Grassroots Policy Project

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1 Grassroots Poicy Project Theories of Power for Activists January 2007 Theories of Power for Activists* January 2007 There is growing recognition among many eaders in abor, community organizing, environmenta groups, anti-poverty advocacy and cutura activists that fragmented, issue-by-issue approaches have faied to buid progressive power. As eaders shift more of their focus toward buiding movement infrastructures that coud incude research, poicy, and academic institutions, roes for schoars become more evident. Within the context of infrastructure, we can imagine roes, reationships and many possibiities for joining together schoarship and action. Power Anaysis Whie there are many unexamined assumptions about power among activists, the eaders we work with say they want to buid power, not just have access to and infuence with decision-makers. In fact, most of the organizations we know about, far beyond the ones we work with directy, think and tak about power, and have some ideas about buiding power. Probaby the most common approach to power derives from common sense observations of oca poitics and decision-making. Common sense suggests that power is the abiity to get peope to do things they don t want to do, and organizers say that there are two sources of power organized peope and organized money. Common sense and good organizers have buit impressive organizations that have achieved important victories for miions of peope over the past 30 years. Theories of Power for Activists, January 2007 This approach to power is famiiar to socia scientists; we might think of it as puraism seen through the eyes of a pragmatic community organizer. It has a the strengths and weaknesses of puraist modes of decision-making in America. It is better than a beief that power is something other peope do and that an organization wi win because it is doing the right thing. The modified puraist mode makes sense. It offers measurabe resuts in terms that are easy to understand. This is important in terms of the incentives structure to which most movement organizations are subservient: foundations and arge donors give money to things that they can understand and measure. GPP works with organizations that have operated with this mode, and under these incentives. Using these approaches, groups have achieved significant victories. Nevertheess, the eaders of these groups are dissatisfied and sef-critica. They want to do something more than a-out mobiization for a egisative victory (or defeat), or one more eectora cyce that seems just ike the ast one. They want to be ess reactive. These feeings have opened the door to a broader discussion about power and strategy. The Three Faces of Power Most groups engage in some form of power anaysis, whether it is mapping current payers or imagining what our society woud ook ike if progressives had power on a arger scae. Since we are aso deepy interested in questions of power, we can engage groups about something they are aready interested in. The toos that groups use for power anaysis tend to provide one-dimensiona snap-shots force fied anaysis, mapping the aignment of groups and resources, etc. Power maps are particuary usefu toos for deveoping issue campaigns and tracking their progress. A good power map aso can iuminate the need for onger-term strategies to shift power reations in a region. However, these one-dimensiona toos do not end themseves to an anaysis that pushes the theoretica boundaries, beyond groups puraist assumptions. As we strugged to find and deveop better toos for power anaysis, we needed a theory that coud expain the shift in the poitica agenda over the past 30 years. Better yet, we wanted a theory that coud hep groups move to a * Excerpted from Movement Strategy for Organizers by Sandra Hinson and Richard Heaey. In Rhyming Hope and History: Activists, Academics and Socia Movement Schoarship. University of Minnesota Press,

2 more proactive eve of contesting for power. For the past four years, we have used an anaysis of power derived from Stephen Lukes book, Power: A Radica View (1974). We started with Lukes three dimensions of power, which we summarize as 1) observabe decision-making based on observabe differences of interests; 2) non-decision-making based on observabe differences of interest (i.e. agendasetting), via the mobiization of bias; 3) decision-making and non-decision-making based on preventing peope from understanding and articuating their rea interests. As we did workshops and trainings using these concepts, we found that in going from the academic sphere to the activist organization, we needed to: transate ideas and terms shift from anaysis to strategy adapt the strategy to concrete circumstances. The first task is transation. Lukes book was intended as an intervention in a ong-running academic debate, not as a manua on strategy. His framework needs some transation for the situations activists face in their organizing, networking, coaition-buiding, media and communications strategies, etc. The first face of power observabe decision-making is famiiar to the activists we work with and needs itte or no transation. The second face of power needs a compicated kind of transation. The idea of getting something onto the poitica agenda, or keeping something off the agenda, makes a kind of immediate sense. Transating mobiization of bias into organizationa power makes sense, but it eaves out too much of the arge-scae, networked organizationa structure we are interested in. A the organizations we know think about capacity buiding, but rarey about the reation of organizationa power to ong-term goas and to the architecture and the ideoogica and poitica gue that hods disparate organizations together. It is the networked and goa-oriented structure that we want to get at in transating the phrase mobiization of bias for activists. We define the second face of power in terms of deveoping infrastructure. That is, organizations create forma and informa networks to wied power for achieving arger goas. Coaitions, trade associations, overapping boards, and country cub memberships are ways of buiding ties between organizations to pursue common goas. We use the term poitica infrastructure to indicate the most deveoped and coherent networks of organizations that have impicit or expicit goas that go beyond the immediate interests of the member organizations. This ast point is the most interesting one: how and why do organizations work together in ways that go beyond their sef-defined or manifest goas? For exampe, the Christian Coaition, the NRA, and the Business Roundtabe are part of the corporate-conservative infrastructure. To better understand the reationships between them, we ask: How do members of the NRA, whose members endorse the stated goas around guns, understand their organization s reationship to corporate interests? There is a tension between the NRA s manifest goas and its activities as part of the corporate-conservative network. Managing this kind of tension is a key aspect of conservative strategy. For progressive and eft socia change activists and organizers whose focus has been singe-issue poitics, the absence of an infrastructure has made it extremey difficut to navigate the inevitabe tensions between socia, economic and environmenta justice goas, not to mention identities. The third face of power is about the common sense notion that peope derive much of their conceptua framework from society at arge. We define the third face as using cutura beiefs, norms, traditions, histories and practices to shape poitica meaning, the ways that peope understand the word around them, their roes in the word, and what they see as possibe. This definition of the third face provides a fairy cear transation of Lukes. It was his incusion of the third face that ed to the word radica in the subtite of his book. Our transation is intentionay naïve in that it avoids what we might ca the ideoogy probem. Facks and others have noted that socia movement schoars tend to avoid deaing directy with questions of ideoogy. As Facks puts it, Once upon a time, the study of ideoogy in reation to action was a topic of major interest, but it is one of those questions that now are out of fashion. (2002) In order to work with groups on bringing wordview into their work, we have to confront at east 30 years of resistance to taking about ideoogy as part of organizing. The 70 s saw a rise in pubic interest and community organizing that was decidedy non-ideoogica, as exempified by the common saying, organizers check their ideoogy at the door. One aspect of the egacy of Ainsky and the professionaization of organizing was the tendency to avoid ideoogica strugge. One assumption that took hod in both community organizing and pubic interest advocacy is that organizers shoud avoid taking expicity about ideoogies. The prevaiing wisdom in organizing was that, when peope come together around a common interest, or to sove a particuar probem, the experience of coective action to achieve a goa wi precipitate a shift in their consciousness. This reinforced the notion that organizers 2 Theories of Power for Activists, January 2007

3 did not need to directy engage members in ideoogica discussions and anaysis. This evoving orthodoxy about non-ideoogica organizing was bostered inteectuay by Boyte s writings about free spaces (Fisher and King). Aternativey, congregation-based organizing generay saw Judeo-Christian beiefs as the ideoogica basis for their work. We use the term wordview to describe the terrain of strugge around the third face of power, in part to avoid the connotations associated with the word ideoogy. We tak about how peope are infuenced by mutipe, often contradictory, beief systems. We stress that though there is a dominant wordview, peope ive with contradictory beiefs and behaviors. Further, peopes instincts and beiefs can move in either democratic or authoritarian directions. We aso stress the centraity of race in shaping peopes poitica consciousness. Without a arger framework that moves peope from specific interests towards a critica anaysis of socia and power reations, most peope who get invoved in a singe-issue campaign wi ose interest after the specific campaign is done. They are ess ikey to see and fee the connections between their own issues and the strugges of others in their communities and in the arger word. We have noted that transation is the first task in moving from the academic to the activist sphere. The second task is to shift from anaysis to strategy. The three faces framework is a nuanced and ayered anaysis of how power operates in our society. Activists need more than anaysis. They need a way to operationaize a theory of power. They need a theory that suggests ways to buid power adequate to their goas and purposes. And they need to do so in terms of their own circumstances, so a theory of power and socia change has to be contextuaized to different circumstances. n This paper was written by Sandra Hinson and Richard Heaey. Grassroots Poicy Project References: Darnovsky, Marcy, Barbara Epstein, and Richard Facks, eds Cutura Poitics and Socia Movements. Phiadephia: Tempe University Press. Facks, Richard. (forthcoming.) Knowedge for What? Thoughts on the state of socia movement studies. Fisher, Robert and Joseph M. King Ideoogy and Activism: Two Approaches to Leading the Peope. In Diemmas of Activism: Cass, Community and the Poitics of Loca Mobiization, edited by Joseph M. King and Prudence S. Posner, Phiadephia: Tempe University Press. Gaventa, John Power and Poweressness. University of Iinois Press. Lukes, Stephen Power: A Radica View. Humanities Press Internationa. Lichterman, Pau, 1996, The Search for Poitica Community, Cambridge University Press Wartenberg, Thomas Forms of Power. Phiadephia: Tempe University Press. Theories of Power for Activists, January

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