Prove the Failure of Official Institutions

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2. Prove the Failure of Official Institutions

• Many new local opposition groups

• Use official channels — courts, government offices, commis­ sions, hearings, etc. — to prove p they don't work * ^Become experts; do research

Eight Stages of the Process of Social Movement Success

CHARACTERISTICS OF MOVEMENT PROCESS

• Social movements are composed of many sub-goals and sub-movements, each in their own MAP stage

• Strategy and tactics are different for each sub-movement, according to the MAP stage each is in

• Keep advancing sub-movements through the Eight Stages

• Each sub-movement is focused on a specific goal (e.g., for civil rights movements: restaurants, voting, public accommodation)

• All of the sub-movements promote the same paradigm shift (e.g., shift from hard to soft energy policy)

Public Must be Convinced Three Times

. That there is a problem (Stage Four) 2. To oppose current conditions and policies (Stages Four, Six,

Seven) . To want, no longer fear, alternatives (Stages Six, Seven)

8. Continuing the Struggle

• Extend successes (e.g., even stronger civil rights laws)

• Oppose attempts at backlash

• Promote paradigm shift

• Focus on other sub-issues /

• Recognize/celebrate successes so far -/

THE EIGHT STAGES OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS 45

3. Ripening Conditimis Recognition of problem and victims grows

• Public sees victim's faces v More active local groups

• Need pre-existing institutions and networks available to new movement

•^ 6 to 30 percent of public

opposes powerholder policies

PROTESTS

POWERHOLDERS

4. Take Off TRIGGER EVENT Dramatic nonviolent actions/campaigns Actions show public that conditions and policies violate widely held values Nonviolent actions repeated around country Problem put on the social agenda

• New social movement rapidly takes off I *^4(fpercent of public opposes current poli-

cies/conditions

5. Perception of Failure See goals unachieved See powerholders unchanged See numbers down at demonstrations Despair, hopelessness, burnout, dropout, seems movement ended

• Emergence of negative rebel

6. Majority Public Opinion * Majority oppose present conditions and powerholder policies

• Show how the problem and policies affect all sectors of society

• Involve mainstream citizens and institutions in addressing the problem

• Problem put on the political agenda

• Promote alternatives

• Counter each new powerholder strategy

• Demonology: Powerholders promote public's fear ofalternatives and activism

• Promote a paradigm shift, not just reforms

• Re-trigger events happen, re-enacting Stage Four for a short period

7. Success / Large majority oppose current policies and no longer fear alternative Many powerholders split off and change positions End-game process: Powerholders change policies (it’s more costly to continue old policies than to change) are voted out of office, or slow, invisible attrition New laws and policies Powerholders try to make minimal reforms, while movement demands social change

46 DOING DEMOCRACY: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

The recent past offers vivid examples of unacknowledged problems in normal times: violations of African American civil rights in the South before 1950; the United States war against Vietnam before 1966; the dangers o f nuclear power in Europe, Canada, and the United States before 1975; and corporate eco­ nomic globalization before 1999.

Opposition

The opposition to these conditions and policies involves small numbers of people and is unnoticed. When the issues are brought to public attention, the opposition often receives more ridicule than support. For instance, women demanding womens rights in 1848 were dismissed as eccentric or crazy. Consequently, the opposition’s efforts are relatively ineffective. There are three major kinds of opposition groups:

• Professional opposition organizations (POOs)

• Ideological or principled dissent groups

• Grassroots groups that represent the victims

Professional opposition organizations are usually centralized, formal organ­ izations located at the local, regional, or national level and headed by a strong central leader supported by a small, volunteer staff. Through diligent work, research, and critical analysis, POOs usually get access to information that con­ tradicts what the public has been told and develop perspectives and analyses that radically contradict those of the powerholders and conventional wisdom.

The principled dissent groups are usually small, rarely noticed, and ineffec­ tive and appear far too radical at this time (for example, the first “ban the nuclear bomb” demonstrations at the White House, organized by the Quakers in 1959). In Stage One, these groups hold nonviolent demonstrations, rallies, pickets, and occasional civil disobedience actions. Because they support deeply held human values, the principled dissent groups often serve as a moral light in the darkness.

The grassroots groups are composed of local citizens who oppose present conditions and policies, but who do not yet have the support of the majority pop­ ulation, even at the local level. They promote a progressive view and represent the victims’ perspective, provide direct services to victims, and may also carry out actions similar to those of the other two opposition groups.

Powerholders

The powerholders promote policies that favor the privileged and powerful corpo­ rate, economic, and political elites while violating the interests and values of the great majority of the population and the society as a whole. The powerholders work diligently to create and control the seemingly “normal” channels of the social systems, public and private institutions, and media through which they

THE EIGHT STAGES OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS 47

carry out their purposes. The powerholders maintain these abhorrent policies and practices primarily by keeping them away from public scrutiny, out of the public spotlight, and off society’s agenda of contested issues.

This strategy of keeping their unprincipled policies and practices hidden from the public is deliberate, because the powerholders know full well that if the general population knew the truth, the people would be upset and demand change. The powerholders deceive the citizenry through the system of societal myths vs. societal secrets arid official policy and practices vs. actual policy and practices.

Today, even the most brutal military dictatorships have a public facade of acceptable official policies and parliamentary democracy, complete with the pre­ tense of public voting. Their actual practice however, involves oppression backed up by physical force, including intimidation, beatings, torture, imprisonment, and death, as well as social and economic sanctions against all opposition.

Public

In the United States and other industrialized societies with a tradition of democ­ racy, the political and social consensus supports the powerholders’ official policies and the status quo, because the general populace is unaware that the social con­ ditions and the powerholders’ actual policies and practices violate their values and self-interest. They believe the powerholders’ explanations, which justify their poli­ cies in terms of society’s highest principles. As a result, the public is usually unaware of serious social problems and the powerholders’ involvement. In Stage One, only 5 to 10 percent of the population is upset by the social issue and dis­ agrees with the powerholders’ policies. In nations with more overt dictatorial governments, however, the great majority of the population may disagree with the government’s policies and practices, but due to fear and the inability to organize safely, people take little overt action.

Goals

The goals of the opposition at this stage are -

• to become informed;

• to identify and document that a serious problem exists, how it violates widely held principles and values, and the specific role the powerholders play in it;

• to create active opposition organizations and infrastructure, no matter how small;

• to move on to the activities of Stage Two; and

• above all, to believe that social change is possible and that they can help create it.

Pitfalls

The main dangers in normal times are -

• feeling stuck; and

48 DOING DEMOCRACY: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

• believing that you are a powerless victim and there is nothing that you can do about it.

Political naivety, that is, having blind faith in the powerholders and the social system to address and solve social problems, will cause you to feel stuck. Powerholders promote the belief in powerlessness to keep the populace from acting to change the status quo.

Crisis

Small numbers of newly involved grassroots citizens realize that a critical problem exists and that neither the official powerholders nor many of the old POOs have the interest or ability to solve the problem through the normal channels of the established social system. They realize that they must confront the official insti­ tutions themselves and must use the official channels not only in an honest attempt to get policies and practices changed, but also to document that the normal channels for citizens to participate effectively in the democratic process are not working.

Conclusion

Normal times are politically quiet times because the powerholders successfully promote their official doctrines and policies while hiding their actual behavior. Thus, they keep their violations of societal principles out of the public con­ sciousness and off society’s agenda of issues. The opposition is tiny and feels hopeless because it believes that the problem will continue indefinitely, and it feels powerless to change it. Beneath the calm surface, however, the contradictions between the powerholders’ actual practices and society’s cherished principles and values hold the seeds for popular discontent that can ultimately create dramatic changes.

STAGE TWO: PROVE THE FAILURE OF OFFICIAL INSTITUTIONS

Difficult Beginnings: The birth of every new venture begins in some confusion, because we are entering the realm of the unknown. It is our duty to act, but we lack sufficient power; we must take the first step.

(From the I Ching “Book of Changes”)

The intensity of public feeling, opinion and upset required for social movements to take off can happen only when the public realizes that governmental policies

THE EIGHT STAGES OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS 49

violate widely held beliefs, principles, and values. The publics upset is intensified when official authorities violate the public trust by using the power of office to deceive the public and govern unjusdy and unlawfully. According to philosopher Hannah Arendt, “people are more likely driven to action by the unveiling of hypocrisy than by the prevailing conditions.”2

Opposition

The opposition must prove that the problem exists and that the official power- holders and institutions actually participate in creating and perpetuating the problem. Therefore, the opposition must gather concrete facts and evidence through extensive research. It needs to prove that the actual practices of govern­ mental powerholders and institutions violate society’s values and the public trust. The opposition must also attempt to use every official avenue, supposedly available for official citizen participation in the democratic process, to influence social policies and programs related to the problem being addressed. This includes going to every pertinent decision-making body, whether you are welcome or not, to prove that they do not work. It means testifying, challenging, and filing complaints in every branch of the bureaucratic machinery at the local, state, and federal levels of both public and private bodies. This effort may also include filing legal suits in the courts and taking concerns to city, state, and national legislators.

Don’t expect positive results immediately. The goal is not to win the cases now, but to prove that the powerholders and the institutional bureaucracy are actually preventing the democratic system from working. Eventually, however, some of these legal or parliamentary cases might actually be won and create social change direcdy. After 20 years of filing cases in the courts, for example, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s case of Brown vs. Board o f Education o f Topeka was won in the Supreme Court in 1954. It established the principle that “separate but equal” was no longer the law of the land and provided a legal basis for the school integration movement, as well as the broader civil rights movement that followed.

Powerholders

The powerholders fight the opposition through the normal channels, usually winning easily, while continuing their actual policies and programs. The power- holders do not feel threatened or concerned at this stage and treat the challenges using bureaucratic management. They deal quietly with citizen complaints by using the existing formal channels and offices, extending the “red tape” as far as needed. Normally, citizens eventually become frustrated and give up, ending the problem for the powerholders, who thereby successfully keep the whole potential problem out of the publics consciousness.

50 DOING DEMOCRACY: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

Public Public opinion continues to support the government’s official policies and the status quo, as the consciousness of the majority population remains unchanged. Yet even the low level of opposition causes public opinion against these policies to rise from about 10 to 20 percent. Except for the rare media coverage of oppo­ nents’ activities, or the powerholders’ condemnation of them, the problem is still neither in the public spotlight nor on society’s agenda of contested issues.

Goals

The movement’s goals in this stage are -

• to document the problem, including the extent to which the powerholders and institutions are involved;

• to record the attempts to use the normal channels for citizen participation in the democratic institutions related to the specific issue o f concern, and to prove that they did not work;

• to become experts; and

• to build new opposition organizations that start small, grow, and spread to many new areas.

Pitfalls

The major movement pitfalls at this stage are -

• believing that social problems can be corrected solely by POOs using main­ stream institutions and methods;

• not mobilizing widespread grassroots opposition; and

• continuing to feel powerless and hopeless because the system is not working the way it is supposed to and the powerholders and institutions seem so intractable.

Crisis

The crisis that ends Stage Two occurs when grassroots activists understand that the normal function of the powerholders, the political system, public institutions, and their procedures violates the public trust in them. Then they realize that extra-parliamentary political action will be needed to seriously address the problem and bring about social change.

Conclusions

This stage can be particularly disheartening. The problem and the policies o f pow­ erholders continue unabated, there is little public dissent or publicity, and the situation seems like it might continue indefinitely — as indeed it might. Yet the efforts of the opposition in this stage can eventually be used to prove that the

THE EIGHT STAGES OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS 51

emperor has no clothes and serve to bolster the movement in later stages. To survive this stage you must be stouthearted, determined, and persistent.

STAGE THREE: RIPENING CONDITIONS

Assembling.• This is a time o f gathering together o f people in com­ munities. Strong bonds must be maintained by adherence to appropriate moral principles. Only collective moral force can unite the world.

(From the I Ching, “Book of Changes”)

Before a new social movement “takes off,” the appropriate conditions must build up over time, usually over many years. These conditions include the necessary context of historic developments; a growing, discontented population of victims and their allies; and a budding, autonomous, grassroots opposition. Together these elements work synergistically, or with more force than they would have separately, to encourage discontent with the present conditions and policies and raise expectations that they, as concerned citizens, can create change.

The historical forces are usually long-term, broad trends and events that worsen the problem, upset sub-populations, raise expectations, personify the problem, and promote the means for new activism. Some are outside the control of the opposition. For example, in the 1960s conditions were ripe for the black civil rights movement. The United States government was touting the ideology of freedom and democracy around the world in order to challenge communism and win over the newly emerged independent black African countries. In addition, a large northern migration of blacks, and the integration of blacks into the military at the end of World War II, made it increasingly difficult to maintain segregation^ Finally, the 1954 Supreme Courts Brown vs. Board o f Education o f Topeka school integration decision provided a legal basis for full civil rights.

Opposition

A tremendous unheralded ripening process happens within the opposition movement. A growing consciousness and discontent arise among the sub-popu­ lations of victims and their allies. They achieve a new level of understanding the seriousness of the problem, the violations of critical widely held values, how they are affected, and the illicit involvement of the powerholders and their institutions.

This discontent can be caused by -

52 DOING DEMOCRACY: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

• Perceived or actual worsening conditions: For example, the building of hun­ dreds o f new atomic plant sites in the 1970s upset tens o f millions o f Americans who lived nearby.

• Rising expectations: For example, the new wave of black college students in the 1960s, who felt themselves to be full citizens, was refused the simple civil right of service at lunch counters.

• Personalization of the problem: For example, the Life magazine photographs of the 100 American soldiers killed in Vietnam or the murder of four church women in El Salvador in 1980 made these conflicts real to the mainstream majority population.

The growing numbers of discontented people across the country quietly start new, small, autonomous local groups, which together form a “new wave” of grassroots opposition that is independent from the established POOs. These groups soon become frustrated with the official institutions, channels, and powerholders, which they realize are biased in support of the status quo. Simultaneously, they become increasingly upset with many of the established POOs, which they come to see as working in a dead-end process with the powerholders.

In this stage, small local demonstrations and nonviolent action campaigns begin to dramatize the problem, placing a dim public spotlight on it. These demonstrations will serve as prototypes for direct action in the next stage. In addi­ tion, new websites, email listservs, and a few key traveling visionaries alert, arouse, inspire, and incite the broadening wave of local opposition groups with informa­ tion, analyses, ideologies, strategy and tactics, training, networking, hope, and a vision of a rising opposition. It is also critical that pre-existing key networks and groups are available to provide support, resources, organizers and strategists, soli­ darity, and additional participants for the upcoming new movement. In the civil rights movement the black churches and colleges served this function. In the current anti-corporate globalization movement, pre-existing organizations such as Public Citizen, the Council of Canadians, Global Exchange, and the Ruckus Society, to name but a few, were available and jumped in.

Powerholders

Though irritated, the powerholders remain relatively unconcerned, believing that they can contain the opposition through strong management of the pertinent mainstream social, political, economic, and media institutions. The official poli­ cies remain unchallenged in the public arena, and the great majority of citizens therefore continue to believe in them, leaving the actual policies hidden from the general populace.

THE EIGHT STAGES OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS 53

Public

The public consensus supports the powerholders’ policies and practices, as the problem remains off society’s agenda. Yet, primarily at the local level, there is a growing public awareness of the problem, a new wave of opposition, and a dis­ content regarding the powerholders. Consequently, public opinion opposing the current powerholder policies and practices quietly rises to 30 percent.

Goals

The purpose of this stage is to help create the conditions for the take-off phase of the social movement. The goals for the movement are -

• to help create and recognize the emergence of a variety of ripening conditions that set the stage for the movement to take off;

• to create, inspire, and prepare the new wave o f individuals and groups by form­ ing new networks, offering leadership training, and providing expertise;

• to prepare pre-existing networks and groups that will be concerned about the issue and involved in the upcoming movement;

• to personalize the problem by putting faces on the statistics about victims; and

• to create small, nonviolent demonstrations and campaigns that can serve as pro­ totype models and a training ground for the take-off stages.

Pitfalls

Some of the key hazards of this stage include -

• becoming discouraged, and losing new activists, because the ripening condi­ tions for a new social movement were not recognized; and

• allowing the bureaucracy, legalism, and centralized power of the leading POOs to squash the creativity, independence, and spontaneity of the new grassroots groups.

Crisis

The number of grassroots activists and groups grows larger, and people become increasingly upset and frustrated by both the problem they are concerned about and the mainstream educational and parliamentary methods they have been using to address it. Their upset and frustration grows to the bursting point.

Conclusions

The stage is set for the take-off of a new social movement. There is a critical problem that appears to be worsening, proven violations by the powerholders, many victims, spreading discontent, supportive historical conditions, pre-existing networks, and an emerging new wave of grassroots opposition. Yet no one — not

54 DOING DEMOCRACY: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

the public, the powerholders, or even the new wave of activists — suspects the giant new social movement that is about to erupt onto the scene.

STAGE FOUR: TAKE-OFF

Critical Mass: It is a momentous time of excess of strong ele­ ments. One takes courageous acts not by force, but by seeking true meaning to accomplish the task, no matter what happens. Maintain alliance with those below. It is like floodtimes, which are only temporary.

(From the I Ching “Book of Changes”)

New social movements surprise and shock everyone when they burst into the public spodight on the evening TV news and in newspaper headlines. Overnight, a previously unrecognized social problem becomes a social issue that everyone is talking about. It starts with a highly publicized, shocking incident, a trigger event, followed by a nonviolent action campaign that includes large rallies, marches, and dramatic acts of civil disobedience that are soon repeated in local communities around the country or overseas.

The trigger event is an incident that dramatically reveals a critical social problem to the general public in a vivid way. It is like the arrest of Rosa Parks for refusing to move to the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama; like NATOs December 12, 1979, announcement that it would deploy American cruise and Pershing 2 nuclear weapons in Europe; or like the Seattle demonstrations against the World Trade Organization in November and December of 1999. Trigger events can be accidents or planned acts by the powerholders, individuals, or the movement.

The trigger event starkly reveals to the general public for the first time that a serious social problem exists and that deliberate policies and practices of the powerholders cause and perpetuate the problem by violating widely held societal values and the publics trust. The event instills a profound sense of moral outrage within a majority of the general citizenry. Consequently, the public responds with great passion, demanding an explanation from the powerholders, and is ready to hear more information from the movement. Many people join nonviolent demonstrations for the first time. The trigger event also acts like a trumpets call to action for the new wave of local movement opposition groups that built up around the country during the previous stage.

THE EIGHT STAGES OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS 55

Movement

The new social movement takes off when the activist opposition organizes a non­ violent action campaign immediately following the trigger event, and the nonviolent actions are then repeated across the country and possibly in other nations as well. The nonviolent actions can take a variety of forms, such as mass rallies and marches, boycotts, strikes, and sit-ins, and often include civil disobe­ dience at selected times and places. The nonviolent .actions keep the public spodight on the problem and build social tension over time. This “politics as theater” process creates a public social crisis that transforms a social problem into a critical public issue that is put on society’s agenda of hody debated issues.

The success of the movement in this stage is gready enhanced by the use of sociodrama action campaigns. These are dramatic and exciting yet simple demon­ strations in which participants put themselves physically into the gears and mechanisms of the means by which the powerholders actually carry out their poli­ cies related to the problem. Sociodrama demonstrations clearly reveal to the public how the powerholders violate society’s widely held values and show that it is the movement, not the powerholders, that promotes and represents the values, principles, and traditions of the society. They usually conclude with nonviolent civil disobedience and are repeated in many different communities across the country and in other countries, if appropriate.

These are dilemma demonstrations, in which the powerholders lose public support regardless o f their reactipn. If they ignore the demonstrators, they are pre- vented from carrying out the policies. If, on the other hand, the demonstrators are harassed, attacked, or arrested by the police or military, the issue is kept in the public spotlight and public sympathy for the demonstrators increases, while disd^A for Ae^owerhqlders^rises. The number of demonstrators often increases as more citizens are stiffed’to action.

For example, during the 1960s restaurant sit-ins, blacks sat at the segregated lunch counters throughout the U.S. South to eat. When white crowds attacked them and the police arrested them, the public got upset and sided with the demonstrators. However, if the police did nothing, the students either had to be served or would just sit there occupying the seats. The restaurant owners had to choose whether to serve the sit-in students or lose business and potentially go bankrupt.

This dynamic is sometimes called nonviolent jujitsu, because the over­ whelming force of government sanctions and police power is turned around against the government itself. The more force the powerholders exert on the movement, the bigger the opposition to the powerholder institution that is initi­ ating the attack. For this to work, however, activists must be totally nonviolent.

56 DOING DEMOCRACY: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

The new movement takes off as the nonviolent action campaigns and their sociodrama actions are repeated in communities across the country. The demon­ stration in Seattle, for example, was followed by demonstrations in Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia; Los Angeles; and elsewhere. The 1977 occupation of the Seabrook nuclear reactor site created spontaneous support and copycat demon­ strations across the United States. Within months, hundreds of new grassroots anti-nuclear energy groups started up and soon began occupying their own local nuclear power plant sites.

Movement take-off is the result of thousands of people across the country taking spontaneous actions and forming new protest groups (or revitalizing old ones). These new groups usually adopt loose organizational structures that are based on direct participatory democracy, minimal formal structure, consensus, decision-making, and loosely defined membership. Together these groups form a new nonviolent action wave of the movement; a new force that is not formally connected to either the established POOs or the traditional ideologi­ cal dissent groups. Because the predominant method used at this time is protest and resistance, the take-off stage is often identified with the rebel role o f activism.

Why do Social Movements TaMe Off?

First, social movements take off because the right conditions were created in the earlier three stages. Second, the trigger event and the nonviolent action campaigns alert the public that there is a problem, and the public becomes outraged at the contradiction between society’s cherished values and principles and the actual policies and behavior o f the powerholders. Third, a new climate o f social crisis and public awakening gives hope to many latent citizen activists and inspires them to action. Fourth, the repeatability of the nonviolent actions gives the grassroots activists an effective means by which to be actively engaged on an issue. Finally, many people join because it gives meaning to their lives and gives them an oppor­ tunity to act on their beliefs.

There is a danger of POOs preventing movement take-off at this stage. The large budgets, professional staff, boards of directors that include or have direct or indirect connections with mainstream institutions and powerholders, and reliance on foundations for funding make almost all of the large POOs politically cautious and on the conservative side of the political spectrum of the left. Organizational maintenance needs may, understandably, take precedence over political action choices. In this regard, POOs are the opposite of the new wave rebels with their informal, low-budget groups that organize nonviolent actions and civil disobedi­ ence following the trigger event. POOs across the country can carve up the geographical turf of the nation, claim an ideological politically correct line, and

THE EIGHT STAGES OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS 57

accuse any rebel groups that arise of being politically incorrect, thereby undercut­ ting their validity.

Powerholders

The powerholders are shocked, upset, and angry. The genie is out of the bottle. They realize that they have lost out on the three laws of political and social control:

• Keep the problem out of peoples consciousness, out of the public spotlight, and off society’s agenda of hody contested issues.

• Keep the citizenry so discouraged and powerless that they believe it is futile to undertake social activism on the issue.

• Keep individual citizens isolated from each other and seeking personal gain rather than working for the common good.

Powerholders take a hard line in defending their policies and criticize the new movement, describing it as radical, dangerous, communist inspired, violent, led by outsiders, and irresponsible. A mere handful of elected politicians support the movement, while most mainstream politicians continue to support existing powerholder policies and programs.

Public

The public is alerted and educated by the movement through coverage in the media and by face-to-face contact with the new wave of activism at the grassroots level across the country. The extensive media coverage o f the trigger event and the movement’s dramatic nonviolent demonstrations not only makes the public aware of the social problem, but also conveys the social movements position for the first time. Until now, the public has only heard the official line of the powerholders. Because of the stark contradiction, exposed during the take-off stage, between the powerholders’ actual policies and society’s widely held principles and values, public opinion rapidly rises to 40 percent and then over 50 percent against the powerholders’ actual policies.

Goals

Some of the specific goals of this stage are -

• to create a new nationwide grassroots-based social movement;

• to put the powerholders’ actual policies and practices in the public spotlight and on society’s agenda of important issues;

• to create a public platform from which the movement can educate the general public;

• to create public dissonance on the issue by constandy presenting people with two contradictory views of reality — that of the movement and that of the powerholders;

58 DOING DEMOCRACY: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

• to win the sympathies and the opinions of a majority of the public; and

• to become recognized as the legitimate opposition.

It is not a goal or expectation to get the powerholders to change their minds, policies, or behavior in this stage.

Pitfalls

The chief movement pitfalls of this stage are -

• political naivety - expecting the powerholders to cave in because of the size of the opposition;

• burnout, depression, and dropout from the movement because of unrealistic expectations that the social movement would win in this stage;

• failure to see the take-off stage as a monumental success in the process of win­ ning; and

• developing an attitude of arrogant self-righteousness, ideological absolutism, violence, and self-importance.

Crisis

The take-off stage is normally the shortest stage, typically lasting between six months to two years. After this dramatic and exciting period, an increasing number of activists realize the limits of protest and the rebel role as the move­ ment’s primary mode. In addition, the vast numbers of mainstream citizens joining the movement at the local level become engaged in the change agent work of local organizing and public education. At the same time, many of the rebel activists despair because their expectations o f winning quickly through nonviolent direct actions were disappointed.

Conclusion

The take-off stage is an exciting time, with a trigger event, dramatic actions, high passion, a new social movement in the public spotlight, social tension that creates a crisis of society’s values and principles, and high output of energy. It also is the signature stage of the rebel. A previously unrecognized social problem and the powerholders’ actual policies both become known, creating a new public issue. Within two years the movement wins majority public opinion and progresses to Stage Six. Unfortunately, a large percentage of activists, particularly many rebels, don’t recognize this process as success. Instead, they take it as a sign that the move­ ment has failed and their own efforts have been futile. Consequently, many rebels and naive activists move to Stage Five.

THE EIGHT STAGES OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS 59

STAGE FIVE: PERCEPTION OF FAILURE

Retreat: You may now be suffering from an inner conflict based upon the misalignment of your ideals and reality. It is time to retreat and take a longer look to be able to advance later. Vengeance and hatred could cloud your judgment and prevent the necessary retreat.

(From the / Ching, “Book of Changes”)

The perception of failure happens just when the movement is outrageously suc­ cessful. By the end of Stage Four the movement as a whole has achieved all the goals of the take-offstage and has successfully progressed to Stage Six — Majority Public Opinion - but some movement activists do not share in this success.

Movement

After a year or two, the high hopes of instant victory in the movement take-off stage inevitably turn into despair as some activists begin to believe that their movement is failing. It has not achieved its goals and, in their eyes, it has not had any “real” victories. They come to believe that the powerholders are too strong and are determined not to change their policies. Moreover, the powerholders and the mass media report that the movement is dead, irrelevant, or nonexistent. Activists in Stage Five also believe that the movement is dead because it no longer looks like it did at the start of the take-off stage: the numbers at demonstrations and civil disobedience actions have dropped substantially. Many Stage Five activists develop cynical attitudes and some turn to destructive behavior.

The problem, however, is not that the movement has foiled to achieve its goals, but that activists had unrealistic expectations that the long-term goals could be achieved in such a short time. The despairing activists are unable to look at the movement from this point of view and acknowledge the progress that it has made along the road of success — creating a massive grassroots-based social movement, putting the issue on society’s agenda, and winning a majority of public opinion.

Ironically, involvement in the movement tends to reduce activists’ ability to identify short-term successes. Through the movement, activists learn about the enormity of the problem, the agonizing suffering of the victims, and the com­ plicity of the previously trusted powerholders. The intensity of this experience tends to increase despair and unwillingness to accept any successes short o f achiev­ ing ultimate goals.

However, the powerholders’ failure to change either their minds or their policies is a poor indicator of the movements progress. The powerholders will be

60 DOING DEMOCRACY: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

the last segment of society to change their minds and policies, but the longer the public sees the powerholders violating societal values and ignoring the democratic majority opinion, the higher the political costs will be for the powerholders con­ tinuing those policies.

The image that most people have of a vital and effective social movement is of the take-off stage — giant demonstrations, civil disobedience, media hype, crisis, and constant political theater — but this is always short-lived. Movements that are successful in take-off soon progress to the much more powerful, but more sedate, majority stage (described below). Although movements in the majority stage appear to be smaller and less effective as they move from high-profile mass actions to less visible grassroots organizing, they actually undergo enormous growth in size and power. The extensive, seemingly invisible involvement at the grassroots level gives the movement its power at the national and international levels.

At this time, many activists burn out or drop out because of exhaustion caused by overwork and long meetings; too many internal organizational crises and conflicts; extended militant actions; movement violence; and feelings of failure, hopelessness, and powerlessness. In addition, most are unable to pace themselves and give themselves adequate rest, leisure, fun, and attendance to per­ sonal needs. Another reason why many activists become depressed at this time is that they are unable to switch their view of the movements process of success from protest and mass demonstrations to winning over the public. Some joined the movement for a quick fix, assuming it was for a short-term period of crisis, and they are not prepared for the long-term involvement and drudgery needed for grassroots organizing.

Consequently, as the majority of activists shifts into Stage Six organizing, many rebels believe that the real movement is being abandoned. In frustration, some adopt more aggressive and combative attitudes and macho behavior, including violence, because they believe nonviolence has foiled to produce results. Some create splinter groups dedicated to combative actions, as the Committee for Direct Action at the Seabrook nuclear plant site did in 1979, alleging that the movement organization had itself become conservative or oppressive.

One of the mistaken arguments used to support negative rebel activities is that because rebels are so militant, they make the mainstream movement look mild and more acceptable to the general population. Quite the contrary is true. Destructive activities turn off both other activists and the public; they invariably do more harm than good for the movement. These methods are also advocated by agents provocateurs who want to destroy the movement or use it to pursue their own purposes.

THE EIGHT STAGES OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS 61

Finally, many activists arc unable to switch to Stage Six because they do not have the knowledge and skills required to understand, participate in, and organize the majority stage. For example, nonviolence trainers traditionally play a critical leadership and teaching role regarding nonviolent protest actions during move­ ment take-off. Unfortunately, they virtually disappear in the majority stage, because they have neither the understanding nor the skills to train activists in how to participate in the next stages of social movement success.

Powerholders

The powerholders try to discredit the movement by publicly condemning the negative rebels and militant activities. They might alternate good cop and bad cop tactics. On some occasions, the police may adhere to a nonviolent strategy them­ selves to project a public image of restraint and to win public acceptance. At other times they will use massive and excessive force against the movement, especially against negative rebels or key leaders. This provokes more negative rebel responses and scares the general public, which, fearing the “dangerous” actions o f the move­ ment, continues to support the powerholders.

The mainstream media typically characterizes the movement as the negative rebel. If 10,000 people are in a nonviolent demonstration and 10 break a depart­ ment store window or throw stones at the police, that movement violence will be the front-page photo in tomorrows newspaper or the lead story on the television news. At this stage, powerholder agents provocateurs may infiltrate the movement to create dissension and discord and turn the public against the movement.

Public

The general populace experiences dissonance during the take-off stage, not knowing who or what to believe. While many agree with the movement’s chal­ lenges, they also fear siding with dissidents and losing the security of the powerholders and the status quo. At this point, the general citizenry is about evenly divided between the powerholders and the movement.

Movement violence, rebelliousness, and, in the U.S., what seem to be anti- American attitudes tend to turn people off and frighten them back into supporting the powerholders. They cause many concerned people to drop out or not join the movement. The public does not distinguish between the negative rebels and the movement’s nonviolent mainstream. Therefore, it is the conscious strategy of the powerholders and media to equate the negative rebels with the mainstream of the movement to discredit the movement in the eyes o f the public and drive the citizenry back into supporting the existing order. This is one of the reasons why the negative rebel is so harmful and needs to be actively guarded against.

62 DOING DEMOCRACY: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

Goals

The primary goal of the movement is to help those activists stuck in Stage Five to catch up with their social movement and move on to Stage Six. Activists in Stage Five should -

• recognize that the movement has progressed to Stage Six and adopt a role that is appropriate to that stage; and

• use the strategic movement frameworks of MAP to evaluate the movement, identify successes, and develop short-term strategies and tactics that fit in with long-term goals and the normal process of success.

The movement itself should -

• create effective and efficient democratic organizational structures and group dynamic processes;

• train activists in the Four Roles Model so they learn the difference between effective and ineffective ways of playing the four roles and to respect those playing different roles;

• adopt a strict policy of nonviolence and counter the negative rebel tendencies that first arise late in Stage Four and bloom in Stage Five; and

• provide activists with training to help them switch from a controlling to a coop­ erative model of relationships. In order to guide and train activists for the long haul, the movement needs to change its organizational structure. There are three organizational archetypes: hierarchical, loose or anarchistic, and participatory democratic

In their eagerness to stop being hierarchical and oppressive, groups mistak­ enly believe that the alternative is no structures or leaders. No structure or rules is not democracy, but disaster, in which the most oppressive and controlling people dominate the group.

At first the anarchistic loose structure provides the freedom for flexibility, creativity, participatory democracy, independence, and solidarity needed for quick decisions and radical nonviolent actions, including civil disobedience, especially at the beginning of the take-off stage. But it becomes a liability after three months. Thereafter, the loose organizational structure tends to cause excessive inefficiency, participant burnout, and group domination by the most domineer­ ing and oppressive participants. The decision-making process resembles capitalisms rugged individualism in the free market more than the ideology of participatory democracy. Democratic organizations need structure and rules, but ones that promote participation and leadership.

THE EIGHT STAGES OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS 63

Pitfalls

There are many pitfalls for the movement in Stage Five, chiefly:

• People are unable to see that the movement is in the process of success.

• There are feelings of disempowerment, despair, and burnout.

• Negative rebel attitudes and actions take center stage.

• There is a tendency to ideological totalism, with some activists maintaining that their view is the politically correct belief and that their way is the only way.

• Some activists impose the “tyranny of structurelessness” with their belief that democracy and freedom mean no organizational structures or leadership.

• The movement fails to make the transition from a Stage Four protest to a Stage Six social change movement.

Crisis

This stage emerges while the movement is still in the take-off stage and continues for some years during the time that the rest of the movement progresses to the majority public opinion stage. The perception of failure has a heyday of one or two years, during which it garners a lot of media attention. It is a short stage, however. It rapidly fades away either because its members become burned out and drop out, or they recognize the futility or downright harmfulness of this approach and join the movement by adopting Stage Six-appropriate activities.

Conclusion

The crisis of identity and powerlessness is a personal experience for many activists who mistakenly believe that their movement has failed and do not realize that it is actually in the normal process of success. Movement leaders can reduce the feel­ ings of despair and disempowerment by providing activists with a long-term strategic framework, such as the MAP Eight Stages Model, to help them realize that they are powerful and their movement is winning, not losing. The movement also needs to adopt clear guidelines of total nonviolence for participants, and these must be widely publicized and agreed to by everyone involved in movement- sponsored activities. Moreover, such nonviolent policies need to be enforced by arranging training in nonviolence for all demonstration participants and by having adequate “peacekeeping” structures and methods at all demonstrations.

Activists need to realize what the powerholders already know — that politi­ cal and societal power ultimately lies with the people, not the powerholders. They need to recognize when their own social movement is powerful and progressing along the normal path of success. Negative rebels need to realize the harmful effects of this role and adopt a more effective manner of activism. Activists can help themselves mature by forming support groups to take care of their personal

64 DOING DEMOCRACY: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

needs, reduce guilt, have fun, avoid isolation, and understand and help create the movement’s strategy and tactics.

STAGE SIX: MAJORITY PUBLIC OPINION

Changing.• The forces at work are in conflict, leaving the path open to change. Far-reaching clarity about the future and great devotion are required. The transformation should be made grad­ ually, nonviolently, without discordant and excessive behavior. The results lead to a progressive new era but are not evident until the change has already occurred.

(From the / Ching “Book of Changes”)

In Stage Six, the movements primary mission is transformed from protest in crisis to creating social change through a long-term grassroots struggle with the powerholders. The change agent replaces the rebel as the movements predomi­ nant active player. Increasingly, the movement wins the backing of a larger share of the public, which now opposes current policies and considers alternatives. The majority stage is usually a long process of eroding the social, political, and eco­ nomic supports that enable the powerholders to carry out their policies. It is a slow process of imperceptible social transformation that creates a new social climate and political consensus, reversing those that existed during the normal times stage.

Movement

The movement needs to wage a Stage Six grand strategy. Too often strategy has meant filling a calendar of events with a conglomeration of unconnected campaigns, educational activities, and reactions to new powerholder policies. An effective Stage Six grand strategy, however, also includes a set of strategic pro­ grams, new organization and leadership models, and strategic goals that will take the movement through twelve phases that lead to Stage Seven.

Strategic Program

• Massive public education and conversion. The basic purpose of the movement in this stage is to educate, convert, and involve all segments of the population. This is accomplished through a broad variety of means, including public speak­ ing, information tables at supermarkets, leafleting, and demonstrations, all based on face-to-face education of citizens by their peers to keep the issue before the public.

THE EIGHT STAGES OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS 65

Grassroots organizations. The key to Stage Six success is ultimately the ongo­ ing, day-in and day-out basic organizing efforts of local activists, which include constant outreach and involvement of the local citizenry. This can only be done by a wide variety of local organizations with relatively few paid staff but a large number o f volunteers. Redefine the problem to show how it affects all segments of society. To win over the great majority of the population, the movement needs to show each segment of society that together they make up that majority. They need to show each of these constituencies — parents, students, workers, the unemployed, teachers, police, home owners, renters, homeless, elderly, women, racial minori­ ties, etc. - how the current powerholder policies violate their particular values, principles, and self-interest, and what they can do about it. Build a broad-based movement organizational structure. The movement’s organizational structure needs to be pluralistic, including all segments of socie­ ty by involving organizations, coalitions, and networks in the movement in a wide variety of ways, sometimes alone, sometimes together by, for example, co­ sponsoring events. The movement also needs to include people and organiza­ tions that are effectively performing all four roles of activism: citizen, rebel, change agent, and reformer. Make effective use o f mainstream political and social institutions and process­ es. As the movement wins more support, it can successfully use the mainstream channels of political participation. Organizations and members can now approach city councils, government and private institutional officials, and can­ didates; attend commission meetings and hearings; and develop ballot measures with increasing effectiveness. While the use of mainstream institutional struc­ tures and procedures serves to educate the public and further build the move­ ment, it also can win actual judicial, political, and legislative victories. These successes prepare the way for the movements ultimate victory over many years. For example, nuclear energy plants have been halted at the local and state lev­ els, even though the central government and the entire nuclear industry still maintain che goal of building more nuclear power plants. Selective use of nonviolent action activities. Although nonviolent actions sometimes result in immediate successes, their chief purpose is to help achieve the goals of the particular stage of the movement. By Stage Six the movement will have a wide range of methods and programs, but it must continue to use nonviolent actions, rallies, campaigns, and, occasionally, civil disobedience when necessary or helpful. Because people are involved in so many different programs in this stage, and many no longer see the need or purpose of nonvi­ olent demonstrations, the numbers participating in any particular national or local demonstration usually drop well below the sizes of the big demonstrations

66 DOING DEMOCRACY:

The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

that occurred during the take-off stage. However, when movements are in the majority stage, the total number of people participating in demonstrations nationwide in any year actually increases because these actions are happening in hundreds of local communities around the country, on several different sub- issues.

• Citizen involvement programs. The movement needs to develop programs in which large numbers of mainstream citizens and institutions perform activities that directly violate the powerholders’ policies and programs. Citizen involve­ ment programs differ from traditional demonstrations. They may provide serv­ ices to victims; challenge current traditions, policies, laws, and practices; pro­ mote the principles or values that lie at the heart of the issue; and model an alternative or carry out the alternatives being sought. This empowers citizens and energizes the movement because people can take ethical action on the issue without having to wait for the government or corporations to change their laws and policies.

The classic example of citizen involvement was Gandhi’s program for Indians to make salt from the sea or spin their own thread and make their own clothes when the British forbade domestic manufacturing of salt and clothes. The Sanctuary Movement in the United States in the 1980s is another example. At great risk to themselves, hundreds of local individuals, groups, churches, and towns throughout the country committed civil disobedience by providing sanc­ tuary for political refugees from Central America at a time when the United States government was tracking down, arresting, and deporting them. These citizen involvement programs educate and convert the public, demonstrate the alterna­ tive values and policies, publicly show the extent of popular opposition, undercut the authority of the powerholders to carry out their policy goals, and build change from the grassroots upwards.

• Respond to “re-trigger events.” Re-trigger events are trigger events that happen in Stages Six, Seven, or Eight. Two examples are the nuclear power plant acci­ dents at Three-Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986) that occurred two and nine years respectively after the 1977 occupation of the Seabrook reactor site launched the take-off of the anti-nuclear power movement. Re-trigger events touch off a replay of the take-off stage. The incident creates a public cri­ sis that thrusts the issue back into the headlines and public spotlight. Activists quickly organize mass rallies and demonstrations, new levels of public educa­ tion and conversion occur, and there is increased pressure on the powerholders to take remedial action. This replay of Stage Four may last for weeks or months; then the movement settles back into Stage Six at a higher level of public sup­ port and increased determination.

THE EIGHT STAGES OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS 67

Organization and Leadership Models As the movement progresses from take-off to majority public opinion, the organ­ ization and leadership styles need to be transformed to follow a participatory democratic model. This organizational arrangement maximizes the advantages and minimizes the disadvantages o f both the oppressive hierarchical and the spon­ taneous anarchistic models. Participatory democratic organizations need more structures and effective process methods than the traditional models to be effi­ cient, flexible, and enduring.

Similarly, Stage Six is a critical period for the staff and programs of the national, regional, and local organizations that have been created by the new movement to coordinate and consolidate the efforts of the numerous local groups. The danger lies in their becoming traditional POOs that put egos, careers, and organizational maintenance ahead of the needs of the movement. If the organizations staff behave as if they are the movement, the grassroots dry up and the movement loses its power. The primary goal of movement POOs, there­ fore, should be to serve, nurture, and empower the grassroots and to promote participatory democracy in their own organization and the movement as a whole.

Strategic Goals

To wage Stage Six effectively, activists need to know the strategic goals for this phase of the movement. If there is no viable set of strategic goals, activists will be unable to see a relationship between their day-to-day activities and the process to achieve the movements ultimate goal. Each movement will have specific goals, but the following are strategies common to most movements.

• Keep the issue in the public spotlight and on society’s agenda over time. A fundamental goal for the movement is to keep the powerholder policies and resulting social conditions that violate the principles, values, interests, and beliefs of the great majority o f the populace in the public spotlight. Over time, this helps to build the social and political conditions for change, because telling the truth over and over serves to destroy social delusions. For example, for over ten years the anti-Vietnam war movement exposed the American pub­ lic to the view that the United States was not fighting for democracy and free­ dom for the Vietnamese people, but was actually fighting against the people by supporting an oppressive military dictatorship. At the beginning, this view was ridiculed as being held by only the radical left fringe; eventually it became the majority opinion. * Remember that the movements primary audience is the general citizenry, not the powerholders. The movement’s foremost goal is not to change the minds of the powerholders, but to convince and involve the general citizenry. The

68 DOING DEMOCRACY: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

powerholders respond to the demands of an educated, upset, aroused, and active public, not to social activists, no matter how right they may be.

• Identify each of the movement’s key demands and their respective sub-move­ ments and develop separate strategies and tactics for each. Social movements usually have a broad, ultimate goal, such as to achieve universal health care, or win full civil and human rights for women, African Americans, disabled peo­ ple, lesbians and gays, or children. It will take these social movements years and decades to achieve their ultimate goals. The process of success involves identi­ fying and achieving sub-goals along the way, such as winning the right to vote, to eat at restaurants, to ride buses, and to receive equal education. Each of these sub-goals has its own sub-movement, which is in its own separate MAP stage. When a new social movement progresses to Stage Six, many more sub-goals emerge, each with its own sub-movement.

• Guide the movement through the dynamics of conflict with the powerhold­ ers. Waging a social movement is similar to playing chess. Activists and power- holders constantly engage in the tactics of moves and countermoves as part of a larger strategy to win the public and build conditions to support their own position. The movement tries to build moral and political conditions that will erode the public support that enables the powerholders to continue their poli­ cies. The powerholders, on the other hand, keep changing their policies to maintain the status quo. The movements goal is to keep weakening the power- holders’ position and raising the social, political, and economic cost that the powerholders must pay to continue their policies.

• Promote alternatives that go beyond mere reforms and include a paradigm shift. The movement not only needs to protest present policies, but must also propose specific alternatives. In the process of struggle, activists learn that the problem is much bigger than they had thought. They come to realize that their original concerns were merely symptoms of much bigger and deeper structural problems; consequently, the movement keeps making broader demands. This ultimately includes the necessity to advocate a whole new worldview or para­ digm. For example, when the womens movement became aware of how many women were abused at home, it became clear that society’s beliefs about inti­ mate relationships needed to change as much as the limited social roles for women did.

Twelve Phases o f Stage Six

Stage Six is often a difficult time for activists. The excitement, high hopes, big demonstrations, nonviolent actions, and media coverage of the take-off stage have subsided. The powerholders, experts, and even many activists claim that the movement has died. The vibrant rebel and the protest efforts have been replaced

THE EIGHT STAGES OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS 69

by a larger number of isolated organizations and events that many believe are not getting anywhere. The social problems and powerholder policies continue, or even worsen. Consequently, this can be a discouraging time, despite the beehive of activity and full calendar o f events.

The reality of a successful movement in Stage Six is quite different from this common perception. In the majority public opinion stage, successful social move­ ments progress through a series of rwelve developmental phases in which the movement slowly, almost imperceptibly, builds the social conditions that will eventually lead to success in Stage Seven. That success is first reached by some of the critical sub-goals and their sub-movements. Eventually, the fundamental goal of the overall movement is won. Knowing the phases in this process can help activists be more hopeful, empowered, happy, and capable of deliberately creating appropriate strategies and tactics that will successfully guide the movement through Stage Six. 1. The issue is put on society’s social agenda — and kept there. The key to democratization of an issue and the effectiveness of a social movement is to put the problem on both the social and political agendas and keep it there over a long period. Putting an issue in society’s public spotlight and on the political agenda apparently takes the movement 75 percent of the way toward success.3 With the problem in the public spotlight, time is on the side of the movement as people are being alerted to, educated on, and involved in the issue. These are all essential elements of the movement’s democratization strategy for resolving a social problem.

On the other hand, the powerholders’ first line of defense for their policies and the status quo is anti-democratic. They aim to keep the issue out of the public spotlight and off the social and political agendas. They know that their position tends to deteriorate under long-term public scrutiny. Powerholders are most effective when issues are out of the public arena. 2. The movement wins a majority of public opinion against current power- holder policies. The public opinion polls show that a majority opposes the current conditions and the policies of the powerholders on the basic problem. It is important to recognize, though, that while the majority of people may oppose current conditions and policies, they may not yet be ready to support new policies and programs advocated by the movement. In fact, they may agree with the movement’s opposition to one policy, but then still support other policies that the movement opposes. And they may not yet support the alternative advocated by the movement. For example, people might oppose a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua, but they still favor the U.S. plan to send aid to the Contra “freedom fighters” who are trying to overthrow the democratical­ ly elected, Sandinista-led government.

70 DOING DEMOCRACY: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

3. The powerholders change their strategy. As old policies become discredited and opposed by a public majority, the powerholders adopt new ones, while still maintaining their original purposes and goals. For example, when the public majority opposed the Vietnam War, the United States government brought American troops home, but increased bombing and support for South Vietnam’s war effort. 4. The movement counters each new powerholder strategy. The movement must build a majority public opinion in opposition to each new powerhold­ er strategy. This process of countering each new powerholder strategy contin­ ues over many years. At any given time, the powerholders have a number of different strategies and programs that are all opposed by the movement, which is why the movement has sub-goals, each with its own sub-movement, to oppose the powerholders’ key strategic policies. 5. Many of the powerholders’ new strategies are more difficult for them to achieve, thereby weakening their ability to continue their policies in the long run. As the movement and public opinion oppose their old strategies, the powerholders are forced to adopt new, higher-risk, stopgap strategies that usually weaken their position and are more difficult to maintain in the long run. This is because most new powerholder strategies and policies are more obvious violations of the values and sensibilities of the public and are more easily exposed by the movement.

Ronald Reagans administration, for example, was prevented from adopting the traditional method of direct U.S. military intervention to over­ throw Nicaragua’s Sandinista government in the 1980s. It was forced to adopt the new strategy of developing the Contras as a puppet force to overthrow the Sandinistas, which in addition to being extremely costly and deadly, was also more difficult to carry out. 6. Create strategic campaigns. The movement needs to identify critical supports that the powerholders rely on to carry out their policies and then devise cre­ ative social action campaigns that reduce or eliminate this support. For exam­ ple, the powerholders’ goal of building a thousand nuclear power plants depended on a continual increase in electrical consumption, citizen support for nuclear energy, massive government subsidies and protections, and hun­ dreds of billions of dollars up front to build the reactors. The anti-nuclear movement strategically launched programs to address each of these. 7. Expand the issue and goals. Movements start with a specific problem that people see as particularly offensive to their sensibilities and that motivates them to begin acting against it. As activists get involved with this problem, however, they learn of many others, some even bigger and more devastating than the first. The movement to stop an impending U.S. invasion of

THE EIGHT STAGES OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS 71

Nicaragua, for example, rapidly expanded its goal to oppose all forms of U.S. intervention — not only in Nicaragua, but also in all of Central America.

For many activists, however, issue expansion can be discouraging and depressing. Instead of solving a serious problem, their movement activity has led them to realize that conditions are even worse than they had first under­ stood - and that the government and corporations are behind it. Activists can alleviate these feelings somewhat by realizing that issue expansion is normal when their movements are progressing satisfactorily along the usual path of success in Stage Six. 8. Win solid public opinion against current powerholder policies. After years of education, debate, and confronting the powerholders’ series of new, bogus strategies and public relations gimmicks, both activists and the general citi­ zenry develop a stronger, deeper, and more informed opposition to power- holder policies. 9. Promote solutions and a paradigm shift. There is an advantage to the move­ ment not winning too soon after the take-off stage. Many activists have not deeply considered anything beyond their moral and ethical objections to cur­ rent policies. They have not taken a close look at the alternatives and their implications. On many issues it might take activists several years of involve­ ment to become folly educated and to become clear about the alternatives. Therefore, not achieving the goals of a movement right at the start gives both activists and society as a whole the time needed to think through the issue, reject the series of unacceptable alternatives the powerholders propose, and generate appropriate alternatives.

The movement not only needs to advocate reforms to redress symp­ toms of social problems, but it especially needs to promote a paradigm shift, a change in the larger worldview that causes and maintains the problem. For example, it is not enough to oppose U.S. development of nuclear power; activists must also argue that rather than promoting maximum use of fossil fuel energy, the nation’s energy policy should advocate minimizing fossil fuel energy use through conservation, efficiency, and solar alternatives. 10. Win a majority of public opinion on the movements proposed alternatives. After the movement convinces the majority of the public that there is a seri­ ous social problem and the powerholders’ policies are wrong, it must then convince the public to support the appropriate solutions. This requires anoth­ er massive public education effort, using every possible means including pub­ lic meetings, petition drives, leafleting, tables in business districts, and per­ suading key people and organizations to publicly stand with the movement. 11. Put the issue on the political and legal agendas. Now that there is a solid majority public opinion that both opposes the powerholders’ policies and

72 DOING DEMOCRACY: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

favors positive alternatives, the movement can effectively use the mainstream political and legal structures and instruments to challenge the status quo with increasing success. The movement can successfully lobby politicians and polit­ ical parties, promote or challenge existing candidates, run its own candidates, use referenda at the ballot box, promote large petition drives, or introduce lawsuits. 12. The powerholders make dramatic shifts in their positions. They retract ear­

lier positions and policies, propose new “official” policies, and demonize the movement and its proposed solutions. For example, the powerholders first said that nuclear power was safe and too cheap to meter, but after a majority of people became educated and opposed it, the powerholders agreed that it had some safety problems and was costly. But without nuclear energy, they said, there would be blackouts and the economy would foil and the United States would lose its superpower status.

Powerholders

When the social movement enters the majority stage, the powerholders become seriously worried and engage in a prolonged crisis management strategy to promote their own policies and programs while simultaneously countering those of the movement. As always, their ultimate target is the hearts and minds of the general citizenry.

The powerholders use a wide array of strategies. The following are some of the most common ones.

• They strongly defend their existing policies, perhaps using new rhetoric to jus­ tify their societal myths and official programs.

• They engage in a dynamic process similar to a chess match with the movement. Each side makes moves and countermoves as they vie to convince the public that they are right.

• Increasingly, both government and corporate powerholders hire public relations firms, particularly those that specialize in the new field of “issues management,” using vast amounts of money to orchestrate public relations campaigns that go far beyond the ones organized by the old “spin doctors.”

• By the middle of Stage Six, the powerholders often co-opt many of the move­ ment’s goals, ideas, or rhetoric. That is, they adopt the words and concepts, such as “sustainability,” “green,” or “organic food,” but only to confuse the pub­ lic and reduce the effectiveness of the movement’s use of the terms.

• Next they try to co-opt movement groups that are either politically far left neg­ ative rebels or more conservative reformers on the right end of the political spectrum, usually by providing them with funding. In addition, the power- holders create new bogus organizations that either oppose or support a cause;

THE EIGHT STAGES OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS 73

these are called “astroturf coalitions,” because they can be spontaneously rolled out to make an immediate impact on an issue and then rolled back up when no longer needed.

• Typically, the powerholders hire scientific, academic, political, or other profes­ sional experts on the issue to proclaim that the powerholders’ policies and views are consistent with the considered views of the professional field. For example, there are many experts for hire who will proclaim that corporate globalization is the surest way to peace and prosperity.

• Industry and government stop funding experiments that undercut their poli­ cies, while giving enormous funding to scientific experiments and expert inves­ tigative commissions that support their views, such as those that conclude tobacco has not been proven to cause lung cancer, there is no proof of global warming, or cell phones are perfecdy safe.

• By the later phases of Stage Six, powerholders also begin to engage in a negoti­ ation process with the movement and other affected groups. This is mainly for show and to confuse, defuse, split, and co-opt the opposition. Any serious negotiation will not happen until Stage Seven.

• At this time, the powerholders often increase their more direct countermove­ ment strategies in the form of various means of surveillance and intelligence gathering and the use of agents provocateurs to gather intelligence, discredit the movement, cause internal disruption, or to control and steer the movement.

Even as their position on the issue deteriorates, the powerholders keep pro­ nouncing that their policies are correct and they are winning. Throughout the Vietnam war, for example, the U.S. government kept claiming that it “saw the light at the end of the tunnel” and all it needed was more time or more money. It repeated the claim that it was winning up until it lost the war.

Finally, when the powerholders realize that they need to change their poli­ cies or risk losing office, status, or their political, economic, or social advantage, splits begin to appear within the power structure, and, over time, pressure from the opposition creates a new social and political consensus. Many mainstream political, economic, and social elites are forced to switch their positions. By late in Stage Six, some even openly oppose the policies of the central powerholders in order to protect their own self-interests. The issue then becomes hotly contested within the legislatures, the administration, the courts, and all other sectors of society - the stage is set for Stage Seven.

Public

Public opinion opposing the powerholders’ policies can grow to as much as 60 percent within a few years, and then, on some issues, slowly swells to a large majority of up to 70 to 75 percent over many years. The populace, however, is

74 DOING DEMOCRACY: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

evenly split over wanting a change in the status quo. Half the public fears the alternatives more than it opposes the present conditions and policies. To achieve success, the public still needs to be converted to supporting alternatives. By the early 1970s, for example, 80 percent of Americans called for an end to the Vietnam war, but there was no consensus on the alternative because of the fear of the government-created demon that the loss of Vietnam would result in commu­ nism taking over all of Southeast Asia (which did not happen).

Goals .

Although movements need to organize both locally and nationally and, increas­ ingly, internationally, they ultimately are only as powerful as their grassroots base. All that an American movements national offices in Washington, D.C., can do is “cash in” on the social and political gains created at the community level all over the country. The movement’s chief goal, therefore, is to nurture, support, and empower grassroots activism. The movement needs to -

• keep both the issue and the powerholders’ violations of society’s principles and values in the public spotlight and on society’s social and political agendas;

• switch the movement’s primary focus from rebel and protest to change agent and grassroots organizing for positive social change on the issue;

• adopt participatory democratic organization and leadership models;

• train activists in the MAP methods, especially how to wage Stage Six;

• create strategic campaigns; and

• keep winning an ever-larger majority of public opinion and involvement against present powerholder policies and in favor of alternatives, including a paradigm shift.

Pitfalls

Even at the height of Stage Six, the powerholders and mass media will not only report that the movement has foiled, but will also refuse to acknowledge that a new, massive, popular movement has been created. Large demonstrations and majority public opposition are dismissed as “vaguely reminiscent of the Sixties,” rather than recognized as modern social movements that are at least as big and rel­ evant as those 35 years ago. And when movements do succeed, they are not given credit. We are told, for example, that no new nuclear energy plants were ordered to be built for the last 25 years because of cost over-runs, high lending rates, and inflation, rather than being told the truth: that they were stopped by the tremen­ dous political and public opposition created by people power. The pitfalls are numerous:

• Activists become stuck in the protest stage, adopting violence, rebelliousness, and macho radicalism.

THE EIGHT STAGES OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS 75

• Activists believe that the movement is losing and local efforts are futile, when they are actually moving along the normal road of success.

• National, regional, and local POOs and their key staff act as if they are the movement, making unilateral programs and decisions for the movement as a whole and thereby disenfranchising grassroots activists.

• The movement gets co-opted by the powerholders, either through collusion or compromises by reformer activists that undercut the achievement of critical movement goals.

Crisis

There is overwhelming public support for changing powerholder policies and many powerholders begin joining in the calls for change.

Conclusions

Over many years, even decades, public opinion against the powerholders’ policies swells to an overwhelming majority, sometimes up to 80 percent, as in the case of opposition to the Vietnam War. Almost every sector of society — including most politicians — eventually wants to end the problem and change current policies. But strangely, nothing seems to change. Over the years, however, the weight of the massive public opposition, along with the defection of many elites, takes its toll. The political price that the powerholders have to pay to maintain their policies exceeds the benefits and the current policies become an untenable liability.

STAGE SEVEN: SUCCESS

Resolution: Victory seems to have been achieved. Everything looks easy. Just there, however, lies the danger. If we are not on guard, evil will succeed in escaping and new misfortunes will develop. You cannot fight for righteousness with corrupt motives, self-serving interests or deceit.

(From the I Ching, “Book of Changes”)

Stage Seven begins when the movement, after a long process of growing bigger and deeper, reaches a new plateau in which the societal consensus turns the tide of power against the powerholders, launching an endgame process that eventu­ ally leads to the movement succeeding in reaching its goal. This endgame process usually takes one of three forms: dramatic showdown, quiet showdown, or attrition.

76 DOING DEMOCRACY: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

Dramatic showdown resembles the take-off stage. A sudden re-trigger event sparks a mobilization of broad popular opposition and a social crisis. But this time, the overwhelming coercive force of the public and the movement succeeds in forcing changes in the powerholders’ policies or leadership or both. This occurred, for example, in the black voting rights movement in Alabama when the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march was brutally attacked by police, creating worldwide outrage. President Johnson and the Congress were forced to pass the Voting Rights Act a few months later, despite their earlier rejection of the bill on the basis that it was impossible to get it passed in that session of Congress. The dramatic showdown is the only endgame form in which the activists believe that they played the key role in achieving the movements goal.

A quiet showdown happens when powerholders realize that they can no longer continue their present policies and they launch a face-saving endgame process of “victorious retreat.” Rather than admit defeat and praise the movement for its correct views and its principled stand, the powerholders adopt and carry out many of the goals and policies that were demanded by the movement. The powerholders claim credit for the victory, even though they have been forced to reverse their previously held hard-line policies. The mainstream media complies by reporting this as a success of the powerholders.

Attrition is when success is slowly, quietly, and seemingly invisibly achieved in a long-term process, which could take decades. The social and political machin­ ery slowly evolves new policies and conditions, such as the winding down o f nuclear energy in the United States. For the past 28 years there have been no new orders to build a nuclear power plant, while during this time approximately 160 previously made orders have been canceled. During the attrition ending process, activists usually have even more difficulty recognizing that they are in a protracted endgame process of success, perhaps because it is not a clear and acknowledged victory and the powerholders have not totally given up, as is the case with nuclear energy.

In all three forms, even after the endgame process starts, the movement’s final success is not guaranteed. Until the change is actually accomplished, the process can be stopped or reversed. Stage Seven involves a continual struggle, but one in which the powerholders are on the offensive until the movement s specific goal is finally won.

Movement

The locus of social movement activism dramatically expands beyond the rebels and traditional social activists to include the typically inactive majority of the population, and many mainstream political, social, and economic groups and institutions become involved as well. Whole segments of mainstream society become involved in a broad range of social activity that keeps society’s spotlight

THE EIGHT STAGES OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS 77

on the issue, reveals the ethical violations of present powerholder policies, and creates real political and economic penalties for them. The politicians face hostile voters and the business community can suffer loss of sales and profits through boycotts, sanctions, and disruption of the marketplace. Sometimes there is a general, worldwide insurrection that isolates the central powerholders and their dwindling support. This is what happened to the white South African apartheid regime in the 1980s and ultimately caused its downfall.

In Stage Seven, the movement uses all four roles of social activism, develops a broad-based opposition, counters a series of bogus claims by the powerholders that they have changed their ways, carries out more nonviolent actions when appropri­ ate, and promotes alternatives, including a paradigm shift. The efforts of social movement participants during this stage vary according to the endgame form. In a dramatic showdown, the movement might resemble the take-off stage, in which it plays a publicly obvious role involving mass demonstrations in a time of crisis. Success is achieved in a relatively short time. The toppling of President Milosevic in Serbia in October 2000, or the achievement of the 1965 Voting Rights Act five months after the Selma nonviolent civil rights campaign, are examples of such almost-immediate successes. In a quiet showdown, activists have to work to recog­ nize the victory and their own role in it. In the process of attrition, achievement of the movements goal is often not recognized as success. Over the extended time period, the movements role is much less visible and much of the effort is carried out quietly through the low-key work of mainstream institutions and POOs.

Powerholders

The viability of the central powerholders on the issue becomes eroded economi­ cally, socially, and politically. Eventually, many powerholders conclude that it is more expensive for them to continue supporting the status quo than it is to promote an alternative. The central powerholders are increasingly isolated as they carry out their policies and programs related to this issue, and eventually they are defeated. As their position deteriorates, the central powerholders are often forced into making fetal mistakes, such as when President Richard Nixon ordered the Watergate break-ins and other “dirty tricks” against the anti-war movement and the Democratic Party. Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett was forced into a fatal mistake when he stood in the doorway of the University of Mississippi to prevent the first black student from enrolling, creating a riot and federal intervention.

In addition, the powerholders are, increasingly, prevented from doing what they must do to continue carrying out their policies. They are forced to resort to extreme political, economic, or military acts, which spur increased public opposi­ tion. For example, when the Pentagon was prevented from implementing programs it felt were necessary to win the Vietnam War, such as keeping American ground

78 DOING DEMOCRACY: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

forces involved in large numbers, it increased bombing. The economic, social, and political penalties for these escalated acts further erode the base of support that the powerholders need if they are to continue their policies or remain in office.

The central powerholders have three different endgame strategies, according to the type of ending.

In a dramatic showdown endgame, powerholders can make a kind of “Custer’s last stand,” holding out until their policies are defeated either in the mainstream political process or by extra-parliamentary means. An example is President Johnson’s continued escalation of the war in Vietnam right up until he was forced to decline from running for a second term in 1968.

A victorious retreat in a quiet showdown endgame is where the powerhold­ ers lose on the issue, but in reversing their policies they declare victory for themselves. One well-known example was President Reagan’s declaration of success when he removed cruise and Pershing II nuclear weapons from Europe in 1986, after deploying them a few years earlier.

In an attrition endgame, powerholders exhibit persistent stubbornness, holding out over many years in an increasingly losing cause, until one of the above two endings eventually occur. The powerholders who continue to promote nuclear energy despite general public opposition are an example.

Public

The great majority of the public demand change. The opposition to the power- holders is now so overwhelming that the whole issue is publicly recognized as the “good guys vs. the bad guys.” One is either for democracy, justice, and decency or in favor of excluding blacks from voting, barring women from medical schools, the Vietnam war, President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, or South African apartheid — all conditions that had previously been accepted by main­ stream society.

The citizenry had not acted against these policies and conditions before because they accepted them as normal, did not know what to do, felt powerless to act, were not called to action by a trigger event and crisis, or feared the alter­ native. Citizens are now so repulsed by the unethical policies and social conditions that their desire for change outweighs their fear of the alternative. The power- holders’ strategy to demonize the movement no longer works. The mass population is now ready to vote, demonstrate, and even support the powerhold­ ers in changing present policies if they are willing to do so.

Goals

The movement’s goals for this stage are -

• to wage a successful endgame strategy to achieve one or more major demands;

THE EIGHT STAGES OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS 79

• to have activists recognize and celebrate their successes;

• to shift the energy of the movement to create the ongoing conditions for sus­ tained and effective citizen-based democracy on other issues; and

• to convince both activists and the public about the need to change the funda­ mental paradigm that underlies the issue.

Pitfalls

It is amazing that so many activists get depressed at this time. They either believe that the powerholders, not the movement, are actually responsible for the success, or they are upset because the powerholders have been given the credit, while the movement goes unacknowledged. The movement needs to avoid the following pitfalls:

• Failing to recognize the tell-tale signs of the “endgame” process that the power- holders are pursuing

• Fearing to claim they are near victory because then people will drop out or fun­ ders will stop giving grants

• Failing to claim any success because there is still so much suffering in the world that is related to this or other issues and powerholder policies

• Compromising too many key demands and basic principles in order to gain a victory

• Feeling letdown after achieving success on an important sub-issue, which reduces the movements ability to maintain its momentum

• Achieving an important reform without building toward a paradigm shift and basic social change

Crisis

The movement succeeds in winning on a major goal. However, the underlying paradigm has not shifted and other sub-issues remain.

Conclusion

Rather than folding up after its Stage Seven success, the movement needs to main­ tain processes, systems, and structures (i.e., groups or institutions) on an ongoing basis at the regional, state, national, and international levels so that citizens can continue to participate in decision-making on critical issues of society. Activists now need to address some hard questions: What is success? How can the success be protected from backlash and implemented in actual policies and practices? What else needs to be done? How can this success be built upon to establish true citizen-based democracy?

80 DOING DEMOCRACY: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

STAGE EIGHT: CONTINUING THE STRUGGLE

Continuing: Success now comes through long-standing objec­ tives, traditions and enduring values. Apply just enough consis­ tent force to affect the situation. The movement turns into a new beginning.

(From the I Ching, “Book of Changes”)

The success achieved in Stage Seven is not the end of the struggle, but merely a landmark in a long-term process of fundamental social change that moves the society closer to the ultimate goal of sustained citizen-based democracy based on justice, ecological sustainability, and the meeting of everyone’s basic human needs.

Movement

In this period the movement has an opportunity to expand on its success, focus on other demands, promote new issues, and most importandy, move beyond reform to social change. A number of tasks are required to ensure that the victory remains a reality and that it serves as a launch-pad for expanding the success to new levels and areas.

• Follow-up to protect and expand the success. First, the movement needs to play a watchdog role to make sure that the new laws, agreements, promises, and policies won in Stage Seven are carried out. A typical powerhoider strategy is to make agreements or laws to dissipate the opposition, then not implement them. After the famous Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed, for example, years of on-the-ground effort were still needed to make sure that blacks were actually allowed to vote.

Second, the movement needs to guard against backlash. Movement success­ es act as a wake-up call to the powerholders and other conservative or right- wing elements to launch vigorous counterattacks to roll back the gains made by the movement. For instance, when the U.S. Supreme Court delivered its Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion, the right wing responded with its own anti-abortion or, as they named it, “pro-life” countermovement.

Third, the movement needs to capitalize on the power and momentum it has created to expand the demands that have already been won. These follow-up efforts are primarily carried out by professional opposition organizations and by activists in the reformer role. While POOs may take the leadership role in this process, it is important that they involve the grassroots.

THE EIGHT STAGES OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS 81

• Re-focus the movement on other demands. The movement needs to focus on achieving other demands that are strategically appropriate. For example, after the civil rights movement desegregated restaurants in 1960, it led a series of similar social movements focused on buses, then public accommodations, vot­ ing rights, jobs, and housing.

• Promote new social consciousness, new issues, and new social movements. The student movement grew out of the civil rights movement, the anti- Vietnam war movement grew out of both of these movements, and the women’s movement was inspired by and developed out of all three of these movements. These new movements were not pre-planned, but emerged organ­ ically from social movement activism.

• Move beyond reform to social change. Social movements need to go beyond merely achieving specific, immediate reforms, though these are indeed impor­ tant. They also need to consciously build toward fundamental philosophical and structural changes. This task can be accomplished by -

• increasing the conscious awareness of people and empowering them to become life-long change agents involved in citizen-based democracy;

• creating ongoing grassroots action organizations and networks;

• broadening the analysis, issues, and goals of all social movements;

• advocating alternatives and a cultural worldview or paradigm shift consistent with the transformation from the growth and prosperity era to an era of ecological sustainability and justice.

Powerholders

The powerholders can adopt a wide range of reactions to a movements success, including reactions that are contradictory. On the one hand, the powerholders might publicly accept the change, even claim that they brought it about. For example, after ending wars or military engagements with Cuba, Vietnam, Libya, and Iraq, the U.S. government created long-term embargoes and prevented the delivery of humanitarian aid to the countries, which caused extreme hardship and death for citizens in those small nations. After agreeing to end nuclear weapons testing, the U.S. government continued development by testing the weapons with computers. Another typical ploy after unwanted legislation is passed is for the government to simply reduce the funding and staff size of the related agency. This happened with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency after the passage of landmark environmental legislation. The public saw the government passing meaningful environmental protection laws, but did not see that it was cutting back on the staff needed to make corporations comply. In addition, it is typical for the powerholders to challenge the decisions and attack movement groups and individuals that were responsible.

82 DOING DEMOCRACY: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

Public

The public adopts a new conventional wisdom that supports the movement demand that was successfully won. The new public consensus, however, is tenu­ ous. It can be reversed by new events and conditions or by the backlash efforts of reactionary elements or powerholders, such as the anti-abortion movement that emerged after the Roe v. Wade court decision to legalize abortion. On the posi­ tive side, the new public consensus and belief system often carries over to. other issues. For example, the principle of nondiscrimination and justice for blacks that was highlighted by the 1960s civil rights movement provided the impetus for the student rights, women’s rights, and gay and lesbian rights movements. The anti- Vietnam War movement created within the citizenry what the powerholders called the “Vietnam Syndrome,” in which the public refuses to support U.S. mil­ itary intervention in other nations.

Goals

The movement’s goals include:

• celebrating the successes and the movements role in achieving them;

• making sure the movement’s success is fully implemented and protected against counterattack; and

• maintaining the vitality of the movement by keeping the grassroots and nation­ al organizations and structures actively engaged in implementing the successful

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