Civil society campaign
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A civil society campaign is one that is intended to mobilize public support and use democratic tools such as lobbying in order to instigate social change. Civil society campaigns can seek local, national or international objectives. They can be run by dedicated single-issue groups such as Baby Milk Action, or by professional Non-Governmental Organisations, such as the World Development Movement, who may have several campaigns running at any one time. Larger coalition campaigns such as 2005's Make Poverty History may involve a combination of NGOs.
[edit] Lobbying
A key element of campaigning is researching and offering policy suggestions. A campaigning organisation will usually attempt to keep track of legislative processes, and mobilise its supporter base to provide mass lobbies at critical junctures. [1]
[edit] Stunts and actions
While civil society campaigners may come from a range of political backgrounds, modern campaigning owes its largest debt to the ideas of the Situationists, such as Guy Debord, who recognised that as society falls increasingly under the thrall of the Spectacle, it is impossible to generate political momentum without existing in the visual plane.
A frequent tactic of civil society campaigns is thus the deployment of high profile stunts and actions to draw attention to their cause. An example of a stunt is the group Fathers4Justice dressing as popular superheroes and scaling tall buildings to draw attention to their cause. The occupation of the Brent Spar platform by Greenpeace to prevent Shell dumping it at sea was an action rather than a stunt as it had intrinsic influence as well as generating publicity. [2]
