I'm going to use Jane McAlevey’s definition for organising as described in a previous post: "organizing places the agency for success with a continually expanding base of ordinary people, a mass of people never previously involved, who don't consider themselves activists at all – that's the point of organizing." In this post, I've included activism … Continue reading What to organise around? →

This post will describe the differences between mobilising and organising following on from a previous post that describes Jane McAlevey's three options for change: advocacy, mobilising and organising. McAlevey describes pure forms of these options for change, which is useful for understanding and analysis but clearly on the ground nothing will be this clear cut. … Continue reading Mobilising and Organising →

See the introduction post to this series on Theories of Change (ToC) here. And part two on linear and systems thinking approaches to ToC. In this post, I will list several different approaches that are advocated by social movement participants and thinkers. The US union organiser and trainer Jane McAlevey identifies three 'options for change': … Continue reading Theories of Change – Part 3 Social Movements →

Read part 1 here. The international development expert Duncan Green, states that theories of change "locate a programme, project, or campaign within a wider analysis of how change comes about. They articulate and challenge our assumptions and acknowledge the influence of wider systems and actors." [1] He explains that the concept originated from two very … Continue reading Theories of Change – Part 2 Linear/systems thinking and strategy →

Theory or theories of change is a popular buzzword at the moment and it is also confusing as those that use it have different understandings of what it means. This is the first post in a series on theories of change (ToC). I'm going to briefly summarise the different ToCs that I think are important. … Continue reading Theories of Change – Part 1 Different Theories of Change →

Part one looked at Marxist and non-Marxist concepts of ideology, the challenges of defining ideology, ideology and the political spectrum, and the classical and new ideologies. Based on Political Ideologies: An Introduction by Andrew Heywood (4th edition from 2007) this post describes the classical ideologies of liberalism, conservatism, socialism, nationalism, anarchism, fascism, plus the new … Continue reading Political Ideology Part 2 →

Understanding political ideology is essential to then start thinking about theories of change, theories of power, revolutionary strategy and vision. We all have a political ideology, whether we realise it or not. Radicals refer to ideologies all the time but I think they are used vaguely without a clear frame of reference. I think it … Continue reading Political Ideology Part 1 →