This article by Mike Balkwill was distributed to participants at the end of the October 1st workshop, Energy and Climate Change. It is reproduced here with Mike's permission.
Introduction:
There are three levels at which we can think about social change: 1) within the individual; 2) at the local level of the group and community; and, 3) at the broad level of society. Change in any of these three levels affects and influences the others.
For the purposes of this workshop, I am not going to look at the level of individual change. I am going to assume that you can imagine ways to reduce your own consumption or that you can find ways to get more ideas. The individual behaviours to reduce consumption are important, and the collective impact can be huge.
However, the impact of consumption by corporations and by government at the community and social level is huge and we are going to focus more on change at that level in this workshop.
Social Change:
I am referring here to change at the largest level in society. Sometimes this largest kind of social change is called a 'social movement'. In his book, Doing Democracy, Bill Moyer has outlined, in a simple way, eight stages in the process of social movements. The real life process of social change is not as linear as the model suggests, and it is messier than the stages in the model; nonetheless, it is a helpful tool to developing strategy and locating ourselves in the process of leading change. (An article in PDF format on Moyer's model can be found here including a chart giving an overview of his model.) Moyer starts from the assumption that the interests of the power holders - governments and corporations - are not usually the same as the interests of the majority of 'the people'.
Social change can happen in response to demands by the public of power holders. There are three important and different ways in which public support needs to be won over.
- Public awareness of the problem increases
- Public opposition to official policies increases because it is aware of the gap between official and 'operating' policies of public instutuions and private corporations
- Public support grows for movement alternatives
Winning Public Support for Social Change
- The first focus of winning public support is through public awareness of the problem. The experience of showing this movie (End of Suburbia) has taught me that the awareness of the energy and environmental problem is very high.
- The second focus of winning public support is through an increased awareness of the inadequacy of the official policies of the power holders to respond to the problem. (Power holders refers to any level of government and public institution - federal, provincial or municipal, and corporations.) Moyer talks about the difference between the official policies and the operating policies of the government. For example, the official policy may be a commitment to forest conservation through parkland, but its operating policy is to grant logging rights in the same parkland. The official policy gives the impression of action in the public interest but the operating policy reveals its real policy - which is usually in favour of private interests. When the public becomes aware of this gap then the opposition to official policy is the next level of support for social change. This is a crucial momnt because only when the public is aware that its representatives are not acting like they say they are, will the public then be open to 'other' alternatives.
- The third focus of winning public support is through public awareness of alternatives proposed by the social movement. It is important to remember that although there may be good alternative ideas developed, the public on a large scale will not embrace them until they have become aware of the deception practiced by power holders based on the difference between what they say and what they do.
Bill Moyer says that these levels of public support are different and that winning public support needs to occur in this sequence.
How to Win Public Support for Social Change
Moyer says that an important way to win public support is to find actions that play out in public to highlight the:
- Problem
- Gap between official and operating policies
- Movement alternatives
Playing out the issue in public means making a demand of a power holder. We don't expect them to change - but their behaviour reveals to the public their 'real' position and mobilizes more people to demand the change. When the level of public demand is big enough, then power holders change. Saul Alinsky, the American community organizer, said it another way: "the point of every action is to get a 'reaction' from the power holders". This reaction is the beginning of a public negotiation for change.
The method for doing this is described by the Industrial Areas Foundation set up by Saul Alinsky and by the Midwest Academy for Organizing. A summary of their organizing method is provided here.
Alinsky said change happens by organized people making specific demands on specific people power holders and by using tactics that have consequences for the power base of the power holder if they don't agree to negotiate change.
- The organizing focus is always on winning concrete benefits for people on specific issues while building the capacity of the organization to campaign and win on issues of increasing importance.
- To win change on an issue we need to bring 5% of the people in the community into an organization. If this number of people is organized, their activities, with the right strategy, will win over public support for the social change.
- A mass based 'organization of organisations' is the most effective vehicle for winning social change.
The three steps of the organizing process are research, action and evaluation.
The Midwest Academy breaks this model down into specific steps, and the research step is essential to developing good strategy. They outline the following steps:
- Set long and medium term goals
- Define a short term issue that reflects the goals
- Identify organizations that are allies, neutral or oppose your goal
- Develop strategies that will mobilize your allies, neutralize your opponents and win over the neutrals
In essence this model describes the stages through which social change emerges. The model has the added dimension dynamic of describing how innovation emerges in the face of resistance. Social innovations produced by social movements emerge from the struggle between social interests. The struggle usually is rooted in getting the decision makers of the dominant coalition in society to recognize a social problem and support its resolution through social policy. The social movement activists are innovators who are developing and promoting a new social technology. The broad goals of the movement activists are:
- Creating awareness that there is a problem
- Creating awareness that the current social policy is inadequate
- Organizing public majority support for alternative policies