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What do we know about how Intentional Change happens? And where can activists go to learn about it? 

July 24, 2024

     By Duncan Green     

Duncan Green and Tom Kirk are planning a new initiative at the LSE: working title ‘Programme on Intentional Influencing and Advocacy’ (catchy eh?). To kick off, they want to pick your brains on what is already out there both in terms of evidence, and training programmes. Here’s their ask:

First, the evidence. What do we know about how citizens and organisations outside of the state bring about progressive change? Regular readers of this blog (and, perhaps, Duncan’s book) might retort, quite a lot actually. But, we’re not so sure…

Yes, history and academia are littered with studies of large-scale political experiments and social movements. This includes sweeping manuscripts that theorise how events such as Brexit or the fall of the Berlin Wall were rooted in multiple long-running processes and feedback loops. Within programme documents, evaluations or guides to activism, there are also multiple shorter ‘success stories’ of initiatives that have succeeded in changing social norms, behaviours, policies and legislation. These have recently been joined by a growing body of research on what exactly is new about digital activism. 

But we’re worried that comparatively little is known about how smaller groups of dedicated non-violent people and organisations outside of the state have realised visions of change that were often initially dismissed as unrealistic. 

We’re specifically interested in those initiatives that sought progressive changes, in the sense of expanding people’s freedoms and capacities to live the lives they want. And those that began with clear aims and intentionally worked towards them, even if they were modified in response to new information, changes in the context or setbacks. These are the types of initiatives that often, but not always, see themselves as engaged in influencing, advocacy, social accountability and campaigning.

But why raise this now?

This is important as people are increasingly disillusioned with mainstream politics and the ballot box. Instead, they are looking for alternative pathways to influence those in power, disrupt the status quo and challenge what they see as regressive agendas. Many have found homes in the plethora of social movements that have risen since the 2008 financial crash and during the Covid pandemic, whilst others have set about making change in traditional NGOs or CSOs. 

However, for the most part, we suspect that what we know about them comes from their own write-ups of successful initiatives, is contained within learning documents and think pieces, or filed away in evaluation reports that are rarely publicly available. This literature is often self-authored, centres the role and agency of the activists and organisations, and is written with the wider goal of building their brands.   

So, we’re thinking of conducting a semi-systematic literature review to test these assumptions and, hopefully, put our worries to bed. 

Broadly, it will focus on case studies of the types of change initiatives we’ve described above (avoiding social movements). And it will encompass academic and grey literature, and evaluation reports and books. To make it manageable, it will focus on cases from the 1990s to the present that describe intentional change episodes in North America, the United Kingdom, South Africa, India, the Philippines and Brazil. But, to increase its rigour, we want to try to exclude those authored by the organisations involved.

We also want to be able to say something about what we find. Ideally, to spot trends, underlying theories of change, what works and doesn’t across different contexts, and knowledge gaps within the existing literature that can shape future research agendas. 

To do this, our initial codebook will use the categories found in the framework for influencing strategies developed by Duncan’s book How Change Happens. It will help us pick through what we read, looking for factors present across diverse cases. Nevertheless, we will remain alive to what else might emerge as important as we go.

The ask

Before we commit, we want to ask what you think. 

  • Are we barking up the wrong tree or has this been done many times? 
  • Is it too broad, or do our inclusion / exclusion criteria lack nuance?
  • Even if this is a worthwhile undertaking, how can we refine and improve our aims, concepts and methods? 
  • Should we begin with a review of the existing reviews (there are several focussed on specific forms of activism and issue areas, or on organisations’ portfolios of initiatives)?
  • Are there better frameworks or theories we should begin with? 

Put another way, please help us sense-check this. We want to learn from others and to avoid replication before deciding on whether to set off on what will be a long path. And, if we do, we want to contribute something that will be useful for all of you.

Mapping the Sources of Training

We also want to map who else is providing similar training programmes, and who could therefore be potential partners and/or sources of learning. Since training is a huge and amorphous area, we will set clear boundaries on who we will include:

Need a bit of help here
  • Areas: both insider and outsider influencing, e.g. humanitarian diplomacy, campaign strategy design, or effective public and private communications.
  • Sectors: Training provided by and for non-profit non-state actors, including CSOs, INGOs and multilateral aid organisations 
  • Geography: Training providers in North America, UK, South Africa, South Asia, the Philippines and Latin America.
  • Scope: Short-term training, rather than full time further education.

We’re looking for names and contact details, websites, advice. If you don’t want to leave comments on this blog, please write to us at d.j.green@lse.ac.uk (for the mapping) or t.kirk@lse.ac.uk (for the literature review).

Please?

July 24, 2024
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Duncan Green
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Comments

  1. As part of the African Cities Research Consortium, we’ve been looking at the role of broad based urban reform coalitions in creating change. Coming from an NGO background myself, I thought this was pretty well worn territory – but we’ve been surprised by the enthusiasm and interest in the work by practitioners, social movements and researchers. Definitely feels to me like an area where more research really is needed – or at least would be useful!

    For the lit review, you might want to take a look at a recent (open access) paper by Diana Mitlin: The contribution of reform coalitions to inclusion and equity: lessons from urban social movements – which has just been awarded the Area Development & Policy prize for the best paper of 2024: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23792949.2022.2148548
    There’s also a series of blogs and podcasts around urban reform coalitions at the bottom of this page:
    https://www.african-cities.org/analysis-of-urban-reform-coalitions-awarded-best-2024-paper-by-area-development-and-policy/

  2. Tom Aston and I did a meta review of 150+ cases of social accountability, blog with links to the review + forward looking brief here https://politeiacoproducao.com.br/social-accountability-3-0-engaging-citizens-to-increase-systemic-responsiveness/

    In terms of how change intentionally happens, we also have a new ex post evaluation coming out soon focused on layering short term projects over a couple of decades (think afaptive management but across project cycles). This is a mechanism from the social science literature we are adapting and applying to the world of projects and resonates with tacit knowledge from a good portion of practitioners
    more here https://www.pactworld.org/blog/systems-aware-social-accountability-learning-emergent-practice
    or here https://medium.com/@florcig/adaptive-management-across-project-cycles-look-into-coherence-in-time-ab99caa3a9e5
    or here https://medium.com/@florcig/scale-up-in-time-revisiting-how-we-evidence-process-context-6c53f82a1817

    happy to chat if helpful

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  3. That sounds like a fantastic idea. My main concern is the enormous pool of resources that must exist out there to be reviewed. Thinking of Brazilian NGOs, it’s almost a must that there must be a book as a project’s output. Not all are necessarily well-edited or listed in the National Library, but most must have relevant content. The Brazilian Association of NGOs has an electronic repository of its members’ publications but that’s a small part of a vast universe. It`s a good place to start.

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      Thanks Athayde, took a quick look at ABONG’s ‘Escola de Formacao’, but it seems to be only offering courses on resource mobilization. The biblioteca digital did not seem to be working. Any suggestions?

  4. I am an activist since the 90s and during these decades I have seen endless funds for capacity building, which have not worked!
    If we want to create a genuine alternative to existing ways of deciding and doing, need to move away from “building capacity” towards community organizing and movement building, where “capacity” equates to relevance, rootedness and constituency.
    We need both humility and boldness, and to be ready to challenge the power and to listen to and work with others.
    We want a future that is negotiated, participatory, and widely owned, and which is developed through values and processes based on movement generosity, ensuring that recognizes, respects and builds on local resources and assets.

  5. re training
    check out ELAC in Latin America https://escueladeactivistas.org/
    here are some lessons (in Spanish of a course Paula Chies Schommer and I piloted via ELAC that might be a good fit / of interest https://escueladeactivistas.org/project/desarrollando-habilidades-activismo-como-catalizador-de-cambio-sistemico/)

    PSAM’s Regional Learning Program https://psam.org.za/regional-learning/
    some lessons /insights from their experience and approach https://medium.com/@florcig/social-accountability-practitioners-as-system-conveners-33b77c8a4778

    happy to find a time to chat, if helpful

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  6. I wonder if there is more that should be looked at around organisations like Give Directly who seem to have harnessed action, evidence and social media to grow a movement around unconditional cash transfers.

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      Thanks Carolyn, I’m a big fan of Give Directly, but what we’re looking for is organizations who consciously try to influence the wider system beyond their immediate programme, through advocacy and campaigning, or who train others to do so. Not sure GD fits into either camp?

  7. I’ve been building a web library for over 25 years and one section focuses on process improvement, knowledge management, community building and collaboration, mapping and visualization, etc. You can view it at https://tutormentorexchange.net/resource-links/collaboration-process-improvement

    I think the biggest challenge is that there is so much information, and too little time. Most people won’t dig deeply into these resources, without some sort of on-going effort to encourage learning and engagement.

    I’ve been creating concept maps since 2005 to visualize strategies. This one could be useful in thinking about your project because it shows “collecting information” as Step 1, building engagement as Step 2, and creating understanding as Step 3, and application of the information in places where actions are needed as Step 4. http://tinyurl.com/TMI-4-Pt-Strategy

    I share this and other concept maps on this page. https://tutormentorexchange.net/conceptmaps

    You might devote a page in your own library to showing concept maps that visualize “how change happens”.

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  8. One suggestion is that you push the time frame back a few years to 1985, which would allow for coverage of the Philippines People Power revolution. I certainly have been guilty of assuming that this was an excellent example of people having been trained and mobilized before the February 7 snap election, and thus were ready to come out on the streets in a peaceful way once the army rebellion began a few weeks after the elections. However, it would be a great case study using the more rigorous methodology that you propose. From a personal perspective, I will note that democracy activists used the “Philippines” model to inspire other “election” transitions in places like South Korea, Chile, Pakistan, Panama, East and Central Europe during the following five years, and many of us who were involved in one way or another continue to cite the Philippines model to this day.

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