Contentious Citizens

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Report: Contentious Citizens: Civil Society's Role in Campaigning for Social Change

by Paul Hilder with Julie Caulier-Grice and Kate Lalor


Description

From http://www.comminit.com/materials/ma2007/materials-3347.html :

"This report prepared by the Young Foundation and funded by the Carnegie United Kingdom (UK) Trust in May 2007 provides a detailed analysis and historical overview of the social change campaigning landscape with particular reference to campaigning in a network age. It explores how campaigning can be better supported and makes a series of recommendations intended to support campaigning organisations in raising awareness and responding to pressing and unmet needs.

According to the document, "Social Campaigning (as distinct from campaigns used in warfare, politics or business) covers the very diverse practices used in civil society for advocating change to decision-makers - often through public mobilisations or the staging of popular demands, but also through less obvious processes of lobbying and elite organising. It plays a vital role in publicly identifying social problems, proposing ways of tackling them, staging competing claims for the good society, and encouraging association, volunteering and active citizenship." The document then gives a history of social campaigning and discusses the 4 principle challenges of campaigning in the twenty-first century:


1. "How can progressive or sustained campaigns be built in an environment of media moments, celebrity dependence, and tabloid petitions?

2. Who writes the script of the campaign, choosing and framing actions and deciding what counts as success?

3. How can you counter the risks associated with corporate co-option and collaboration with government?

4. How can you target decision makers most effectively in the era of network governance and where campaigns can take place at the level of the local, national and global?"

It concludes with a discussion of the future of campaigning, including the possibility of fragmentation of interest groups and the resulting marginalisation by centres of power." (http://www.comminit.com/materials/ma2007/materials-3347.html)


More Information

Click here to download the 28-page summary of this document in PDF format.

Click here to download the 95-page document in PDF format.

Publisher: The Young Foundation, at [email protected]