic theories of change; symbolic and instrumental protests. Engler and Saavedra present the method as a ‘hybrid’, a resolution of the contradiction between the structure and movement traditions of civil resistance.
A single individual can initiate a mass movement, according to the movement power approach. This is made possible by “frontloading”. Frontloading refers to the fact that before any movement is launched its “DNA” needs to be carefully designed, its first activists need to be recruited and mass trainings need to be underway - and getting take-up. The first activists might spend years frontloading before the first public protests take place.
The DNA is designed to ensure the movement will deliver a clear set of demands within existing power structures. The term DNA is used to describe the entire blueprint for the organisation, including its analysis (context), its constitution (the core) and its activities (praxis). The DNA can be understood as the constitution, the rule book, for the movement. The DNA, when well designed, provides the necessary structure to secure unity and coherence while also allowing new recruits a high level of autonomy. It institutionalises centralisation and hierarchy - but in a deliberately limited way. Minimal rules must be asserted to allow the maximum freedom for the activists on the front line.
The DNA is a coherent, organic system that includes all the necessary elements for a successful mass movement. The DNA includes context, core, and praxis. Context, described above, includes the analysis of the spectrum of support, pillars of support and polarisation of support. The core includes 1. Ethics, subdivided into a. values, b. principles and c. rules of the organisation; 2. Story, or the theory of change, including a. the meta strategy, b. meta narrative and c. meta branding and then 3. the constitution, governing a. affinity groups, b. teams, and c. decision-making bodies.
Praxis includes the design and deployment of three phases of campaigns which will include 1. direct action, 2. escalation and 3. absorption. Action, in turn, includes: a. demands (symbolic and instrumental), b. tactics and c. methods (prefigurative and strategic). Escalation requires a cycle of momentum through: a. action agreements, b. trigger events and c. moments of the whirlwind. Finally, absorption is achieved using a ladder of engagement through a. commitment, b. mass training and c. retention.
Each of these elements is described below.
1.CONTEXT
The first stage of frontloading can be described as establishing context. The individual or collective of activists need to understand the environment in which they will operate - the terrain of struggle. This work could also be described as a conjunctional analysis, or as stakeholder mapping. This might take the form of a systems theory analysis. The aim, simply, is to have a clear understanding of the change you want to make, who will support you and who can stop you from delivering that change.
A distinguishing feature of the movement power method is a clear understanding of the way power in society is structured. The methodology assumes that power ultimately rests with the people, and potentially with the movement. Change happens through the action of mass movements, not because elites become more enlightened. The overriding objective at all times is to develop “active popular support” and to increase the power of the movement.
The method examines power through three moments: how people relate to the campaign (the spectrum of support); how the opposition maintains its power (the pillars of support); and how the campaign can shift opinion towards supporting the campaign and away from the opposition (the polarisation of support). The actual work therefore involves building the base of supporters, recruiting those who are currently neutral on the issue and leveraging this mass, broad-based, support to force the opposition to meet the demands.
Spectrum of support
The activists will identify who is with them - and who is against them. However, this analysis must go further than a simple dyad of supporter versus opposition (and indeed the Karpman drama triangle of victim, rescuer and persecutor). The objective is to map three zones: supporters, neutrals and opposition. Each zone is internally differentiated between active, persuadable and passive. The spectrum shifts from ‘active support’ through ‘persuadable neutrals’ to ‘active opposition’. The tactics deployed by the movement are tailored to one or more of these nine ‘colours’ of the spectrum. The movement needs to “build the base” of support. The participants must always speak to its actual values, promote those values in its actions, and recruit people who share those values. This approach should not be confused with triangulation, where political actors adopt the values of the neutrals or opposition to gain their support, as this is unprincipled and self-defeating over time.
Pillars of support
The campaign wants to tear down the pillars of support on which the power holder, the power holder, relies. Even autocratic despots do not, in reality, have absolute, monolithic power. They depend on the support of individual people, institutions, and classes. A monarch will need a military, a civil service, a legal system including prisons and a police, and ‘soft power’ such as the media and universities. The power holder must maintain these ‘pillars of support’ to survive - and ignore the demands of the movement. Tactics can be used to move the people who maintain the pillars of support towards the campaign or away from the autocrat. The campaign can win significant demands when the pillars of support start to crumble.
Polarisation of support
The campaign actively aims to “polarise” the public. A positive polarisation galvanises your current support, attracts the neutrals and marginalises and fractures the opposition. This means taking action that shifts the majority of the neutrals towards actively supporting the movement - even when this very action might cause some to increase their support for the opposition. The tactics - be they street protests or petitions - are primarily aimed at achieving active popular support, changing popular perceptions, gaining hegemony. This is quite different from professional campaigners lobbying politicians directly, and usually discreetly. The campaign rules out any tactics that involve a small clique of protesters making compromises with the elite of decision makers. Beyond ethical considerations, the method of building active popular support pragmatically rules out using proactive acts of violence.
2.THE CORE
The second stage for the initiating activist is writing the DNA of the organisation. The context - the analysis of the structure of power - will determine the design of the movement. The DNA decides how the movement is internally structured (core) and how it interacts with the outside world (praxis). The DNA of the core includes the ethics, the story and the constitution of the movement. These are universal, and must be adopted by every person who becomes a member of the movement. The values, principles and rules need to be coherent: they should not contradict each other. The DNA should be transferred to the members through action agreements and mass trainings.
The DNA is designed to be immutable, impermeable, and non-negotiable. But like real DNA, it must come into contact with reality. The initiating activists will recruit a meta facilitation team. The meta facilitators are tasked with keeping the DNA intact for as long as possible, knowing that ultimately it will be distorted and even destroyed. The meta facilitators can be understood as, and even called, the board of trustees, the standing orders committee, or the civil service. For organisations that favour classical democracy, the meta facilitation team may be elected by the total membership or general assembly. Falkvinge describes the DNA and the staff that maintain it as being a scaffold, and emphasises that it must always serve the swarm. “The role of this scaffolding is not directing and controlling the masses.”
ETHICS
Values
A movement should be defined by three key values. The coherence of the collective of activists is achieved because of the fact everyone shares these values. The values might include transparency, accountability, and inclusivity. These values determine both the demands of the movement - a call for government to be more accountable, for example - and also the behaviour of the movement - a commitment for the meta facilitation team to be accountable to the members. The values people already hold are likely to be similar across movements using this methodology. If an activist does not agree with the values of the movement, they should disengage but are free to set up a different organisation with the same aims but manifesting those alternative values.
Principles
The individual or team that initiates the movement should inscribe its principles, usually 12 clear statements that express the values in a more concrete way. The meta facilitation team has a responsibility to ensure that the members of the organisation are able and willing to embody these principles, which are non-negotiable. This also means that the DNA must include only those principles that are self-evidently necessary and acceptable to new recruits to the movement.
Rules
The movement needs rules. These should cascade naturally from the values and principles. The rules must be necessary, and should be as narrow in scope as possible because they will limit the autonomy of those who choose to participate. The activists in the movement will accept the rules on the basis that fellow activists acting in the interests of the movement have implemented only those rules that are actually necessary. Rules might, for example, preclude bullying and intimidation. Falkvinge in Swarmwise proposes the “golden rule” that activists should never criticise each other’s work. If you do not like an initiative, you simply start an opposite initiative. The rules can include limits to the founding principles. An obvious rule would be that anyone who commits sexual assault will be excluded. The principle of inclusion is therefore interpreted to mean, firstly, that people need to be safe in movement spaces. This overrides any right of a perpetrator to be included.
STORY
Theory of change
The DNA will also present a clear and coherent story about the movement. The story must include the theory of change. Activists will dedicate their lives to a movement only if they believe that it will be successful, or at least make significant progress towards its goals. The theory of change is a clear explanation of the context, the desired outcome, the action the movement will take, and how such action will deliver the intended result. The story includes the meta strategy, the meta narrative and the meta branding. The ‘meta’ indicates that the movement will have a single story that explains and determines all of its activities. The meta elements sit at a higher level of abstraction, with the concrete phases, campaigns and tactics cascading downwards. The theory of change may be strategic - leveraging specific members of the public to call for a specific improvement from a specific power holder (such as a politician); or prefigurative - staging symbolic protests that raise awareness and shift public opinion towards more progressive attitudes (that power holders then have to appeal to).
Meta strategy
The meta strategy could be considered the most important part of the DNA. The meta strategy is necessary to ensure that everyone engaged in the movement has the same aim, objectives, and the same basic methodology for success. The aim is singular, and ensures unity in action. The aim will then differentiate into three identifiable objectives, usually expressed as demands. In many cases the three demands will each be delivered in three consecutive phases. The phases include the campaigns, which are in turn delivered through a series of tactics. The DNA does not provide concrete plans for the campaigns and tactics: these are designed and deployed by the frontline activists with full autonomy from any central leadership.
Engler explains: “You need to understand what your movement is going to do in order to win, and then what the general phases are to get to that aim. Then in each phase different local groups have autonomy in terms of which campaigns they work on, and devise their own tactics. The structure of the strategy therefore allows for greater autonomy in tactics. Once you establish the aim, the grand strategic objective, most people will agree on the phases. Then people can do whatever they want for campaigns, and vote with their feet in deciding which campaigns and tactics to join and make happen.”
Meta narrative
The story must include a single high level meta narrative. This story describes the theory of change in a way that new activists can relate to and will sign up to. The meta narrative should be simple and accessible. It should correspond to reality, and people’s lived experiences. The importance of storytelling in public communications has in recent decades been increasingly appreciated. Activists may even want to turn to Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces to understand the universal elements of storytelling and use all or some of the structure to tell the story of the campaign. The meta narrative can contain multiple sub-narratives. A simple narrative in Britain might be: we want clean water and low bills; but the people who own the water companies are corrupt and motivated by greed; they are allowing our rivers to be polluted while grabbing massive dividends; we need to bring water back into public ownership, but the political parties have been co-opted; we must join together in a mass movement, which includes trade unions, to force the politicians to nationalise the water infrastructure.
Meta branding
The movement needs meta branding. A single symbol which is easily identifiable shows perfectly that the movement has a clear aim and a unified metanarrative. People often find it hard to emotionally relate to a group of hundreds of people they have never met, or to an abstract concept such as a demand. However, people relate to brands, symbols and images. A distinguishing feature of the movement power model is a commitment to ‘open source’. This means activists can use the brand, styling, colour palette and digital resources of the movement without asking permission of a leadership, a founder, or individual owners of intellectual property rights.
CONSTITUTION
The DNA inscribes the constitution of the movement. The constitution of the movement power organisation is distinct from any private company, almost all NGOs, and indeed traditional campaign groups due to the amount of autonomy that is afforded to frontline activists. The activist must learn the DNA in its entirety; the membership is expected to operate within the scope set by the DNA; the DNA allows for complete autonomy at the levels of campaigns and tactics. The DNA of the organisation needs to be disseminated to and within the various groups, teams and decision making bodies.
Affinity groups
The centre of the movement power constitution is the three activists rule. The rule is simply: “If three activists agree that something is good for the organisation, they have a green light to act in the organisation’s name.” The rule is based on the principle that activists “deserve people’s confidence and trust.” The corollary is that “no one is allowed to empower himself or herself to restrict others”. Any three people can form an affinity group. In most cases an affinity group will form to deliver or participate in a tactic - such as a street protest. Larger, more stable groups will become teams. Twelve or more people can form a whole new organisation.
Activists are required, as well as encouraged, to make decisions, to be courageous, to discuss and promote. The activists, by directing their labour, decide the success or otherwise of the groups and teams. The activists can “vote with their feet” and join any campaign, take part in any tactic. Any activist can form a group and initiate a campaign. They will also design the structure of the campaign, including creating and delegating roles. Activists should empower “groups that form around accomplishing specific tasks” and leave subgroups that are dysfunctional. The activists will “gravitate by themselves to a subtask where they can help deliver the desired result.”
Teams
The teams within the organisation retain the highest level of autonomy from the centre. Activists are encouraged to join or leave any campaign or tactic of their choosing. They are also invited to work within one or more teams. The unity of action across the movement is not achieved through managerial instruction or voting. The members of the team have to assume responsibility for delivering the DNA, for actualising the metastrategy. The meta facilitation team is responsible for ensuring the longevity of the DNA, making sure activists act within the principles and remain focused on the metastrategy. This team must not act like classical leadership.
Teams might be formed to deliver a specific tactic, to manage a campaign, or to ensure the coherence of a phase of the strategy. The teams might want to form around themes - such as climate, utility bills, renewable energy - or around a particular function - such as making calls, recruiting members, holding mass trainings, or fundraising. The activists do not answer to team leaders. Further, there is no assignment or micro-supervision. Falkvinge suggests that any leaders that do emerge should only do so through “swarm meritocracy” - running effective teams that attract effective activists. There must be no financial or organisational advantage to being in a specific team or having a function within a team. The media team is critical to the movement. The public often learns about social movements through the media, even where the saturation of press and broadcasting is on the decline. The importance of press work therefore is hard to overstate. For Falkvinge the autonomy of the press team is, nonetheless, sacrosanct. He states: “This sub-swarm should be autonomous and have full authorisation to speak independently on behalf of the swarm.” Many movement power practitioners disagree with this position.
Bodies
The constitution needs to design decision making bodies. The affinity groups and teams will only make decisions that affect members of those groups and teams. However, there does need to be unity in action and coherence across the movement. More people will contribute as the movement grows. Naturally, they will want to be part of the decision-making process. The movement can, in some cases, organise a general assembly of all members to discuss the existing or proposed rules that impact all of the members. These assemblies can also respond to significant events that might require a reappraisal of the strategy. The DNA developed for the movement needs to establish the aim and scope of the assembly, with a simple, fair and transparent process for activists to publicise their initiatives and address any concerns. The DNA meta facilitation team might take responsibility for ensuring the assemblies take place. Falkvinge recommends using a “consensus circle” with a veto for every attendee. However, he emphasises this must be used for emergencies or exceptional circumstances only. How activists engaged in the movement make decisions (be it through a form of democratic voting or otherwise) is not sufficiently defined or resolved in the current movement power model. The foundational contradiction between autonomy and accountability still needs to be resolved.
3. PRAXIS
“Praxis is the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, embodied, realised, applied, or put into practice,” according to Wikipedia. Thus far, the DNA has encoded the theory of the movement: the analysis of the context and the description of the core structure: now the movement needs to take action. The DNA also includes parameters for the tactics the movement will use, including direct action. There needs to be a clear understanding of what we are asking for from the power holder (the demand), the theory of change we are working to (prefigurative or strategic), and the kind of tactics (symbolic or instrumental) we will deploy. The tactics should be designed to deliver a cycle of momentum, from activists committing to the movement, through trigger events and moments of the whirlwind. The movement must grow, using a ladder of engagement to move individual members of the public from a first commitment (an action agreement) through mass training and finally full time activism.
DIRECT ACTION
The movement will deploy direct action to force the power holder to accede to its demands. Specifically, the movement will advance a unifying aim achieved through three clear and coherent demands. The movement will advance each demand during a specific phase of campaigns. The nature of the demand will determine the tactics and methods used. The demands are inscribed in the DNA, as are the campaign phases. However, the activists will design and deploy the campaigns, and the series of tactics that make up a campaign.
Demands
The demands presented by the movement define the movement. The DNA of the movement includes a metastrategy and a metanarrative which are fixed and shared by all its participants. The metastrategy, as described, includes a single aim and three demands that will be front and centre during each of three corresponding phases of campaigns. The movement needs ambitious - one might even say ‘epic’ - demands. The movement must make popular demands, designed to win active popular support: there should be an unmet need in the general public so that when the movement is first announced the pent up frustration will translate into immediate and broad-based enthusiasm for the demands to be met. The demands should speak to sweeping, historic change. A movement wide tactic - such as a national demonstration, or national strike - will almost always call for one of the three top level demands. However, smaller tactics - such as a local street protest, or a petition to an institution - could have a more focussed, and less ambitious - demand. The multiple ‘local’ demands should have a direct and obvious relation to the three ‘universal’ demands.
A demand can be symbolic or instrumental. A symbolic demand will speak to the broad issue that impacts most people, or at least a wide section of society. The aim is to gain active popular support. A small demand should only be advanced when it is emblematic of a wider injustice - and where its refusal will expose the power holder as petty and mean spirited. Engler argues: “Symbolic demands win hearts and minds - even if they are out of reach or deliver a less significant material benefit.” An instrumental demand will win a specific material concession, usually one that benefits the activist base. If the concession is significant, or improves the lives of many people, it will gain active popular support. This might include a union winning a pay rise, or series of pay rises, across an industry. Activists, acting autonomously, can decide whether to deploy a symbolic or an instrumental demand for each tactic. However, they are encouraged to use a tactic based on a clear understanding of how symbolic and instrumental demands work and how they ensure the overarching aim of the movement will be achieved.
Tactics
There is a huge variety of tactics that can be deployed by the movement. Indeed, Gene Sharp, the author of the three-volume opus The Politics of Nonviolent Action, has chronicled precisely 198 methods of nonviolent action. These include, but are not limited to: industrial action, strike picketing, vigils, political mourning, renouncing honours, student strikes, civil disobedience, voter registration and refusing military service. Three activists can adopt any tactic and announce an upcoming action. Their proposal may be an outline, or a highly designed event. The activists will then use the internal communications infrastructure of the movement to recruit people to organise and build the action. If other activists take up the call, this positive feedback will indicate that the action is likely to be adopted by the public at large. Activists should learn from the success, and failure, of tactics across the campaigns. Over time, the movement should develop best practice - which might include a formalised process of organising actions. The mass training should ensure that people can replicate actions, and especially those actions that inculcate team formation and efficacy. This will allow other activists to develop their own actions. No decision making body can veto an action, nor can it compel activists to join an action.
There are symbolic tactics and instrumental tactics: and a spectrum from symbolic to instrumental. There is a satisfying coherence to deploying symbolic tactics for symbolic demands, and instrumental tactics for instrumental demands. However, participants should deploy whichever tactic is most likely to deliver success at the least cost to the individual activist and to the movement. A symbolic tactic is a protest or event which is designed to raise awareness of the issue at stake. This can include a mass demonstration or a press friendly “picture opportunity”. The protest itself will not cause disruption to the government, corporation, or process that you are protesting against. An instrumental tactic is designed to cause significant disruption. The purpose of the instrumental tactic might be to shut down, blockade, boycott, prevent or break. An instrumental tactic is usually more likely to lead to the arrest of individual activists involved and a crackdown on the movement as a whole. Activists should consider whether the deliberate deployment of an instrumental tactic can provoke over-reach by the authorities as this can actually accelerate polarisation: increasing awareness, sympathy and then allegiance to the movement among the general public.
Methods
There are two coexisting methods of effecting change in society. These have become known as the strategic and the prefigurative, and each presents a different theory of change. The strategic method usually involves highly structured and formal organisations that tend towards making instrumental demands. These can include trade unions, NGOs and community groups. A structure organisation might lobby a specific political party, including the one in power, to adopt a new policy. The prefigurative tradition is associated with mass protests, usually described as being spontaneous. The activists want to ‘prefigure’ change by immediately adopting and spreading new ethical practices within the movement itself. Prefigurative tactics are therefore about ‘living the revolution’ or ‘being the change you want to see in the world’. The movement power method celebrates and utilises both strategic and prefigurative methods. It is a hybrid model taking from both structure and prefigurative traditions.
The method deployed should be determined by the demands the movement is making, and the tactics it is willing and able to deploy. A specific movement can choose a structure or prefigurative theory of change for its DNA. This will determine the nature of the story: its metastrategy and metanarrative and metabrand. Activists who join an existing movement and sign an action agreement should respect the choice of method, and the coherence of the story presented. Further, a movement can deploy both strategic and prefigurative approaches in specific campaigns and tactics. The style of a campaign and its component tactics is chosen based on the likelihood that it will achieve the overarching aim of the movement, most often by attracting active popular support. Activists may strongly favour one theory of change over the other. Individuals should dedicate their energy to the affinity groups and teams that have adopted their chosen method, in order to ensure their success. They should refrain from openly criticising fellow activists who have adopted the alternative method for their campaigns and tactics. The aim is not to win the whole movement to one method, but instead to allow an infinite variety of methods and to empirically test which are most effective in a specific context.
ESCALATION
Cycle of momentum
The movement power model allows a small number of activists to win mass active popular support, and deliver substantial societal change. Success comes when the movement develops a cycle of momentum. A dictator or government can usually survive a single protest or campaign, however large. But a dictatorship will fall once millions of people are regularly out on the streets, with more disruptive tactics promised or in play. Therefore, the mass movement has to continue to grow and diversify until it has sufficient weight and agility to force the opposition to make change. The model offers a three-moment process to secure a cycle of momentum: from making a first commitment in an action agreement; through the staging of trigger events, to the creation of moments of the whirlwind.
Action agreements
A tactic is deployed when sufficient activists have signed an action agreement to launch that specific tactic. The action agreement represents a statement of intent to participate in tactics by the activist. The action agreement will outline the nature of the specific tactic the activist has signed up to participate in. This might distinguish between an arrestable action and a non-arrestable action. Activists need to understand that participants in a tactic would have agreed to a specific kind of action (especially in relation to nonviolent direct action and arrestable offences) and this decision must be respected by everyone who takes part. The agreement will include a commitment to the ethics and core constitution of the collective. The activist must therefore have access to, and have received training in, the entire movement DNA before signing an agreement.
The action agreement is a form of contract between the individual and the movement. Having signed the agreement, the activist will be free to start an affinity group of three or more people, or join an existing group, team or decision making body. They will participate in the design and delivery of campaigns and tactics. They will be able to attend, speak, and vote at meetings - even before taking an action. Activists who take unilateral action without signing an agreement cannot be reprimanded or punished, but the media team can confirm they are not a member of, and do not represent, the movement. Finally, if an activist commits a serious breach of the rules they will be suspended or excluded from the movement and their action agreements will be voided. Unlike a commercial contract, there is no legal action that can be taken against someone who has signed an action agreement and then does not participate. The movement may need processes to ensure action agreements remain confidential.
Teams engaged in organising a campaign should achieve a target for the number of action agreements that have been signed before deploying a tactic - for example, holding a protest. If a thousand activists agree to take part in an arrestable action that will clearly determine the kind of tactics the organisers can deploy. If only a few people sign action agreements for a mass mobilisation this is an indicator that this specific tactic will not be a success, and should not go ahead. The movement will only grow as more people sign action agreements. A large part of the activity of volunteers in the movement is finding people who want to take part and asking them to sign action agreements.
Trigger events
Some, if not all, tactics should be designed to be “trigger events”. The aim is to deploy actions - such as protests - that are difficult to police and are likely to attract the attention of the media and the public. This might include relatively small protests. These are developed to light a beacon and polarise public opinion so that it will attract waves of supporters to the campaign. A dilemma action is specifically designed to create “win–win” situations and, more importantly, put the opposition in a “lose–lose” situation. A successful trigger event can be replicated by people not in the leadership, or indeed within the movement itself. Trigger events can be externally created and spontaneous (such as in response to an extreme weather event) or deliberately initiated by the movement (an encampment at an emblematic university). In either case, successful trigger events should be fully exploited in order to create momentum through the cycle from recruitment and trigger events through to moments of the whirlwind. A series of trigger events can escalate to the point where, Engler enthuses, “you get so much media, there is so much energy” that a whirlwind will evolve.
Moments of the whirlwind
A moment of the whirlwind is a huge upswell in public support such as a million-person protest. It is the very thing that will deliver victory for even the most audacious demands. The movement must plan and promote these huge public events that will force the power holder to cede to the demands. The public will recognise injustice, and will take action, as soon as the seemingly impossible appears possible. The movement should always work to escalate events towards moments of the whirlwind. The DNA should be designed to produce such moments, and to capitalise on them when they arise. A tactic is deployed to win the demands of the movement. At the same time every tactic is used as a publicity event for the next tactic, and for an upcoming moment of the whirlwind. Each trigger event is therefore designed with the potential to become a “moment of the whirlwind”. A campaign seeds a series of trigger events, trusting that one of them will then result in a moment of the whirlwind. The organisers cannot predict which trigger event will take off, go viral. Nonetheless, the deployment of a number of well designed trigger events certainly makes such a historic moment possible.
The whirlwind can be seen simply as a spontaneous moment, or an inflection in a historical process. Social movements have previously deliberately created moments of the whirlwind, rather than simply capturing significant events in history. The secret sauce of moments of the whirlwind is “prophetic promotion”. The way to build a critical mass is to promise the public that at a certain time, and at a certain place, there will be a critical mass, a moment of the whirlwind. This echoes the activist adage: 'build it and they will come'. The movement must plan for success. The infrastructure must be in place to build from moments of the whirlwind as early as possible, given that such mass events can be spontaneous and difficult to predict. If millions of people come out to protest, there must be methods of absorbing them into the movement.
ABSORPTION
Ladder of engagement
The success of the movement depends on active popular support. A ladder of engagement should be designed and deployed before any public events take place. The first step on the ladder of engagement should be as low, as easy, as possible. There should be no - or at least very few - barriers to entry into the movement. The further steps on the ladder should be clearly signposted, carefully graduated, and encourage passive supporters into the core of the movement. The ladder should take people from the ground floor, crossing the road to join a protest, signing a petition; up a level through action agreements and mass training; and finally to the dizzy heights of becoming full time dedicated activists.
Commitment
The movement therefore needs resources in place both for passive and active engagement with the public. There needs to be a clear, simple and accessible path for people who want to offer their active support. This should be available before any public events or press work. A website and social media accounts are an obvious place to start: these should encourage people to provide an email (usually to subscribe to a newsletter) which becomes the primary mechanism for retaining connection. There should be clear plans for ensuring recruitment at every tactic and public event - especially trigger events and moments of the whirlwind. The movement also needs to take a proactive approach to recruitment. Emails need to be captured, commitments entered into, people recruited into the structure of the institution. Activists should self organise recruitment teams, and collectively develop plans and processes.
The ladder of engagement (sometimes called an activation ladder) is a deliberate process for taking new recruits from the fringes into the organisational core. A member of the public might visit the website after seeing a news story about an action and then take part in an online action, such as a petition; they will be encouraged to sign an action agreement and attend a real-life protest; attend local meetings in their community; take part in mass training; and finally to join as a volunteer organiser and later form part of the meta facilitation team. A necessary step on that ladder is reading, understanding, and signing up to the entire DNA of the organisation. The movement needs good data beyond contact details: a record should be made of where people are on the ladder of engagement and which step they are willing and able to take next. Absorption is not a linear process, and people might attend protests several times before becoming a volunteer.
Mass training
The centrepiece of the cycle of momentum, and of the process of absorption, is mass training. The initiation training for the DNA alone should take about five days. The movement power model requires that the leadership does not issue orders to the teams – this would violate the principle of autonomy. Unity and coherence are therefore maintained through continuous training. Training allows the founders to disseminate the organisational DNA to the membership. People should be given the “full package”: this includes all the metastrategy, the ethics, the action plans. Training is necessary before members can participate fully in the organisation, especially when it comes to decision making. Activists need to be convinced that their time is much better spent doing the work of building and escalating the campaign than trying to redesign or relitigate the constitution and composition of the organisation itself. The time invested in such extensive training will be rewarded as new members are less likely to disrupt the organisation by challenging or working against previously developed decisions and plans. And as soon as the first phase of training is complete, it is time to start “training the trainers”. There should be advanced training, training in training and “upgrade training” so that activists move through the ladder of engagement. The founding activists need continuous training, reminded of the DNA as the campaign matures. The investment in mass training only makes sense when there are successful trigger events leading to moments of the whirlwind.
Retention
A movement needs huge levels of self sacrifice from its members and supporters. The final step on the ladder of engagement is for an activist to volunteer full time for the movement. Activists are almost always volunteers, they are motivated by the cause rather than financial reward. Social movements, in contrast to professional organisations and NGOs, usually cannot pay salaries and therefore must actively build the infrastructure so that people can dedicate themselves full time - and still eat and find somewhere safe to sleep. People also will need support in dealing with the enormity of the challenges, the pain of the injustice they are attempting to overcome. The movement should anticipate and provide for the needs of its current and prospective activists. The concept of mutual aid is, therefore, fundamental. Engler argues: “You pay people in mutual aid. If emotional needs are met within the group, they no longer want money or status.” The ethics encoded in the DNA must recognise that activists will need support, while also setting healthy boundaries and expectations.
This Author
Brendan Montague is the editor of The Ecologist.
