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I’m campaigning for free dinners for everyone, so I’m going to bang my head against a brick wall until it happens. Easy to laugh at, but substitute "free dinners" for whatever it is you want to achieve, and "bang my head" for "giving out leaflets", "obstructing the highway", "sending postcards to MPs" etc., and the joke’s on you.
Campaign strategy is about deciding how you can use your time most effectively to achieve your long-term goals. It is about recognising that you are powerful enough to CHANGE things (and not just make a noise about them), and working out how to do it. Have a look at the chart below, and fill it in for your particular campaign. Work with your group on this; it’s all too easy to make assumptions about what will happen (remember we’re trying to predict the future here!), and running your ideas past your friends and colleagues will help highlight any gaps in your logic.
It is important to break down your aims into ACHIEVABLE chunks, so that you can assess the progress of your campaign, and actually celebrate each victory along the way. If all you aim is simply the downfall of industrial capitalism, you’re unlikely to see positive results.
Since it is difficult to predict the outcome of a chain of events, each goal should be valuable by itself, as well as contributing to your long-term visions. For example, you might think that reversing the roads programme was a good one – fewer roads built would mean fewer ecosystems destroyed, and less pollution, while at the same time weakening the development of transport infrastructure on which long-distance trade depends. Alternatively, given your own psychological need for morale-boosting successes, you might decide that stopping road-building was too ambitious to be achieved in a reasonable time-scale; in this case, you might decide to focus on one particular key road.
As well as the RESULTS you will achieve, you should think about the PROCESS -- will your group come out of the campaign stronger than when it went in? Even if you fail in this particular campaign, will you be better placed afterwards to win your next one? For example, will the members of your group feel empowered to get involved in another campaign, will they have acquired useful skills and knowledge from this campaign, will you have found new group members or allies? You might politicise otherwise apathetic people, or show disempowered people that they can contribute usefully to changing the world.
You must think about who your TARGETS are, what are their values, how do they think. Such considerations will inform your tactics. Your target may have sympathy for ethical arguments. Or if your target is guided only by the bottom line, how can you most effectively impact on it? For example, the campaign against logging of British Columbia rainforests has recognised that persuading purchasers such as timber yards to cancel their contracts can have ten times as much economic impact on the loggers as blockading roads in the forest. Think about whether non-violent direct action is actually financially significant, or does the company just factor in extra security costs?
Companies attach value to presence in a market as well as the value of the actual sales. Third World First’s campaign to persuade Pepsi to disinvest from Burma through a student boycott was effective because the youth market is crucial to Pepsi. A similar campaign would not have worked with toilet paper, for example. Another important point about that campaign was that escalation of the campaign was threatened, with student organisations abroad also pledging to boycott (even if they didn’t really have the resources or motivation to actually do it, the threat was powerful enough to persuade Pepsi).
By forming alliances with other groups, you can greatly magnify your effectiveness. For example, if you’re campaigning against a superstore development, try working with local businesses, with environmental or traffic campaigners, and with architecture interest groups. If you’re campaigning against genetic modification of food try small and organic farmers, consumer protection groups, and retailers. For each, think about what they can do to help the campaign. A good example is the insurance industry with climate change; the industry has a clear self-interest because it has to pay out for claims from other damage, and what it can DO is to disinvest from fossil fuel companies, and invest in renewable energies.
It may be worth thinking about who will be concerned, interested or inspired before choosing your issue. For example, Greenpeace U.K.’s campaign to halt new oil exploration focused on the Atlantic Frontier, an area of great wild value (particularly whales and dolphins), and thus mobilised support from people who might be less interested in climate change or energy economics.
On TACTICS, creativity is important. Don’t just produce leaflets or go on actions because you can’t think of anything else to do. What are you trying to achieve? A diversity of tactics is good -- if one fails, another might succeed. Beware of the argument "if everyone did this (e.g. a boycott), it would change things". The question is, can you persuade everyone to do it? Also, think about possible outcomes of your campaign other than the one you want. Will a series of AGM (annual general meeting) shareholder actions result in greater corporate responsibility, or in new legislation barring small shareholders from AGMs? Although bear in mind that such corporate or legislative backlashes may be effective in mobilizing people against increasing corporate power and exclusion.
Communication is essential -- any change you achieve will not last unless people understand why the change has happened. You don’t want a backlash to reverse everything you’ve achieved. But it’s not enough JUST to sell everyone what you think, or even to get everyone to agree with you. Too many campaigners don’t get beyond the "strategy" of "shout allowed, and some people will shout with you, and when there’s enough shouting, something will change". A combination is needed of both communication and effective concrete action.
Giving some thought to the principles here can greatly enhance your effectiveness.
You can change the world!
Strategy Chart
After selecting your campaign, fill in this chart as a guide to developing your campaign strategy. Don’t forget to draw a TIMELINE to everything you intend to do!
A: Vision/goals
1.What is the overall purpose of your group -- your vision for changing the world? List these.
2. What are your goals for this particular campaign? What would constitute victory? How will it:
-achieve concrete (and desirable) change
-empower people
-alter the structure of power?
3. What is the relationship between your immediate goal and your long-term aim -- i.e. how would success in this campaign constitute progress towards your overall purpose/vision?
4. In order to achieve your goal in this campaign, what intermediate victories must you win along the way? Break down the process into achievable stages. For each, answer the questions in 2 and 3.
B. Organisational considerations
1. List the resources your group has for this campaign -- people, skills, experience, time, money, facilities etc.
2. List the extra resources needed for this campaign, and how you will get them -- e.g. training, recruiting people, fund-raising.
3. List internal problems within your group which you think you need to overcome.
C. Targets
1. Who has the power to solve the issue and give you your victory? List specific names.
2. Who influences that person’s decisions -- i.e. who should you persuade in the process of convincing (1)? Break the process of persuasion into stages -- Who can you must easily persuade, who will have influence over your next card? List specific names.
3. List the concerns, objectives and self interests of each target (RESEARCH). How much power does each have?
4. What is the contrary view to yours the (i.e. no change, or change in the wrong direction)? How much does each target favour the contrary here? Who might try to persuade them of it (your "enemies")?
5. Can you neutralise, pre-empt or defeat your enemies’ view? How can this be done best?
D. Allies
1. List all the people who are interested, or concerned or affected by, the issue.
2. For each of these, ask what they would get out of being involved in your campaign. Consider:
-their self-interest
-their depth of concern
-how they might be persuaded to get involved.
3. Ask what you want each ally to DO for you -- e.g. lobby decision-makers, take action, mobilise other people, provide useful resources for your campaign, or simply withdraw from some form of engagement with "the other side" (disinvest, for example). Do you want the ally to be part of your group, or working separately on the issue with another group (i.e. creating a second "angle of attack")?
4. Consider also:
-who else they may be able to get to support your campaign: how influential are they?
- who would be alienated by their presence?
E. Tactics
1. List all the tactics you have at your disposal.
2. Consider which tactics are most appropriate for achieving each stage of your campaign. The tactics must:
-be flexible and creative
-make sense to your supporters
-be directed at a specific target.
3. For each tactic ask:
-what specific message is it trying to communicate?
How will your target react to your tactic? Might you get the wrong response?
-does the tactic demonstrate your power most effectively?
Adapted from the US CEAC (Student Environmental Action Coalition) sheet by Heather Booth and the Midwest Academy.
(Taken from Corporate Watch magazine, Spring 1999, Issue 8. With thanks.)
