Seven Deadly Arts of Campaigning

Several years ago I wanted a mechanism to introduce a brainstorm to Friends of the Earth staff, to try and coax out some new ideas about how to influence MPs as part of the campaign to get a UK climate change law.

The premise was based on what was/is conventional wisdom, that the crux of any campaign is identifying the key decision maker, bringing as much pressure to bear on that decision maker, until they make the decision you need to advance your campaign goals.

The corollary is a more holistic approach where I believe you make as much noise around the issue, where you aim to use that noise to engage as many people as possible, to change the Zeitgeist of the campaign consciousness, that the change happens organically. I’m not unconvinced, but have yet to be convinced.

So to spark the brainstorm I constructed the five deadly arts of campaigning.

1. The generation of 100’s (ideally 1000’s) of communications to the decision maker. Campaign postcards (e.g. constituents to MPs), lots of emails (clicktivism), signatures on a petition, facebook notes on the wall, personalised letters, tweets and whatever the next generation of tools might be.
2. 1to1 high quality communications, the face to face lobby, presenting, arguing, negotiating with the decision maker to do the right thing. Often the territory of think tanks and corporate lobbyists but done better, and more honestly, by ‘ordinary’ and 'extraordinary' folk.
3. Via the media, organising a stunt aiming to get the decision makers picture in the paper tied to the issue or at least his/her name. Never underestimating the power of local media, and the letters page, when the decision makers neighbours might comment.
4. Using public events, filling a room full of people and asking the decision maker to talk to them about the issue. Old school political hustings, public meetings, film nights anything where a decision maker is forced to make a stand, and to state and defend a position.
5. The power of the system, using the structures that exist (e.g. Judicial Reviews, or via the local planning system), and the rules of the game (often set by the same decision maker) to force them to make a decision in line with those rules.

Since the brainstorm I’ve pondered a few more, which are as yet unformed and 7 deadly arts would sound more mythic than 5, so

6) Indirect lobbying, mobilising celebrities, scientists and advocates to deliver that 1to1 high quality communication / face to face lobby on your behalf. Turning an esoteric campaign ask into a conversation in the pub the decision maker drinks at, or a topic of debate at his/her local golf club. Presenting the issue to the local scholl, where the decision makers children might happen to listen.

7) Non Violent Direct Action. Now originally I had included the idea as a sub set of public events, and to extent that is still true, but is tenuous enough that I’ve stretched it to the 7^th art.

Then the philosophy of NVDA varies, and of the categories that Greenpeace ideology uses, i.e.

• Direct Communications – where the objective is to communicate with the decision maker, often to deliver the evidence of the environmental problem to their door e.g. the delivery of a dead dolphin
• Direct Actions – to stop or start something happening, e.g. shutting down a coal power station
• Photo Ops – to generate the image, that the media will then transform reaching not only the decision maker but also the Zeitgeist, often yet another banner drop
• Protests – as an expression of popular approval, involving the coalition of the willing, the expression of frustration and the empowerment of the many. Classically the big march through the London, which still have their uses.

Finally perhaps direct comms can be folded into the 2^nd art, that of high quality (resource intensive) communications. Photo ops seamlessly fit into the 3^rd art, protests as a subset of the 4^th (especially if you can convince the decision maker to come), leaving only the ‘purist’ form of NVDA as the 7^th deadly art of campaigning.