Conclusion - toward the future, by Bill Moyer . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

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Glossary.......................................................................................................................200

Notes ......................................................................................................................... 204

Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 212

Index ............................................................................................................................220

Author Contact Information....................................................................................228

VII

Acknowledgments

C REATING THE Movement Adtion Plan (MAP) over these many years has not been a solitary process, so I want to thank all o f the activists who have shared their struggles with me, appreciated my models and strategies, and given me feed­ back on using MAP. Creating a book is not a solitary task either, so I want to thank a number of people without whose support this book would not have been possible. First, thanks to JoAnn McAllister who made the book happen. JoAnn has edited the entire book and provided many ideas and suggestions. She has also offered emotional support, humor, and strength in the ups and downs of the writing process for the last two years and has contributed to my thinking about social transformation during conversations over the last twelve years.

Thanks to my long-time friend Mary Lou Finley, who has been a participant with me in various social movements since the Chicago Movement in 1966 and who offered ideas, advice, and support in the evolution of my theories and methods of social activism. She is also the lead author of the academic theory chapter and the breast cancer movement case study.

Thanks to Steve Soifer for his persistent encouragement for me to write a MAP book, for his enthusiasm about MAP, and for using it in his social work classes. Steve conceived of the books format of MAP theory, academic theories, and case studies. Steve is also a contributor to the academic theory chapter.

Thanks also to Nancy Gregory and Juliette Beck, who contributed case studies, to Murray Dobbin for background on the globalization movement, and to Tom Adee for two of the charts in Chapter 3.

Thanks to Carol Perry for her companionship, support, and insights, includ­ ing the title of the book, Doing Democracy.

I would like to thank the Quakers, particularly those in Philadelphia, Chicago, London, and San Francisco, especially Emily and Walter Longstreth, a couple in their 90s at the time, who introduced me to the spiritual, ethical, and action methods of peace and nonviolence that set me on my life-long journey. I also want to acknowledge the American Friends Service Committee, where I learned so much as a staff member in Chicago and Philadelphia and as a volun­ teer in San Francisco.

VIII

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS IX

I want to thank those people connected to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Congress of Racial Equality, and the Southern Christian Leadership conference, particularly Martin Luther King Jr. for his moral, ethical, and courageous leadership; Bernard Lafayette, for his brilliant understanding of nonviolent movement organizing and for his friendship; and Jim Bevel for his creative and bold analysis and strategic thinking.

I want to give special appreciation to all the people in the Movement For A New Society and the Philadelphia Life Center during my 12 years living and working in that community, especially David Albert; Sandra Boston; Nancy Brigham; Sue Carol; Ginny Coover; Ellen Deacon; Vint Deming; Chuck Esser; Pamela Haines; Pete Hill; Bob Irwin; Dave Kairys for his brilliant legal support in our successful case against the Philadelphia Electric Company; George Lakey for his friendship and good thinking; Mary Link; Antje Mattheus; Mary McCaffrey; Marion McNaughton and Kate and Edmund; Jim Nunes-Schrag (deceased); Will Pipken; Betsy Raasch-Gilman; Dick Taylor for his support, friendship, and inspi­ ration in getting me involved with the Quakers, Bryn Mawr graduate school, canoeing, ship blockades, and nonviolence; Phyllis Taylor; Erika Thorne; Lillian Willoughby; George Willoughby; Betsy Leondar-Wright; and Marty Zinn.

Thanks to Christopher Mogil who has given me encouragement, sugges­ tions, and financial support over these years, and to Grady McGonagill for his counsel on organizing and financial support.

We would like to thank all those at New Society Publishers, especially Chris Plant, editor Audrey McClellan for her help with the manuscript, and Helene Cyr for the cover design.

A warm thanks for the support of my two living communities: in San Francisco, Jan and Dave Hartsough for having me in their house for 16 years, and Kay Anderson and my community at Dharmananda Farm in Australia.

I have received lots of support and challenges that affect my daily life in per­ sonal growth, spirituality, and philosophy. Thanks to my Integral Transformative Practice community that meets weekly in Mill Valley, California, and to George Leonard and Michael Murphy who founded the practice, and Wendy Palmer’s Aikido in everyday life training. I also have learned enormously from the writings of Ken Wilber, Don Beck and Chris Cowans Spiral Dynamics, and Robert Kegan. A hug to the members of our weekly Ken Wilber study group in San Francisco: Christine Alford, Laura Dufort, Mark Ettlin, Fred Cook, Sean Hargens, Paul Hoffman, Mark Johnson, Eryn Kalish, Steve March, Bert Parlee, Clint Seiter, Norio Suzuki, and Karin Swann.

I also want to extend my appreciation to many people who have helped my work including Mary Beth Brangan, Carol Brouillet, Ken Butigan, Don Eichelberger, Penn Garvin, Roger Harried, Jim Heddle, Susan Holvenstot,

X DOING DEMOCRACY: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

I also want to extend my appreciation to many people who have helped my work including Mary Beth Brangan, Carol Brouillet, Ken Butigan, Don Eichelberger, Penn Garvin, Roger Harried, Jim Heddle, Susan Holvenstot, Dorothea Kotter, Gil Lopez (deceased), Joanna Macy, Clare Morris, Sunny Miller, Linda Stout, Juliet Twoomey, Rich Watson, and the men working with the Marin Abused Women Services batterers program, especially Pete Van Dyke.

Finally, I thank my family, Edna and Jim Moyer Sr. (both deceased), Marion Moyer, Ron Moyer, Betsy Moyer, Jim Moyer (deceased), Jack Logue, and the rest of the Moyer clan for their love, humor, and support.

— Bill Moyer, San Francisco, CA April, 2001

Introduction

B ill Moyer, JoAnn McAllister, M ary Lou Finley an d Steven Soifer

T HROUGHOUT social conditions. much

Some of human collective history, efforts people have had have dramatic organized success, to change while others have foiled miserably. Nonetheless, the advancement of human society has largely been achieved through citizen-based actions. In the United States, the recognition of basic human rights — the abolition of slavery, the right of labor to organize, child labor laws, the right for African Americans and women to vote — came about through the efforts of engaged citizens. In recent years, • activists around the world have ousted dictators in Eastern Europe, the Philippines, and Haiti and ended apartheid in South Africa. Nonviolent social movements, based in grassroots “people power,” are a means for ordinary people to act on their deepest values and successfully challenge unjust social conditions and policies, despite the determined resistance of entrenched private and public power.

This coming together of unrelated people to achieve common goals has long fascinated historians, theorists, and ordinary citizens. How do social movements work? How does a social condition become an issue to people? How do people get together to act? How do social movements form? What kinds o f people join social movements? Are social movements effective, and how do they contribute to changing social norms and systems? These are all questions that people continue to ask. We think this book will answer some of them.

We believe the Movement Action Plan (MAP), developed by Bill Moyer as he worked in and with social movements over the last 40 years, clarifies the nature and dynamics of social movements and provides a framework for organizing and building them. We hope this book contributes to the effectiveness of social activism. We are eager, as well, to promote a dialogue among scholars and a dia­ logue between scholars and social movement activists by presenting a model of social movements that has grown out of activism itself.

WHAT IS A SOCIAL MOVEMENT?

Scholars and social critics have defined and described social movements in a variety of ways. For example, one sociologist describes a social movement as “a

2 DOING DEMOCRACY: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

formally organized group that acts consciously and with some continuity to promote or resist change through collective action.”1 Other writers suggest that social movements may exist without an organizational structure per-se, but char­ acterize them as a “preference structure for social change consisting of a set of opinions, attitudes, and beliefs within a group.”2 MAP defines social movements as “collective actions in which the populace is alerted, educated, and mobilized, sometimes over years and decades, to challenge the powerholders and the whole society to redress social problems or grievances and restore critical social values.”3 This definition does not focus on one organization, but instead on “collective actions” carried out by a number of different organizations, all of which might be said to be part of the same movement. In the MAP definition, social move­ ments go beyond the scope of changing governmental policies and structures to challenge all those who exercise power to maintain the status quo.

This definition of collective efforts describes engaged citizens as the core of the democratic process, hence the title “Doing Democracy.” Through social movements, citizen activists put the spotlight on individuals, groups, institu­ tions, and social systems that promote policies and practices they believe both cause the problem and violate revered social values. Then they challenge entrenched power and call on the whole society to solve the problem, repair the harm, and make changes that end the violation of those deeply held principles. In this description of the role of social movements, it is clear that there is, inevitably, a struggle for power. The central task of social movements is to win the hearts, minds, and support of the majority of the populace. Because it is the people who ultimately hold the power, they will either preserve the status quo or create change.

THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

The record of organized, nonviolent, collective action goes far back in human history. For example, Gene Sharp describes how Roman plebeians in the fifth century BCE started a movement against their leaders in order to have their complaints addressed. Instead of staging a violent revolt, they withdrew from the city, refusing to work, and after a period of time the Roman leaders capitulated to their demands.4 Over the centuries, collective direct action against oppressive nobles, invading forces, villainous tax collectors, or unscrupulous merchants has characterized political and social life. But most of these actions were immediate and targeted and did not continue over time. Social movements as we know them emerged in the West in the mid-18th century in Europe as a part of the general thrust toward democracy at that time. As political scientist Sidney Tarrow explained:

INTRODUCTION 3

The societies that formed around consolidating states in the past two centuries provided more translocal connections; more rapid communications, denser association networks, and, especially, targets and arenas for groups that felt their interests were impaired ... The social movement was not an automatic out­ come of modernization. It emerged from the long, tormented, and ultimately interactive process of state formation and citi­ zenship and from the diffusion of these forms of interaction over time and across territory.5

During this period, people began to use mass meetings and demonstrations as they sought new ways to make their voices heard. The storming of the Bastille, which set the French Revolution in motion, and the Boston Tea Party, a protest against a new tax that catalyzed the American Revolution in 1773, were early direct actions that fostered liberation from oppressive power. In 19th-century America, the abolition, temperance, labor, and women’s movements used many nonviolent strategies, such as marches and rallies, to raise issues and demand change.

Philosophers also began to theorize about social change methods and non­ violent social intervention in the 19th century. Thoreau’s definitive work, “Civil Disobedience,” was published in 1849 after his own act o f civil disobedience: he went to jail for his refusal to pay taxes in protest of the Mexican American War. Tolstoy developed a theory of nonviolent movements and, somewhat later, Mohandas Gandhi began to elaborate a theory of nonviolent action.

Increasingly, nonviolent social movements have become a way for citizens to petition their governments or demand changes from other powerful institu­ tions. In the 1930s, the organizing activities of the labor movement brought new tactical innovations, such as the sit-down strike, and a mass movement experi­ ence to many people. The civil rights movement from the 1940s through the 1960s was a watershed in the development of social movements in the United States and, to an important extent, throughout the world.

The modern era of social activism in the United States took off with the lunch counter sit-in movement that was carried out by southern college stu­ dents beginning in February I960. During the last half of the decade, another national social movement took off to address a second issue: ending the unjust Vietnam War. The war was viewed by many as an exception to normal U.S. foreign policy, which people believed promoted peace, prosperity, and democ­ racy around the world. In the last three decades, the women’s movement, which arose in the U.S. out of the civil rights and peace movements, has blos­ somed everywhere, with women in Africa and the Middle East also engaged in collective actions.

4 DOING DEMOCRACY: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

UNDERSTANDING SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

In Part II o f this book, Mary Lou Finley and Steven Soifer discuss some of the dif­ ferent theories and models social scientists have developed to explain social movements. While there is much useful information in social movement theories, most do not help us understand the ebb and flow o f living, breathing social move­ ments as they grow and change over time. None of the theories provides a comprehensive overview of the issues that activists must deal with in organizing a social movement. With few exceptions, there is little focus on movement strategy,6 the results of the movements activities, or the impact of the movement-on society - what academics call movement outcomes.

The gaps in the theory of social movements leave much to be desired from an activist perspective. The lack of focus on the agency of activists (i.e., their ability to act), on their means of activism, on movement dynamics, and on move­ ment outcomes is of particular concern. Social activists are most interested in other questions: What strategies and tactics will give the movement the best chance of success? How can we respond to the actions of the powerholders oppos­ ing the movement? How can we frame the issues so that the largest number of people will be able to relate to them and come to support the movement point of view? How do movements typically change over time? What are possible out­ comes for a movements activities and how will we know if we are making progress?

MAP, which is both a theory of social movements and a guide for action, addresses many of these questions.7 It both theorizes aspects of social movements that have received little attention from movement scholars and elaborates some perspectives already examined by others. The result is a comprehensive, action- based model for understanding social movements. Over the past decade, social activists around the world who have used MAP typically have had an “aha!” expe­ rience. That is, it makes intuitive sense to them and helps them grasp the complexities of what is going on, enabling them to more effectively organize the movement in which they are involved.

THE MOVEMENT ACTION PLAN (MAP): A NEW PARADIGM FOR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

While doing training for Clamshell Alliance anti-nuclear activists following a major, well-publicized, successful, direct action event in the late 1970s, Bill Moyer found that they were disappointed, dejected, and feeling powerless. In order to convince these activists that they had actually accomplished a lot and that they were much closer to their goals than they realized, he presented his model to

INTRODUCTION 5

explain the different stages of movements as he understood them. During the training, Moyer noticed that the mood of most of the activists changed as they were able to identify and understand the “take-off” stage of their movement. As a result of this experience, the Movement Action Plan eventually came to include a series of strategic and theoretical tools.

One o f the chief limitations o f social movements has been the lack o f strate­ gic models and methods that help activists understand, plan, conduct, and evaluate their social movement. The absence of a practical model that describes and explains the normal path of successful social movements disempowers activists and limits the effectiveness of their movements. Without a guiding framework that explains the step-by-step process of social movement success, many activists are unable to set appropriate long- and short-term goals; confi­ dently develop the most effective strategies, tactics, and programs; and avoid common movement pitfalls. In addition, without an understanding of this process, many activists develop irrational feelings of powerlessness and believe that their movement is foiling. This often creates a self-fulfilling prophecy that pre­ vents or limits their success. Consequendy, many activists lose hope, become demoralized, burn out, drop out, play ineffective or even destructive roles, and make movements unappealing to the majority of the public. Far more socially concerned citizens are dissuaded from joining social movements than actually do become activists because social movements are not seen as effective, or because activists are perceived as outside of the mainstream.

The Movement Action Plan provides activists with the much-needed strate­ gic analysis, model, and methods that address all those problems and empower both organizers and participants. It shows how successful social movements typi­ cally travel along similar long and complex roads, which usually take years or decades. MAP allows activists to -

• identify where, on the normal eight-stage road of movement success, their movement is at any specific time;

• create stage-appropriate strategies, tactics, and programs that enable them to advance their movement along to the next step on the road to success;

• identify and celebrate their movement’s incremental progress and successes;

• play A ifour roles o f activism effectively;

• overcome irrational feelings of powerlessness and failure; and

• engage ordinary citizens in the grand strategy of effective social movements — participatory democracy.

Since Moyer first published MAP as a newsprint broadside in 1987, it has been taught in dozens of universities, used by activists around the world, and translated into many languages including Chinese, German, Russian, Bosnian, Czech, and Polish. The English version of MAP has sold 36,000 copies, and over

6 DOING DEMOCRACY: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

20,000 citizen activists have attended MAP workshops and classes around the world.

WHY IS MAP IMPORTANT?

Social movements are needed now more than ever. While the modern era has brought unprecedented production, wealth, and consumption, it has also created social ills at crisis levels — poverty, hunger, war, oppression, and devastation to our environment. In most places these problems are bad and getting worse. Indeed, many activists and social theorists question whether life on the planet can be sustained without dramatic change.

Moreover, the existing powerholders and the established institutions and social systems are incapable of alleviating these planetary problems because the pursuit of their goals, policies, and programs creates and exacerbates them. For example, the dominant corporate and government elites tout the expansion and globalization of the worlds capitalist “free market” economy as their highest pri­ ority because it increases their profits, control, and power. But it also increases unemployment, the gap between rich and poor, violence, ecological collapse, and unsustainability.

The good news is that social movements are more numerous and powerful than ever. Instead of being “something that happened in the 1960s,” as the pow­ erholders and mainstream media would have it, social movements doubled in size and number in the 1970s and have rapidly expanded since then.8 For example, there are thousands of local anti-toxic waste groups in the United States, all but a few of which were created after the 60s.9 The bad news is that not all movements have been successful. Many have failed and many of todays activists are prone to repeat the mistakes that have curtailed the effectiveness of past movements.

DOING DEMOCRACY

Doing Democracy consists of three parts. Part I presents Bill Moyers Movement Action Plan. Chapter 1 introduces the MAP theory of social movements, espe­ cially the concepts of “people power” and participatory democracy. Chapter 2 presents the four primary roles that individuals and movements themselves play in social change. All four roles are necessary to successful social movements; their differences should be celebrated. However, there are effective and ineffec­ tive ways of playing each role, and this chapter describes these, paying special attention to the dangers of the negative rebel role and explaining how to over­ come them. Finally, it discusses the need for activists to strive for personal and political maturity.

INTRODUCTION 7

In Chapter 3 there is a detailed introduction to the eight-stage framework that is the core of MAP s analysis of social movement evolution. Analytical tools, such as the ability to distinguish societal myths and secrets, are applied to differ­ ent social issues to show how these tools can be used to alert, educate, and mobilize the general public. Chapter 4 contains rebuttals to all those reasons activists offer for not believing in their social movement. It is a call for a new con­ fidence in the potential of collective action and in the power of social movements to improve human society by promoting participatory democracy and engaging as many people as possible in the process of social change.

In Part II, Mary Lou Finley and Steven Soifer provide an overview o f the dif­ ferent approaches to social movement theory within sociology, and identify MAP s contribution in this context.

Pan III comprises five case studies that illustrate how MAP can be used to analyze earlier movements and applied to current ones. The study of the civil rights movement provides an excellent example of using MAP to analyze sub-movements within a larger movement. The study of the anti-nuclear energy movement high­ lights the various stages of MAP and the persistence of a social issue over decades, while the analysis of the struggle for gay and lesbian rights shows a movement in development. The study o f the womens health movement focuses on breast cancer advocacy, illustrating the development of a sub-movement within the broader movement for womens rights. The case study of the anti-corporate globalization movement demonstrates the application of MAP to an international issue and movement.

The Conclusion, “Toward the Future,” summarizes Bill Moyers current thinking about the future of activism. He calls attention to the unsustainability of modern society, to the relationship between personal and social transformation, and to the important new ideas and skills that citizen activists need to bring to social change.

At the end of the book, the reader will find a glossary of specialized terms and abbreviations (these terms are highlighted in bold italics on their first appear­ ance in the text), notes and bibliographic references, and contact numbers for the co-authors.

OUR HOPES AND COALS FOR THIS BOOK

We hope that the Movement Action Plan will help activists become more effective agents of social change and make their movements more successful. Because it is grounded in the reality of social movement action, we believe that MAP not only provides tools of analysis and action, but also offers great hope to those working to improve their own and others’ lives. By understanding the ebb and flow of

8 DOING DEMOCRACY: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

social movements, activists can reflect on their activities and better understand where their movement is on the road to success, while deciding what strategies and actions will move it forward.

We hope that academicians from various social science disciplines will relate MAP to traditional theories and use this model to further refine their thinking about how social movements work. By understanding the practice of social movements, theorists and scholars can contribute additional insights into how societies change.

We also hope that concerned citizens will come to appreciate the breadth and depth of social activism and social movements. Since the media typically focus on public demonstrations, which represent only one role of activism and one aspect of social movements, the public has received an incomplete picture of social movements. Thus, people may not appreciate the positive contribution that social movements have made to our lives. We trust that an increase in under­ standing and appreciation will encourage more people to join movements to create a civil society in a safe, just, and sustainable world.

Part I The Movement Action Plan

1 The MAP Theory of Social Activism

S

OCIAL MOVEMENTS are collective actions in which the populace is alerted, edu­ cated, arid mobilized, sometimes over years and decades, to challenge the powerholders and the whole society to redress social problems or grievances and restore critical social values. Social movements are a powerful means for ordinary people to successfully create positive social change, particularly when the formal channels o f democratic political participation are not working and obstinate pow- erful elites^preyai].

In the United States today, there are hundreds of thousands of organiza­ tions and groups involving tens of millions of people who are working at the local, regional, national, and international levels to address critical societal issues. Many are engaged in social movements that are not only challenging powerholders and the social systems and institutions, but are also creating alternative solutions to problems, without waiting for official institutions to change.

PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY

Social movements promote participatory democracy. They raise expectations that people can and should be involved in the decision-making process in all aspects of public life. They convert festering social problems into social issues and put them on the political agenda. They provide a role for everyone who wants to participate in the public process of addressing critical social problems and engaging official powerholders in a response to grassroots citizen demands for change. In addition, by encouraging widespread participation in the social change process, over time social movements tend to develop more creative, democratic, and appropriate solutions.

THE MAP THEORY OF SOCIAL ACTIVISM 11

Social movements are at the center of society. They are not exceptional or rare protest events on society’s fringe, and their activists are not antisocial rebels. Quite the contrary, progressive nonviolent social movements are crucial to the ongoing process as society evolves and redefines itself. According to historian Alaine Touraine (1981), “Society is a system of actors in which people make their own societal history.”1 Through social movements, ordinary concerned people, not just the powerholders, play a leading part in the process. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr., social movements help to “fulfill the American Dream, not to destroy it.”

Social movements must be based on widely held universal values. To place their social movement in the center of society, gain the support of the majority of the public, and advance society along the path of human development, movement activists must consciously stand for and articulate the cultures fundamental values, such as justice, democracy, civil and human rights, security, and freedom. They present a contrast to the vested interests that use public office and corporate institutions in ways that violate these principles. Social movements typically act in opposition to those conditions and practices that contravene society’s universal values and principles, such as laws that prevent people from voting due to their race or gender, or regulations that permit corporations to control the worlds political and economic systems.

Most citizens in democratic societies are steeped in their culture and believe in a range of universal values or principles. Movement activists, therefore, will be successful only to the extent that they can convince the great majority of people that the movement, not the elite powerholders, truly represents society’s positive and widely held values and sensibilities. On the other hand, movements are self­ destructive to the extent that they are defined as rebellious, on the fringes of society, and in opposition to the society’s cherished core social values, symbols, rituals, beliefs, and principles.

Social movements, therefore, need to be totally nonviolent. The practice of strict nonviolence, following in the footsteps of Gandhi and King, provides social movements with the optimum opportunity for success because it is based on time­ less universal human values and principles — love, compassion, cooperation, and caring. Nonviolence is less threatening to the majority of people and therefore helps them to be open to the movement’s radical social message. In addition, non­ violent methods allow almost everyone to participate in the movement: women, men, elders, youth, the frail, and even children, including those people who would be unable or unwilling to carry out militaristic and violent social action.

In this approach, the power of the people is engaged to apply maximum pressure on the various powerholders to change their views and policies. This method of exercising power is similar to what Gandhi described as Satyagraha.

12 DOING DEMOCRACY: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

He taught that the power of social movements is based on their ability to mobi­ lize the populace in a moral struggle in which the people withdraw their consent to be governed by those in power, using methods such as noncooperation, defi­ ance, disobedience, refusing benefits, and creating alternatives. This moral struggle requires total nonviolence in attitude and actions towards people and property. Consequently, nonviolent means are consistent with the ends sought by a good society; they are themselves the “ends in the making.”

Finally, what makes nonviolence especially powerful is that it has the capac­ ity not only to reduce the effectiveness of the powerholders’ ultimate weapons of police and state violence, but it can also turn these powerholder strengths around to the movement’s advantage, a process called moral jujitsu (see the description of Stage Four in Chapter 3).2

POWER

Enabling people to exercise their collective power is one of the ultimate goals of social movements. People power is important because throughout human history the distribution of power has been, and remains, unequal. Typically, an elite minority holds enormous political, economic, and social power. This power Hite generally uses its influence to benefit itself at the expense of the general welfare and the majority of the population. The historian Arnold Toynbee concluded that the real struggle in the world was always between vested inter­ ests and social justice.3 His analysis of the unequal distribution of power in the world obviously applies to our contemporary situation as much as it does to the past.4

Consequently, in an effort to promote democracy, justice, peace, general social welfare, and ecological sustainability, progressive social movements need to challenge the excessive power and influence of the elite minority. This inevitably leads to conflict with the political, economic, and corporate powerholders — whether they are presidents who run on an antiwar platform and then escalate a war, as U.S. President Lyndon Johnson did in 1964 when he sent more troops to Vietnam; contractors who want to increase the military budget and arms sales for their own profit; the American Medical Association opposing universal health care; or logging companies determined to destroy remaining old-growth forests.

At the core of the Movement Action Plan theory is a recognition of this differential distribution of political and economic power and an understanding of how power is used and achieved. Power is the ability to control, influence, or have authority over others. Today this includes power not only over what others do, but also over what people know and think. The word “power” comes from the French “poeir” and means, “to be able.” Power is our capacity to manage the

THE MAP THEORY OF SOCIAL ACTIVISM 13

world around us and can be exercised through persuasion, persecution, different forms of coercion, or physical violence. Most of us believe that power is a “top down” dynamic and do not feel that we are very powerful. According to Gene Sharp, political power includes “the totality of means, influences and pressures — including authority, rewards and sanctions — available for use to achieve the objectives of the powerholder,” including not only “the institutions of govern­ ment and the state” but also “groups opposing either of them.”5

Two views of power

Social movement activists need to be aware of two contrasting models of power — the power e'lite and people power. Each of these models leads to quite different and often contradictory movement beliefs, attitudes, strategies, con­ stituencies, and activities.

In the power Hite model (see Figure 1), society is organized in the form of a hierarchical pyramid, with powerful elites at the top and the relatively powerless mass populace at the bottom. The power elites, or powerholders, through their control of the state, institutions, laws, myths, traditions, and social norms, serve their own interests, usually to the disadvantage of the whole society. This model is represented by an upright triangle in which power flows from the elites at the top to the people at the bottom.

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