Toolbox:

An interconnected web of the key strategies and tactics that have inspired people-powered victories & upended the status quo. Start anywhere and explore…

Theory

Action logic

Your action should speak for itself. Its inner logic should be obvious to the outside eye. When a protest has good action logic, its dramatic challenge to power tells a clear and compelling story.

Tactic

App flooding

Appropriate a politically neutral phone application to your cause by overwhelming it with campaign messages.

Principle

Be careful with each other so we can be dangerous together

Fighting for justice can be difficult and dangerous. When we treat each other with kindness and respect — and save our anger for our adversaries — we build the trust and support we need to take risks together.

Principle

Beware the tyranny of structurelessness

Sometimes the least structured group can be the most tyrannical. Create a participatory and welcoming environment by adopting a transparent decision making process and promoting accountability within the group.

Tactic

Civil disobedience

Breaking a law in public in order to challenge the moral legitimacy of that specific law (e.g. racial segregation) or a greater injustice committed by the state (e.g. corruption).

Theory

Critical multiculturalism

Critical multiculturalism disrupts power structures by challenging the subjugation of marginalized cultures, questioning power and privilege, and acknowledging knowledge as a process.

Theory

“Democracy promotion”

Democracy promotion is the term the US uses to describe efforts to penetrate and control emergent civil societies in targeted countries — those with regimes deemed unfriendly or unstable by policymakers.

Tactic

Distributed denial of service (DDoS)

A coordinated online effort that brings together vast numbers of people to target a powerful entity’s website by flooding it with high levels of data traffic. A powerful means to draw attention to your cause.

Tactic

Divestment

Withdrawing your investment from a company can be a powerful form of economic pressure on an industry or state that is profiting from injustice and destruction.

Theory

Dunbar’s number

We can only maintain 150 I-care-you-care relationships. These strong, primary relationships foster empowerment and social cohesion, while more rule-based relationships favor management. This impacts organizing.

Principle

Enable, don’t command

Whereas efforts led by commanding leaders are often dependent on that one person’s energy and presence, enabling leaders awaken the creative potential of all participants, helping to grow the broader cause.

Tactic

Encryption

A vital tool for activists and organizers — and everyone else — to communicate securely outside the prying eyes of the state and corporate bad actors.

Principle

Focus on basic needs

In repressive regimes, directly criticizing the authorities can be dangerous. One lower-risk way to challenge the legitimacy of the regime is to focus attention on everyday economic struggles, e.g. high prices.

Theory

Glitch feminism

When the systems and technologies that mediate our lives “glitch” or malfunction, those marginalized by tech can seize the radical potential of this moment. Theory coined by scholar-activist Legacy Russell.

Story

Hacking Apartheid

At the height of the anti-apartheid struggle, South African freedom fighters and hackers created an encrypted communication network that connected the leadership in exile with operatives in South Africa.

Principle

If protest is made illegal, make daily life a protest

When repression makes protest too risky, turn ordinary acts — driving slowly, clapping, wearing black, or laughing — into protests, thereby ridiculing the authorities and forcing them into a decision dilemma.

Tactic

Jail solidarity

Putting pressure on authorities after activists are arrested can create a strong community of resistance, and help deter state violence and the persecution of activists.

Methodology

Pillars of power

Identify the institutions that your target relies on for support so you can weaken or disrupt their power.

Theory

Political identity paradox

Group identity creates a cohesive community for activists, yet tends to foster a subculture that can alienate the public. Balancing these two tendencies is key to sustaining our work and maximizing its impact.

Theory

Postcolonialism

Postcolonial theory forces us to acknowledge that oppression occurs not just in economic relations, but also in the very categories of meaning-making that produce reality as we know, understand, and live it.

Theory

Prefigurative politics

By creating in the now — via visionary direct action and living our values — the future world we wish to see, we can experience for ourselves how a better world is not only necessary but possible.

Principle

Put your target in a decision dilemma

Design your action so that your target is forced to make a decision, and all their available options play to your advantage.

Principle

Simple rules can have grand results

Rather than trying to script everything out, often a few simple rules — say, “come to Wall St; bring a tent,” or “bang your pots and pans at noon” — are enough to spark a surprisingly effective mass action.

Methodology

Story of self, us, and now

Move large numbers of people to action by exchanging personal stories that help build a sense of community around shared values & experiences.

Methodology

SWOT

Cross-reference internal & external factors in order to identify potential campaign scenarios.

Principle

Take risks, but take care

Direct action is inherently risky. The point is to minimize the risk, not needlessly (or unilaterally) endanger your safety or that of the people around you by trying to prove that you are “hardcore.”

Principle

Would you like some structure with your momentum?

Success comes from incorporating the strengths of both mass protests and structure-based organizing — so that outbreaks of widespread revolt complement long-term organizing.