Tactics

How to Carry Out Your Strategy

“If there is no struggle there is no progress…This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” ~ Frederick Douglass, 1849

Keys to Tactics

Here are our main keys to tactics:

• Fit your tactics into a broader strategy (i.e., connect and sequence your tactics, so they build power and pressure to achieve your goals).
• Use an array of tactics, instead of relying on a finite/predictable set.
• Create tactics that hit the sweet spot (i.e., propel your strategy, strengthen the organization, and develop the leadership of your people.
• Develop a backwards timeline that maps out how you will escalate tactics to build pressure over time.
• Consider whether to use push tactics (i.e., pressure on targets) vs. pull tactics (i.e., supporting targets) or doing both.

What Makes a Good Tactic

Sweet Spot Tactics

Here are two ways to look at effective sweet spot tactics that fulfill multiple things at once (sweet spot idea from Organizing: People, Power, Change).

Version 1 (from Marshall Ganz): 

• Be strategic: Tactics need to move you towards achieving your goals.
• Strengthens the organization/campaign: Tactics need to attract resources (e.g., people, money, media attention) so you can apply them for future fights.
• Develop people: Tactics need to grow the capabilities of those involved. 

Version 2 (from CANVAS Core Curriculum: A Guide to Effective Nonviolent Struggle):  

• Mobilization: Where your people are activated to get involved. 
• Interruption “of the opponent’s activities”: Where you use tactics that make it “impossible” for your targets and opponents to ignore your efforts and continue with “business as usual.”
• Defection “by people in different pillars of support”: Where your tactics lead to people abandoning your target/opposition and get “pulled” to your side. 

Tactical Repertoire

Douglass Johnson notes the importance of using a wide range of tactics to effectively make change. If we only rely on a small set of predictable tactics (e.g., rallies, letter-writing campaigns, etc.) then it limits the chances for success.

Escalate Tactics

When planning out your timeline, consider building pressure over time. Aim for peak mobilization tactics (such as a rally) later on in the timeline after you have built your capacity and the number of people involved. 

Tactics Need to be a Good Fit for Your Constituency

Every tactic does not work for every group or situation (or may need additional training/preparation to carry out). While it may be a great tactic to further the campaign, if you cannot get your people to actually carry it out then it is not very helpful. Consider tactics that your constituency will get involved with or think through how you will train/prepare them to carry out the tactic if it is necessary. 

Consider When to Use and When to Avoid Divisive Tactics 

Some tactics can look very attractive to your core supporters but may alienate potential recruits. 

For example, the civil rights lunch counter sit-ins were considered unpopular divisive tactics, but since the ones carrying it out were disciplined for many months, they were able to succeed in many cases where moderate tactics had failed.

However, in some cases, you need masses of people to get involved, so you need tactics that everyone can participate in (e.g., cacerolazo popular protests that involve banging pots to protest, which people can do from their own homes).

Consider Tactics that Pull People In

Similar to the discussion around divisive tactics is the idea of tactics that actively draw people in. These are tactics generally designed to build from the middle, those on the sidelines, or neutral people who are not yet involved. With your team plan out tactics that facilitate the involvement of others.

Tactics Should Boost the Morale of Your Constituency

Whether big or small, your tactics should give your members a sense of hope and accomplishment. Since most organizing can take months or years, you need to make sure people feel good about the organizing they are doing.

Incorporate Humor When Possible

Srdja Popovic notes the importance of using humor and joy in your tactics since they make it easier for people to act. Using humor “breaks fear [and apathy] and builds confidence” and it can “incite clumsy reactions from your opponent” and put them in a dilemma situation.

Here are a few examples:

• Sudanese activists resisting the dictatorship asked people to carry oranges around as a sign of social protest against the government. Everyone could participate and what police officer was going to arrest someone for carrying fruit? 
• Or in Syria where activists dumped ping-pong polls with resistance slogans on them and the police had to run through the streets catching them.

Make it Fun and Simple

Joan Minieri and Paul Getsos in Tools for Radical Democracy note we should keep our actions fun and simple. People should enjoy being a part of them and it should be easy for anyone to participate. 

Examples of Tactics

Lists of Tactics

We will go over a few specific tactics in this guide, but we strongly encourage you to check out these great online resources for more on tactics:

• Beautiful Trouble’s list of tactics.
• Gene Sharp’s 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action.
• New Tactics in Human Rights’ tactical database.

Relational Tactics

Relational tactics are focused on getting people motivated and committed to your cause. Some of the most common relational tactics are 1-on-1 meetings and house meetings.

Dilemma Tactics

Dilemma tactics are when you create, “between-a-rock-and-a-hard place” situations for the opposition (e.g., where they must either grant a movement’s demand, weaken their support, or damage their image in the eyes of allies and the public).

Some examples include the Nashville lunch counter sit-ins (i.e., putting students in jail which would not look good in the press, or allow them to keep disrupting businesses) and Gandhi’s march to protest against the salt tax (i.eThe British could have arrested him for marching but they were worried people would rise up, or let him keep marching and continue to grow the march from seventy eight people to tens of thousands).

Moral Jiu-Jitsu Tactics

In Strategy: A History by Lawrence Freedman he describes how the idea of effective “moral jiu-jitsu” is that as the opponent commits more repression, it raises the level of resistance (i.e., you use your opponent’s attack against themselves). Some examples include: 

• A Kansas student made a disparaging tweet after meeting with Kansas Governor Sam Brownback (who was pushing deep cuts to social services and personal income tax). Not many people saw the tweet, but the governor’s staff and her school made her write a letter of apology. The heavy-handed response made national news and highlighted the issue of deep cuts even more.
• Otpor! In Serbia used a tactic of social ostracism against a particularly brutal police officer in a small town (away from the media). They made posters that called him a bully and highlighted just the universal fact that all residents in the town thought he was a bully. Now in a small town his relationships started to suffer and he wanted to be liked, so he stopped bullying protesters. 

Timelines

Overview

Marshall Ganz frames timelines for campaigns as an “unfolding narrative or story” (e.g., with foundation/prologue phase, then kick-off/curtain goes up, then successive peaks/acts, and then reaching the main goal/climax, and a celebration/epilogue). 

Ganz notes that campaigns should snowball. As you continue to operate the campaign, you grow your resources which makes it easier to get future successes. 

Timeline phases

Here is a breakdown of Marshall Ganz’s timeline phases:

• Foundation period: This is the time when you build your initial team and identify your core goals and campaign plans. Your main priority is to be fully ready to go after the kick-off (e.g., have a clear campaign plan with goals, strategies, targets, timelines, etc.). 
• Kick-off: The kick-off is when you widely and/or publicly share about the campaign. Ideally, you have time leading up to the kick-off, so you can create a sense of urgency and drive recruitment and get folks involved. 
• Peaks: Peaks are key moments of high activity on the campaign (e.g., committee hearing on a bill, debate for an electoral campaign, or a big action you build up towards). Ganz reminds us to have measurable goals for each peak. Remember, after each peak, it is normal to have lower activity until you build towards the next peak. 
• The mountain top peak: The campaign’s mountain top peak is the time to have the highest level of activity (e.g., end of an electoral campaign or end of a legislative session). You want to make sure you are ready to exert as much power and capacity at this point as possible.
• Reflection, celebration, and preparation: No matter the outcome of the campaign, make sure your team takes time to reflect on what went well and what could have been improved, celebrate your effort, and then prepare for how to use the capacity you did build (e.g., moving it to a new campaign or continuing the existing one).