What's Changing? - Activism

Please see below selected recent activism-related change,

See also:

March 2024

In a GZERO panel conversation at the 2024 Munich Security Conference, former National Security Council official Fiona Hill said that there are innovative ways for artificial intelligence to be used in protest movements. “Someone like Alexei Navalny would have been able to use AI in extraordinarily creative ways, in the case of the Russian elections, which is something of a foregone conclusion,” she said, adding that we need to consider how these technologies can be used for good by legitimate opposite leaders.
Effective Altruism (EA) - as it has been known since 2011 - is a philosophy, a social movement, and, increasingly, a way of life. And it’s thriving. EA started in 2007 with GiveWell, a rigorous charity assessment tool. In 2011, the Centre for Effective Altruism was formed in the UK to give the movement structure and direction. EA raises billions for recommended charities and causes, as well as through its own philanthropic funds. EAs want to do good, and ideally the most good possible per dollar spent. Researchers uses rigorous analysis of data to work out which actions will affect the greatest number of lives in the most positive manner.

December 2023

Further reading:

January 2023

The cost of living crisis, runaway inflation, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, weak economic growth, democracy under attack, increasing lack of trust in technology, climate emergency – years like 2022 could easily end up being remembered as being in a state of polycrisis, but away from the headlines, many entrepreneurs and innovators were working to try and make the world a better place. From using cutting-edge technology to help refugee children, to protecting biodiversity in the face of mass extinction, combatting wildfires, cleaning up water and fighting waste, many companies, including innovators from the World Economic Forum’s open innovation platform, UpLink, are using "tech for good".

February 2022

Civil disobedience relies on being disruptive enough to catalyse political action for a just cause without becoming such a nuisance that people broadly turn against the movement. This is the challenge that essential workers face all over the world when they protest about issues important to them, whether it’s farmers in India, construction workers in Australia, or truckers in Brazil or Canada, argued GZERO.

December 2021

A life is assembled, the Stoics believed, action by action. Nowhere does Seneca write to Lucilius, "write yourself a check for a million dollars and then wait." No. Rouse yourself to action, he tells him, shake off your habit of overthinking with hard work, as explained in It's Not About Manifesting, It's About Taking Action.

November 2021

According to a press release from CBS, “The Activist is an unprecedented series featuring six activists from around the world working to bring meaningful change to one of three urgent universal causes: health, education, and the environment. The activists will compete in missions, media stunts, digital campaigns and community events aimed at garnering the attention of the world’s most powerful decision-makers, demanding action, now. The competing activists’ success is measured via online engagement, social metrics and hosts’ input. The hosts will guide the activists through their journey, with plenty of surprises from high-profile public figures”.

August 2021

In Surfing the global protest wave, Chatham House argued that economic inequality and social injustice have ignited a cycle of protests around the world as a new generation makes common cause to ensure their voice is being heard. At a time of great uncertainty and anxiety, young activists are especially invested in struggles for a better future. Unless their demands for a secure future, greater democratic participation and equitable solutions on climate change are met, we should anticipate increasingly frequent and disruptive waves of protest.

May 2021

The Financial Times argued that today’s business leaders are being confronted by a new generation of agitators whose aims they consider unrealistic, whose methods they consider unreasonable but whose message will probably prove worth heeding in the long run.
Quartz claimed that shareholders are turning up the heat. In 2021, activist shareholder groups focused on climate change won victories at Exxon, Chevron, and Delta. The Exxon win, which placed two climate activists on the company’s board, was staged by a band of investors called Engine 1. As The Atlantic reported, Engine 1 then launched an even bolder strategy: an exchange-traded fund anyone could invest in that would put climate pressure on America’s 500 largest public companies.

December 2020

Voluntary work doesn’t just do good for the recipients, but can also give the volunteer a boost, research shows. A UK study found that 68% of people helping out schools with a range of activities, from mentoring to mock interviews, found that volunteering gave them greater motivation in their own work. Eight in 10 of the volunteers also felt they improved their own communication skills.

September 2020

More than 200 environmental activists were killed in 2019 for daring to defend nature against human depredation, according to Global Witness. The NGO’s “Defending Tomorrow” report for 2019 said it was the worst year ever for killings of land and environmental defenders: 212 died, most of them in Latin America and the Philippines. There were 33 deaths in the Amazon and 64 altogether in Colombia, reported Tortoise Media.

July 2020

Disabled and mobility-impaired people who cannot attend marches can find online activism tools a helpful way to promote issues and protest inequalities.

April 2020

Prohibiting group gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic meant no more street demonstrations, so people tried to take protests online. Quartz explored how social organising around the world was harmed by the crisis, while national governments found ways to increase surveillance and strengthen control.

March 2020

A study of recent world history found that civil resistance is twice as likely to succeed as violence. It was undertaken by a sceptic. She was surprised by what she found. Violent insurgency rarely gets much public support. It’s activism that wins people over and she argued that protests involving at least 3.5% of a population rarely fail.
Further reading:
- Protests Engaging 3.5% of a Population Rarely Fail - Beautiful News

January 2020

Davos 2020 called for inclusive transformation across all human systems, starting with the economy. This echoes the demands of protestors worldwide, and is one factor behind a predicted a rise in workforce activism.

December 2019

Anarchy is having a comeback. This year’s mass protests show that many people don’t believe in the state’s legitimacy anymore. Old-style political parties and movements are in disarray; societies, more polarised than ever before; and the young have never faced a more uncertain future. As angry, leaderless individuals revolt against increasingly authoritarian states and bureaucracies from, anarchist politics may be an idea whose time has come.
There have been many varied successful social movements over the years and the interesting thing about a new movement like Extinction Rebellion is that it is based on research that has analysed those movements. XR’s founders include scientists and academics who looked at the available data and formed a “theory of change” based on them. One of the main bodies of research came from Professor Erica Chenoweth, who found that successful campaigns need to mobilise up to 3.5% of the population to achieve their demands. Chenoweth studied 323 social movements and found that the most successful were: a) non-violent b) decentralised c) practised constant, disruptive civil disobedience – i.e breaking the law and d) they took this mainly to capital cities.
Further reading:

November 2019

Further reading:
- “Not since the Arab Spring have we seen so many simultaneous protests”—why the world is taking to the streets - The Intelligence
- Why are so many countries witnessing mass protests? - The Economist

September 2019

Online activism tools enables the mass scaling of petitions (e.g. Change.org) or the monitoring of politicians' behaviour (e.g. TheyWorkForYou.com). Such so-called "civic tech" can be a quick-and-easy way of getting people's voices heard and younger people are particularly vocal, especially when compared to older and digitally quieter generations. Disabled and mobility-impaired people who cannot attend marches also find online activism tools a helpful way to promote issues and protest inequalities.

July 2019

A significant appeal of the private sector for activist-minded change-makers is access to resources. Compared with cash-strapped charities, corporations have deep pockets to dip into (should they wish to). More than cash, however, activists are attracted to the public platform that brands provide.

June 2019

Further reading:
- An anarchist’s guide to doing good business - Financial Times
- Social enterprises need a business brain to survive - Raconteur

May 2019

Even while traditional union membership has declined in many countries: individual citizen power appears to be on the rise, as In 2018, when then 15- year-old Greta Thunberg resolved not to attend school each Friday until Sweden, her country of birth, aligned itself with the targets set out under the Paris Climate Agreement. Within months, the Nobel Peace Prize nominee had inspired more than a million pupils of all ages in more than 125 countries to join the School Strikes 4 Climate Action movement, under which studies are periodically boycotted in favour of organised marches to pressure governments into taking emergency action to combat climate change.
Further reading:
- Class struggle to save the world - Chatham House

January 2019

Chatham House research suggested that there is an expectation from a growing constituency of customers, shareholders and the general public for corporations to be actors for social good, by moving from traditional Corporate Social Responsibility to corporate activism.

December 2018

What does it mean to do the right thing? And how can we do it more consistently, asked Vox, while explaining that the "effective altruism" movement is an attempt to answer these questions, and hopefully make it easier for everyone to do more good in the world. Instead of doing charity in a way that makes people feel good, effective altruists claim to rely on rigorous, evidence-based analysis to decide how to donate money, where to donate, and which careers are most ethical.
Further reading:
- Climate change is firing up middle-class activism - FT

November 2018

According to the OECD, by 2030, more than 80% of the world’s poor will live in areas defined as fragile: highly exposed to risk with insufficient coping capacity to manage, absorb or mitigate such threats. With development aid and foreign investment struggling to comprehensively address the causes and effects of state fragility, there may be an increasingly strong case for private money to be mobilised for social good. Against this backdrop, Chatham House considered the role of impact investment. This approach aims to deliver a measurable positive social or environmental change through targeted capital investment to address some of the world’s most pressing issues.
Further reading:
- When sticking to the status quo is stupid - FT

October 2018

Of all the problems facing humanity, which should we focus on solving first? In a TED talk about how to make the world better, a moral philosopher provided a framework for answering this question based on the philosophy of "effective altruism". The top three? improving global health; abolishing factory farming and avoiding existential risks.
Third-sector and voluntary organisations appear slow to adapt, warned Raconteur. The Charity Digital Skills Report 2017 found barely a quarter had aligned their digital and organisational skills; half had no digital strategy at all. The 2016 Charitable Giving Report by Blackbaud Institute also revealed that, while total UK giving rose 2.8 per cent, merely 7.2 per cent came via online contributions, up just 2.2 per cent.

September 2018

Systems change has been attracting the attention of a range of progressive charities, funders and practitioners who are interested in dealing with the root causes of social problems.
Labour unions are thriving in the US thanks to millennials, reported Quartz. The stigma that unions kill jobs, created by prominent “union-busters” like Ronald Reagan, has largely worn off.

August 2018

An Indian man filled 556 potholes in the country’s most populous city, Mumbai, over one weekend to commemorate the death of his son in a bike accident caused by poor road conditions.
Voltaire said of himself that he ‘wrote to act’, and he wanted his writings to change the way people thought and behaved. In leading his crusades against fanaticism, he even invented a campaign slogan, Ecrasez l’Infâme!, which translates roughly as ‘Crush the despicable!’. L’Infâme stands here for everything that Voltaire hates, everything that he had spent his life fighting: superstition, intolerance, irrational behaviour of every kind.

July 2018

The most successful activists embrace backlash, claimed Quartz. Acknowledging that progress often sparks adverse reactions can increase our odds of sustaining positive movements.
Are too many bloggers the opposite of past generations of activists? Are they, despite claims to the contrary, generally sedentary rather than active, individualised rather than collective, and intellectually disparate rather than united?
McKinsey created essay and video hubs to highlight how social innovators - from nonprofits and community groups, to social entrepreneurs, impact investors and individuals trying to make a difference - are confronting societal problems and making a tremendous impact.
The World vs. Wall St and similar movements were just the latest in a growing string of citizen activist movements.
A recent kind of reverse boycott, a so-called "carrotmob", focused not on steering clear of environmentally-backward shops, but on rewarding businesses with mass purchases if they promise to use some of the money to get greener.Many claim that they would like to become more active, but that they don't know what to do or how to get started. Some are put off by the lack of cohesion between different activist groups, or are aware that there are increasing problems facing key areas of activism like humanitarianism.
Some believe that novels can act as a social glue, reinforcing the types of behaviour that benefit society.
In fact, however, there is a wide range of guidance now available to would be activists - see e.g. changing the world together and there are many ways of becoming an activist, including:

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