Strategy Is a Craft
An interview with Deepak Bhargava and Stephanie Luce.
Fall 2024
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Lessons from Gramsci
The Italian theorist continues to offer important insights for organizers in the socialist lineage.
Barcelona’s Experiment in Radical Government
The activists who took over City Hall have made lasting gains while also confronting the limits of their power in office.
Can Movements Stop Politicians From Selling Out?
Grassroots groups can help elected officials resist the pressures of mainstream political culture.
Los Angeles Is Creating a Model for Fighting Mass Incarceration
Abolitionists and advocates of criminal justice reform in Los Angeles County have amassed some impressive victories, laying out a vision for reducing incarceration and providing care that could have national significance.
Should We Disrupt the Democratic Party or Take It Over?
As much as organizers might wish for strategic unity, movements are diverse and messy formations that involve both inside and outside politics.
Can You Plan a Realignment?
Many of today’s organizers look to the long history of party realignment for strategic orientation. Could they drive a reordering of American politics?
The “Make Me Do It” Myth
Politicians fear the disruptive power of a mobilized base, even when it helps them succeed.
In Praise of Impractical Movements
Social change is seldom either as incremental or predictable as insiders suggest. Instead, movements win by changing the political weather, turning demands considered unrealistic into ones that can no longer be ignored.
What Makes Nonviolent Movements Explode?
A case study in the strange alchemy of disruption and sacrifice.
Lessons from the Revolutions of 1989—and Other Not-So-Spontaneous Uprisings
Cross-posted from Waging Nonviolence. On November 9, 1989—twenty-five years ago—huge crowds of East Germans descended on the Berlin Wall. The restless citizens were responding to an announcement by authorities suggesting that the government would loosen travel restrictions. In truth, those …
How Did Gandhi Win? Lessons from the Salt March
Gandhi’s demands were ridiculed and his settlement with the British disappointed many. But the Salt March was a key symbolic win that spurred India’s independence movement toward victory.
Weathering the Ups and Downs of Social Movements
How do we know when movements have died—and when are they primed to revive?
How Social Movements Can Win More Victories Like Same-Sex Marriage
The rapidly expanding victory around same-sex marriage demonstrates how a transformational vision can create social change.
Should We Fight the System or Be the Change?
It is an old question in social movements: Should we fight the system or “be the change we wish to see”? Should we push for transformation within existing institutions, or should we model in our own lives a different set of political relationships that might someday form the basis of a new society?
