Final thoughts on Direct Diplomacy
Article by Ben Rowswell.
With this blogpost, Matthieu and I hand responsibility for the Direct Diplomacy web presence to our collaborator Julian Dierkes and his team at the University of British Columbia. I’ve really enjoyed the contributions Julian made both to this blog and to the study of digital diplomacy more generally, and couldn’t be happier with him taking on the leadership of this project.
It’s been three years since the government of Canada formally entered the digital diplomacy era with a series of announcements by our then foreign minister. I was an early proponent of the use of digital tools in Canadian diplomacy, and was honoured when CERIUM offered a research project with three great students to explore this brave new world.
Our first accomplishment was to walk the walk by having a serving ambassador create a digital presence. Many countries had blogging ambassadors, but this blog was the first by a Canadian one. Bureaucratic reserve is not an excuse for silence in the digital era; Canadians expect us to be transparent and sharing our thoughts online is one way to do that.
In our first year, Amal Azouz and I examined what other foreign ministries are doing and clarified some of the key terms in digital diplomacy. The form I’m most interested in is direct diplomacy, which we defined in terms of individuals being direct players in the management of global affairs. Whereas public diplomacy involves states communicating with citizens, direct diplomacy is citizens taking international action into their own hands, through the disintermediating capabilities of the internet.
In our second year, Thibaut Timmerman and I were joined by a team of talented U of T students and together we explored how citizens were doing just that. The landmark report we produced was our report and playbook on how citizen movements can run digital campaigns that have impact and longevity.
This past year, Matthieu John and I have delved more deeply, examining tools for mobilizing online communities. Like crowdfunding, which gives a role for all members in a community to interact my moving beyond words to action, spreading ownership as funds get raised.
Takeaways
A lot has changed in the government of Canada’s use of digital tools for foreign policy since 2013. Authorization for diplomats like me to speak publicly online is now taken for granted. The online presence of Global Affairs Canada has ballooned to over 400 social media accounts, and the majority of my fellow ambassadors are on Twitter if not blogging themselves.
Within government, the debate has shifted from whether diplomats should be online, to how they can achieve the greatest effect. We’re examining different platforms from Buzzfeed to Periscope. We’re building advocacy campaigns that are “digital by default” as the audiences we are trying to influence are moving online. And we’re trying to do a better job of listening by using open source analysis to separate the signal from the noise of internet chatter.
To be honest, we’ve also come across some disconnects in digital diplomacy. One disconnect I fear may be permanent concerns the audiences different people are trying to reach.
Diplomats like me are primarily interested in using digital to talk to foreign citizens. Our focus is outward, past Canada, because that’s our job. But many Canadians I’ve interacted with online these past three years want to talk to us, in hopes that they can shape policy debates.
From a diplomat’s perspective, too many policy debates are like the symphony orchestra warming up before the show begins. We’re conductors trying to align all the different players to deliver a single piece of music to decision-makers. Adding a few extra oboes and timpanis doesn’t make the conductor’s job any easier.
There are some productive exercises in which public opinion can feed into well-structured policy development exercises. But my view is that diplomats are not and should not be the only people giving our political leaders advice. Citizens should go straight to their elected representatives. This is the age of distintermediation – so skip us intermediaries and get right to the action.
New areas of investigation
For those of us inside the government, the time has come to integrate the digital tools of diplomacy with all the others. We can reach massive audiences through social media, and through genuine interaction we can shape attitudes and change international outcomes. So build digital tools directly into our strategies for advancing Canada’s interests.
For those of you outside government, go forth and embrace the role you now have to shape global affairs. Diplomacy can now be direct, not just from states to citizens but between citizens of different countries. This can take on the attributes of diplomacy if you have a clear goal for shifting an international outcome and systematically build relations and leverage them to advocate for your objective.
For my next project I plan to mobilize global citizens to help citizens inside Syria, the defining conflict of our generation. I’ll share my experiences and lessons learned in a separate blog on www.beperennial.com and on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/benrowswell . Join me there as you continue to join in the discussion on this site.
Now over to you Julian and the UBC team!
Crowdfunding is about a lot more than money
Article written by Matthieu JOHN.
In a digital world where we are only just starting to discover the possibilities for new forms of mass collaboration, some defy easy categorization. We had always thought of crowdfunding as, well, a funding mechanism. If your cause can’t get government grant or a gift from a wealthy benefactor, ask the crowd to pay for it.
That’s why were we surprised to see the U.S. government turn to crowdfunding to help Syrian refugees. Why would the government with the largest budget in the world need to ask the internet for money?
Our last blogpost explored this campaign and identified some tips for successful crowdfunding campaigns. There was so much rich material that emerged from our interviews with activists about their crowdfunding activities, though, that we now offer this blog post to shed light on how the tactics helps mobilize global citizens to fight global challenges. The tool is much more powerful than a mere fundraising operation. In our research, we limited ourselves to large campaigns (with goals over $100,000), all linked to the Syrian refugee crisis. The key question we asked activists was “how did you mobilize citizens online?“ The answers we heard offer lessons for any kind of online civic participation campaign.
Overview of two organizations and their projects:
In September 2015, SOS Mediterranée, launched a campaign on Ulule in partnership with Médecins du Monde to raise funds to launch the first European civic campaign to “Rescue Lives in the Mediterranean Sea”. The purpose: to charter a rescue ship between Italian and Libyan coasts.
Shatilalive is a project led by the Lebanese organization Basmeh and Zeitooneh serving refugees and vulnerable communities. In June 2015 it launched a campaign to finance its community center in the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut.
Why do organizations turn to crowdfunding?
SOS Méditerranée members saw in crowdfunding an appropriate tool to buid its community while raising funds. By enabling a personal approach crowdfunding can create a relationship of trust with donors. Their campaign began in the inner circle of volunteers before it gradually expanded, all the while keeping it personal.
For Basmeh and Zeitooneh, resources were a real need since the funds they received from foreign NGOs had reduced considerably. But more than a sources of income, members of the Lebanese organization saw crowdfunding as an opportunity to create a network of people willing to help each others. It’s also a great way to share continuously the impact of donations on beneficiaries.
How to mobilize the public around a common goal?
To capture the attention of the public, SOS Méditerranée set a clear objective. 100,000 euros would the organization to rent a boat for 1 month. 200,000 euros would equip it with a team and equipment to make it fully operational. If it were to raise 1.2 million euros, SOS Méditerranée would be able to buy its own boat and become independent. SOS Méditerranée offered varied and original rewards: an opportunity to talk with the team, to become member of the Support Committee, and to have the donor’s name engraved on the boat.
To attract the public, the organization also shared many news pictures and videos, managed a strong presence on social networks and YouTube, and maintained a very active project profile page and website. Over a 45-day campaign, SOS Méditerranée raised an impressive $390,000, 274 % of their minimal goal.
Shatilalive project also had a clear and precise objective.. The organization offered opportunities to make a specific impact on the lives of refugees in their camp. For example, $50 would cover the cost of education of a student for a month, $500 would support an artistic workshop for youth, $1000 would cover rent for three months for vulnerable families. For donors seeking a collective impact $25,000 would cover fees of a Vocational Training Institute for one year and $50,000 would the operation of its Centre for Art and Culture the same amount of time. This link between the individual and collective impact is relevant, because it expands the options donors have to make an impact.
The organizers also managed to appeal to emotions, through texts, photos and videos that presented the living conditions of refugees, but also showing the impact Basmeh and Zeitooneh had on their lives. The point where this project particularly distinguished itself is the impressive maximization of positive media exposure. We’ve had a good example of viral strategy with the popular hashtag #Shatilalive. Basmeh and Zeitooneh focused energy on its digital exposure and took advantage of the publicity it generated. In a 41-day campaign, it met its funding target with nearly $ 101,650 in donations collected.
The relationship with the crowdfunding platform:
In both cases, the relationship between the organization and the crowdfunding platform played an important role in the campaign’s success. The platform supports project leaders, both online and in person. Besides the online help interface of the platform, it has been present from day to day, pushing the organizers to go ahead. SOS Mediterrannée had lots of interactions with Ulule, its member noted the importance of having a human and regular contact. Members of Basemeh and Zeitooneh told us how important it was for the platform’s employees to be ready to listen and answer questions from them.
Conclusion:
Through our research and interviews demonstrated that crowdfunding creates a real link between the donor and the beneficiaries. The donor participates in its way that directly contributes to youth education, charitable works, or the promotion of values that he or she shares with the organization. And for its part, the movement gains a lot more than cash. Crowdfunding can help it forge a community of activists.
Implementing a Strategic Deployment of Digital Diplomacy
The Direct Diplomacy Project wishes to thank Prof. Julian Dierkes. of the Institute for Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia for this guest blog.
Recently, I made the case for Global Affairs Canada to embrace Digital Diplomacy and followed that up with a list of “Many Habits of Successful Canadian Digital Diplomats”. I extended that with “Five Rules to Guide Digital Diplomacy”. In these pieces, I called for the strategic deployment of Twiplomacy, but some might feel that that is easier said (or encouraged) than done. Here, I offer some suggestions on criteria that could shape that strategy.
To be purposeful, strategic, and deliberate about initiating further Digital Diplomacy projects, Global Affairs Canada might consider examining possibilities through the following lenses: priorities, geography, digital nature, dialogue, leadership, organizational goals, and innovation. If opportunities for Digital Diplomacy were discussed publicly by Global Affairs, we might have a better sense of a prioritization scheme as it may exist already, but for now, here’s my scheme:
I. Priority
Areas of foreign policy that have been designated as priorities surely should maximize all opportunities for impact, including Digital Diplomacy. So far, we have only had hints at Liberal priorities, but as these become clearer, they will naturally drive Digital Diplomacy initiatives
Examples: climate change, across-government openness (including development assistance), multi-lateralism
II. Geography
Geography presents opportunities and can fit with priorities
1) country
a. especially active on social media (e.g. Mongolia)
b. repressive making social media a unique opportunity (though it can be blocked)
2) region, e.g. TPP, ASEAN
3) grouping, e.g. developing resource economies
Europe and US seem less plausible areas of focus as impact in a crowded field might be low here and possible outcomes don’t seem that significant; while Canadian missions around the world seem like natural hosts for Twiplomacy activities, that may not always be the case beyond the use of social media for broadcast purposes
III. Digital Nature
In areas of foreign policy that are inherently digital, it is embarrassing not to have Digital Diplomacy and makes other efforts much less credible
Examples: internet governance, Freedom Online Coalition, discussion of securitization of Internet, censorship
IV. Dialogue
Engagement is seen as one of the potentially game-changing opportunities within Digital Diplomacy. Participants in thePANELonline event expressed trepidation about disappointing expectations of dialogue. Initiatives could thus be selected on the basis of consideration of where genuine dialogue would actually be most productive.
Examples: development assistance, refugee processing/settlement (perhaps in collaboration with Citizenship Immigration and Refugees Canada), promotion of Canadian education.
V. Leadership
In fora where Canada is taking a leadership role, Digital Diplomacy could leverage that leadership.
For example, Canada will host the G7 in 2018 and the APEC Leaders Meeting in 2020. Digital Diplomacy activities could build up toward this hosting.
VI. Organizational Needs
If Global Affairs has identified specific organizational needs, perhaps around the on-going integration of foreign affairs, trade, and development, Digital Diplomacy could facilitate collaboration through knowledge mobilization, management, and the promotion of openness.
VII. Innovation
If proposals for new formats in Digital Diplomacy bubble up, those should be resourced quickly and supported in ambitions.
Obviously, innovation is hard to plan, but could be built around some notion of roaming data-analysis teams, for example. Teams might spend two months in an embassy to jump-start big data use a la Air Quality Beijing, or the Canadian ambassador to China’s Toyota, or http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/world/americas/argentina-election-andy-tow.html.
I could imagine a process by which Canadian diplomats are encouraged to submit proposals for Digital Diplomacy areas to a central clearing house. In the name of greater openness and the potential maximization of benefits from crowd-sourcing, this submission process should also be open to the public and, perhaps as a separate track, to experts of various stripes (academic, corporate, NGO).
If I were looking for themes and topics that might be ripe for Digital Diplomacy experimentation, that would maximize potential impact, but also potential learning opportunities, I would examine proposed focus areas for the extent to which they touch on multiple criteria for engagement as I’ve listed them above. Others would likely reduce, amend or expand these criteria, but any proposed engagement project that would fall under multiple categories in the above list would be a strong candidate. Political decisions and prioritization might also sharpen some of the above lenses compared to others.
A New Tool For Digital Diplomacy: Crowdfunding
Article written by Matthieu JOHN, available in its original version here.
A White House initiative brought together the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter in October 2015 in order to mobilize citizens to assist Syrian refugees.
In just a week, the campaign mobilized 27,669 people around the world, which gave an impressive amount: nearly $ 1.8 million. The funds are intended for “USA for UNHCR”, which will use the money to provide assistance to Syrian refugees with food, water, clothing, and a special support to orphans. This initiative of the US government is somewhat unprecedented. This may be the first time a government has used crowdfunding in order to mobilize citizens around a global issue. It is in this context that Direct Diplomacy, which is very interested in the transformations caused by digital tools in our societies, focused on the use of crowdfunding in the field of global issues.
The crowdfunding “trend” has grown in importance these last years. The American platform Kickstarter is the best example of this. In early October, the global crowdfunding leader delivered impressive results: since its inception in 2009, the financing of its projects has passed the threshold of 2 billion through donations of 9.5 million people around the world. Other platforms, as Indiegogo, have had considerable success too. If crowdfunding manages to collect impressive amounts of money, not all the projects enjoy this success. This is particularly reflected in the success rate of projects on crowdfunding platforms. The success rate of a project on Kickstarter is for example 44% (in January 2014), whereas it is only 10% for a project on Indiegogo. However, each of the platform keeping its specificities, these results should be used carefully.
We then asked the following question: What contributes to the success of a project on a crowdfunding platform? There are several factors that enable the success of a crowdfunding campaign, but the following 4 points will most determine the impact of your campaign.
- What financial model and which platform for my project?
First of all, choose the right funding model for you: charity, reward-based, equity or lending-based. The charity or donation model is often used for social projects. People will give funds without any expectation of return but get the satisfaction of helping others or a specific cause. The reward-based model allows a company to receive funds without any ownership in exchange, but a reward as recognition of the donation. Whereas the equity model implies that investors will receive equity in return of their donations. Finally, the lending-based model will let you borrow money from the public, which will be paid back later with interest. It is a simple, quick and cheap way of receiving funds but only a small percentage of applications are approved. The charity, reward-based and lending-based models are quite popular.
Then, according to the financial model adapted to your project, you need to choose the right crowdfunding site. There are many crowdfunding sites and each of these has its peculiarities. Some platforms accept any type of project. This is the case of Babeldoor or Cookie Jar. Other platforms are general but chose not to engage itself in particular fields. Kickstarter, for example, does not host charity projects. Finally, some platforms are oriented to specific sectors. ArtMarket Canada, for example, is specialized in creative and artistic projects. Fig specializes in video games.
The platforms also have different rules, beginning with the rules surrounding the financing. In some cases, it will be obtained only once the funding goal is reached. In other cases, it will be obtained even if the funding goal is not reached. Indiegogo illustrates the latter model: on this platform for example, if a project is funded at 80%, the proponent will receive the amount thought. A project on Kickstarter must be 100% financed before funds are released.
Note also that some platforms make a pre-selection of the projects. For instance, Ulule accepts about 65% of the project proposals. These differences should be taken into account, because depending on the platform, your financial goal will not be the same, nor will be your chances of reaching your objectives.
Eventually, not all platforms benefit from the same exposure. Having your project on a platform such as Kickstarter, which is very popular and gets lots of traffic, will give your project greater exposure. The success rate on Kickstarter is 44%, it is only 11% for RocketHub which is a smaller platform.
- How to present your project?
The way you lay out your project will have a direct impact on your success. Here are six elements that any project must have:
A simple title: It should be short, catchy and easy to find through the crowdfunding website you choose and through general search engines.
A compelling description: Your project must be clearly presented, people should know who is behind the project, what problem you are addressing, where will the funds go and how it will be used, what will be the impact on beneficiaries, etc. You must find the appropriate balance between giving little information and too much information. You can refer to other similar projects that have experienced successful campaigns. Also, do not hesitate to appeal to emotions to maximize your impact.
A realistic financial goal: This must above all be reasonable and achievable. Look at a few other similar projects before setting an objective. You will see that some project holders tend to be too ambitious, some not enough!
Creative rewards: Many project offer rewards to incentivize donors. The best ones are highly innovative. For instance, for the Syrian humanitarian campaign White Helmets, donor’s names are inscribed on the ambulances that donations fund.
The more imaginative and personalized the rewards, the more people will donate.
A campaign video: With even a 2 or 3 minute video, you catch peoples’ attention provide information about your organization, and bring in more contributors than through any other method.
Images: Don’t stop at the video. The internet is a highly visual medium and potential donors will want to see as much as they can about a project: the beneficiaries, the members of your organization, the project in action. You can also provide graphics that illustrate the scale of the problem you’re addressing and the results you’re achieving. One successful graphic used by a campaign that Kiron University launched to provide Syrian refugees with university education presented a “progress bar” that directly indicates the amount missing to finance the education of the next student. This motivated donors by showing the impact of their individual contributions.
- Campaign length and momentum:
The concept of time will be fundamental throughout your campaign. First, you need to choose the right campaign length. On the one hand, it must be long enough to capture public attention and convince potential donors. On the other hand, a long campaign will run out of energy and discourage donors. Time should still be long enough to let you reach your goal. According to Indiegogo, the optimal campaign length would be 45 days.
It is also important to think in advance about momentum. According to Kickstarter, once your campaign raises 20% of its funding goal, it has an 80% chance of success. This “turning point” depends on your funding goal: the higher it will be, the higher the turning point will be. If your campaign has a funding goal of $10 000 or less, you need to reach only 15% of your target to have an 80% chance of success. But if your fundraising goal is $100,000 or more, you need to raise 65% of your funding goal to get the same chance of success. And the faster your campaign will gain momentum, the higher its chance of success will be: campaigns that reach 30% of their funding goal during the first week have a higher success rate.
- Promotion – the role of social media:
The success of your campaign will be closely linked to the exposure it receives. Obviously, you will want to use social networks – but how? Used correctly, both Facebook and Twitter can lead to widespread media coverage of your campaign. The luckiest campaigns benefit from the effect. This was the case of Norwegian journalist Gissur Simonarsson, who sought to raise money for Syrian refugee Abdul Haleem Al-Kader. He set up a hashtag for Twitter promotion of the campaign: #BuyPens. The phenomenal spread of this hashtag allowed Gissus Simonarsson to reap more than $175,000 in just six days. Make sure to link your project profile page to your organization’s website so that prospective donors can get more details about the project, its progress or the people behind the campaign. Keep feeding your social networks throughout the campaign. One way to do so is to periodically release videos of interviews with beneficiaries to provide provide continual feedback to donors on the impact they are having.
A final note. In running a crowdfunding campaign, you won’t be alone. Any platform you use will have an interest in your success. Leverage this mutual interest to make the most of your campaign. Contact your platform’s “Help Center” for specific advice and useful information before, during and after your crowd-funding campaign.
OpenCanada.org : “Six social movements the world can learn from”
Munk School’s students Nick Dagostino and Amanda Coletta published an article on OpenCanda.org on six of the eleven social movements studied in our qualitative research report that provide interesting insights for making change.
Social movements are not novel phenomena. One need only consider the Ozone Protection campaign, which played a pivotal role in catalyzing the development of an international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer in the late 1980s, to acknowledge the positive impact collective action can have.
What the early days of the Ozone Protection campaign lacked was the digital tools that today’s social campaigns often attempt to leverage to generate change. While the proliferation of these tools has allowed campaign organizers to gain attention and support at rates previously unimaginable, it is equally as true that these same tools expose campaigns to challenges and obstacles at a novel scale.
A recently published report was the result of a study of what motivates citizens to act and participate in social campaigns and, perhaps most importantly, what encourages their continued participation. The report details a series of recommendations for campaign organizers and activists on how to best achieve impact and longevity, two aspects of social campaigns that are often at odds with one another.
In total, our group of researchers from the University of Toronto’s Munk School, with the guidance of Canada’s Ambassador to Venezuela Ben Roswell, examined 11 citizen or civil society-led social campaigns that use (or used) digital tools and have a substantial international component or are maintained by a diaspora community.
Six of the campaigns and their key lessons can be found below — insights from which may have implications for other groups around the world, and for social movements in the future.
I Paid a Bribe, India: Leverage a reporting platform
Originally launched in 2008, ‘I Paid a Bribe’ was created by the Indian non-profit organization Janaagraha, whose mission is improving the quality of citizenship, services and infrastructure in India.
With the use of a highly effective data visualization platform, I Paid a Bribe leverages user submissions of bribery requests to raise public awareness of corruption in India, and to provide citizens, policy officials and change-makers with means to track corruption across geographic regions and bureaucratic sectors. The information is vital: it pressures public officials to make procedural changes to mitigate corruption, while also informing citizens on how to recognize and avoid bribe-paying situations.
Results from I Paid a Bribe have been very positive. With over 40,000 reports in 889 cities in India (and counting), the campaign has succeeded in mapping bribe requests (and honest officers) in various regional districts, raising awareness of the overall state of corruption. The campaign’s Bribe Hotline has helped citizens become informed of their right to refuse bribery payments, while their process review initiatives have taken positive steps towards institutional and procedural changes in multiple government offices.
I Paid a Bribe’s success comes partially from providing direct action tools with their innovative platform, as well as from their clear organizational structure. The initiative is operated by the Janaagraha organization, which employs a full-time staff for website maintenance, content creation, verification, policy advocacy, and overall strategic direction. The centralized structure of the organization provides strong foundational support for the campaign’s online bribe reporting platform, the source of I Paid a Bribe’s true success. With the platform, the campaign leverages a highly decentralized citizen base for its reporting mechanisms, leading to a highly distributed impact structure.
The Umbrella Movement, Hong Kong: Safeguard your activists
Two years after a University of Hong Kong law professor published the article “The Most Destructive Weapon of Civil Disobedience,” photos of Hong Kong’s massive campaign for universal suffrage were at the forefront of global media. Dubbed the “Umbrella Movement” for their use of yellow umbrellas, activists gathered to protest the lack of universal suffrage within the electoral reform process for the 2017 Hong Kong Chief Executive election and the 2020 Legislative Council election. Not satisfied with the decision by China’s national legislature to impose institutional safeguards ensuring Hong Kong’s Chief Executive shall be a person who “loves the country,” a coalition of student groups and activists merged to begin occupying public areas as the Umbrella Movement. Occupations lasted from September 26 to December 15, 2014, with future steps created to coincide with political reform decisions in July 2015.
Beginning as a vertically structured citizen campaign, the Umbrella Movement was able to create a movement manifesto defining specific goals and requirements for campaign participants. This provided structure to the movement, with a common direction between the various internal student groups. The movement began decentralizing when attention increasingly shifted towards the mass participants in the streets. Overall, this strategy of central leadership with diffused support was influential. The movement suffered certain threats in the ways of digital phising and Internet surveillance tactics used by the state. Despite the use of peer-to-peer chat services, many participants were registered as activists due to mobile network activity and even refused access into Mainland China after the protests. The case underlines the importance for citizen campaign leaders to identify digital risks within their political environment, and operate with safer strategies or more secure tools.
The People’s Climate March, International: Build coalitions
The People’s Climate March (PCM) was a massive globally coordinated event to advocate for action for climate change on September 21, 2014. With an estimated 310,000 people taking to the streets of New York City, and an additional 2,646 subsequent events occurring around the world, the PCM became the largest climate march in history. Held just prior to the United Nations Climate Summit, the march utilized multiple social media platforms to mobilize participants within New York, and advocate for global climate change solidarity.
Outside of their ambition for becoming the world’s largest climate march, PCM did not have specifically defined or structured goals. While certainly showing widespread popular support, the campaign failed to properly wield such support into direct action in the form of specific policy change or institutional reform. However, PCM succeeded in utilizing digital tools and tactics to ensure that their central message was not lost amidst the massive social media frenzy. Tools like Thunderclap were used to amplify PCM related tweets, while tools like Tint allowed organizers to aggregate tweets for their central website. PCM also showed success in coordinating a massive coalition of 1,574 organizations for the March, requiring intensive logistical planning and preparations. By forming a coalition, PCM was able to build strength in numbers, mobilize resources, and enhance legitimacy. The march did succeed in generating significant attention from mainstream media outlets and major political figures like President Barack Obama.
Movimiento 15, Spain: Leaderless is OK
Movimiento 15 (15M) was a non-violent, grassroots, anti-austerity and free culture movement that swept across Spain beginning in May 2011. The 15M demonstrations aspired to end the social consequences of anti-austerity measures such as housing evictions and to create more representative, participatory, and deliberative political and financial systems. Immediately after the initial demonstrations, thousands of people took over the main plazas of Spain’s major cities until the encampments were dismantled in June 2011. Estimates suggest that between 6.5 and 8 million people – collectively known as the Indignados (the Outraged) – participated in the movement in Spain. The movement spawned solidarity protests in numerous other cities.
The 15M demonstrations are notable for their highly decentralized but well organized structure of distributed action. Each plaza had its own committees, which were in charge of day-to-day activities; working groups, which drafted proposals related to certain themes; and assemblies, which voted on the proposals.
Additionally, consensus decision-making was utilized, as were rotating moderators and spokespeople to prevent the emergence of leaders. When it became clear that the encampments were going to be dismantled, calls were made to “toma los barrios” (“take the neighbourhoods”). As the movement decentralized even further, the neighbourhood assemblies addressed issues that were more salient for that particular barrio. Here, a decentralized structure of distributed action proved effective because those who were most familiar with a particular problem in a barrio were those most qualified to fix it.
Some assemblies set up online forums where citizens could register the date and time of their housing eviction so that local residents could physically block law enforcement officials from carrying out the eviction. Since 2011, nearly 1200 evictions have been stopped. This structure has played a pivotal role in the movement’s longevity.
Idle No More, Canada: Anticipate growth
An indigenous rights campaign started in the province of Saskatchewan, Idle No More was sparked in October 2012 by the Harper government’s introduction of budget omnibus Bill-C45. The bill contained changes to three pieces of legislation related to Canadian indigenous communities, which critics viewed not only as attacking indigenous rights, but also as epitomizing the Harper government’s disregard for consultation or cooperation with these communities.
According to the Idle No More website, the campaign has six current “calls for change;” however, the initial development of the campaign can be seen largely as a campaign against Bill C-45. Like Movimiento 15, Idle No More boasts a largely decentralized organizational structure because of the belief that no one person or group of people should exclusively operate the campaign. Despite the efforts of the campaign, Bill C-45 passed without any amendments.
Idle No More is a cautionary tale about the need for social campaigns to be prepared to scale rapidly. The amplificatory nature of digital tools allowed the campaign to grow very large very quickly, but it lacked the requisite online and offline structures to support this growth. As a result, the Idle No More brand has been co-opted by entirely separate organizations and individuals, creating legitimacy challenges for the organization. As digital strategist Mark Blevis explained in an interview, “without these structures, a campaign stands the risk of becoming like a bonfire stoked with gasoline. They will burn bright and strong for a short period of time, but without a proper underlying structure, they will not burn for long.”
Anti-SOPA/PIPA, United States: Target decision-makers
The campaign against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) was a series of coordinated online and offline protests targeting two proposed pieces of copyright legislation in the United States. Actors ranging from technology companies to concerned citizens took issue with the vague and open-ended nature of the legislation and its potential to restrict access to entirely legitimate content on the Internet.
Support for the protests and the general direction of the campaign developed almost exclusively through a grassroots process hosted online. Nevertheless, a number of civil society organizations such as Fight for the Future played a key role. Of the case studies examined, the anti-SOPA/PIPA campaign is one of the most successful. On January 18, 2012, the main sponsors of the legislation in the Senate and a number of congressmen withdrew their support, and both bills were subsequently removed from the legislative process.
One of the key takeaways from the anti-SOPA/PIPA campaign is the manner in which digital tools can be leveraged for influence mapping. According to Fight for the Future founder Holmes Wilson, one of the most effective tactics used by his organization involved identifying the key decision-makers related to SOPA/PIPA — primarily Senate representatives — and utilizing “click-to-call technology,” which allowed individuals to call their representatives by simply clicking a button of the computer. This tactic not only reduced the costs of participation, but also allowed people to directly contact the individuals with the power to effectuate the changes they desired.
Goal Definition and the Use of Online Petitions
(Read in French) One of the first steps in campaign creation, and one of the most critical, is goal definition. Having a strong, clear goal allows for participants to have a unifying message to rally behind and can direct all related actions in the same direction. It can help to ensure that all protests, slogans, letters, and actions done in the name of the campaign are working towards a common goal.
To achieve both impact and longevity, a campaign can use short-term goals that work towards reaching a long-term goal. This allows for participants to have something concrete to work towards, while having a larger aim as the backdrop.
China Labor Watch (CLW), a labor rights group with offices in the US and China, uses this strategy. CLW has the overarching goal of increasing transparency of supply chains and factory labor conditions and acting as advocates for workers’ rights in supporting the Chinese labor movement. They publish reports and assessments about the state of labor conditions in Chinese factories throughout the year, however, and create short-term campaigns that are intended to work towards their overall mission.
The art of balancing impact and longevity
In the summer of 2012, China Labor Watch launched investigations into Samsung’s factories and found evidence of child workers. They subsequently published a report that outlined the abuses uncovered, and began a campaign to bring attention to this issue. CLW used numerous methods to achieve this goal which included creating and disseminating a press release, approaching the company directly, sending out a message through their email list, and setting up a page on their website to introduce the issue. Therefore, when Li Qiang, the founder of CLW, set up a petition on Change.org called “Samsung: Stop Exploiting Child Laborers,” it was just one of the many avenues by which they were trying to spread their message and gain greater awareness on this issue (also read this article on the role of emotional mobilization).
The Change.org petition garnered 159,000+ signatories and the attention of Samsung. But this success
came with a catch. The petition format of a site like change.org obliged CLW to simplify its short-term goal, in this case “calling on Samsung to stop using child laborers at its Chinese employers.” Thus, they were focusing on a specific labor issue (underage workers), and a specific company (Samsung). This allowed supporters to feel there was a focused area whereby change could take place. Samsung responded in a manner that addressed the “ask” from the petition, however, circumvented the overarching goals of CLW.
As public pressure mounted against Samsung, they responded with a “zero tolerance” policy on child labor. “What that means is that if child labor is confirmed they could pull out all business from a factory,” noted Kevin Slaten the Program Coordinator at CLW in an interview, “and if that happens, as it did in the case of this factory, it would be suicide. It would absolutely devastate [the workers].” By pulling out of the factories, although child labor would be addressed, the jobs and livelihoods of numerous adult employees would end.
Having a simplified “ask” on the petition allowed for Samsung to respond to the demands of the petition while still not acting in accordance with CLW’s ultimate objectives. This was one case where short-term goals hindered the longer-term goals of a movement.
Goal definition, therefore, needs to be considered carefully in the early stages of a campaign and can be critical in reaching the envisioned outcomes. The use of digital tools can be largely helpful in growing the audience for a cause, and can allow for a goal to get more attention. However, one must be exceedingly careful in considering how to state a short-term goal to ensure that it works within the bigger picture in creating long-term change. Although CLW got more “ears to their cause” through the use of Change.org, a carefully defined goal could have harnessed the power of their petition to create more meaningful change.
Distributed Leadership as an Effective Organizational Structure: The case of Occupy Central
(Read in French) An important aspect that our qualitative research report generated was the need for longevity in campaigns whose ultimate goals will not be met in a matter of weeks or months, but rather years and may include a multitude of international actors. The campaigns that claimed some of the most amount of this long-term success were Movimiemento 15 and Occupy Central with Love and Peace (OCLP), later to become more publicized as the Umbrella movement. Both of these cases utilized decentralized or, more aptly, distributed leadership whose entire design encourages participation and is intended to view all participants as equal contributors. The decreased the costs of action and inspired longer term commitments.
Picture of ansel.ma, october 2014 (Flickr). Yellow umbrellas were symbols
of the Umbrella movement in Hong Kong.
In the case of OCLP, campaign founder Benny Tai Yiu-ting, a law professor at the University of Hong Kong, wanted this concept of participatory leadership to reflect the universal suffrage that they were demanding from the Hong Kong and subsequently Chinese governments to provide them with. Tai’s first step to achieve this was to actively try and find someone to take a central leadership other than himself because he felt that the campaign wouldn’t be as effective under a solitary figurehead. When no one would lead the charge, Tai and two others decided to fill the void and eventually met over an estimated 1,000 meetings with interested parties and stakeholders in the wider pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong. These meetings would discuss exactly what type of electoral reform to propose, such as full public nomination of all of the chief executives in Hong Kong, and essentially were able to crowd-source from leaders and engrain their involvements into the organization and goals of the entire campaign. OCLP then went on to hold a public referendum that drew almost 800,000 votes and identified the precise electoral process they want the government to enact. The online portion of this referendum was also subject to a sophisticated cyber attack with Chinese characteristics, which fellow researcher Nick Dagostino will touch on in an upcoming blog post on cybersecurity risks.
Throughout this year and a half process from spring of 2013 to the later summer of 2014, Tai and the other leaders were also acutely aware of the potential negative aspects of distributed leadership and were able to successfully mitigate against them. Due to the fact that OCLP had the stated intentions of civil disobedience at some point in their campaign timeline, Tai was very deliberate about explaining exactly what this means, the legal ramifications for protestors and utmost significance of peaceful protests. This was in part done through the publication of the Manual of Disobedience, which highlights the philosophies, legalities and protocols of civil disobedience. This resulted in a large percentage of peaceful campaign participants throughout the roughly 3-month occupation with only mild flashpoints of violence with typically nefarious actors intentionally starting skirmishes. This allowed the campaign leadership to have greater freedom in the actions and demands the Umbrella Movement could make because broad public support was there while the campaign remained peaceful.
Another benefit of this distributed organizational structure was that the OCLP campaign could remain flexible when shifts in spotlights occur, as they most definitely did in Hong Kong when two student groups in particular who had been involved in the wider discussion on democratic reform, soon became the face of the Umbrella Revolution. As the occupation began in late September 2014, Tai he said that he was not upset or felt that his movement had been co-opted because “it was clear that the [pro-democracy] foundation was strong” and that the “spirit” of the Umbrella Movement was very much a reflection of OCLP. Additionally, the student organizations were a driving force in the sheer number of occupiers throughout the Movement and in some ways integral to the ultimate success of the campaign. Both organizations were able to succeed in mobilizing and sustaining supporters due to the beneficial nature of distributed leadership.
This strong and encompassing foundation was only achieved through practicing distributed leadership structure intentionally from the very outset of the Occupy Central with Love and Peace campaign. Other campaigns in our study, such as Idle No More nationally, was more reactive to growth and unorganized in message; similar longevity and sustained public interest was not achieved. All OCLP campaign participants and organizers I spoke to were confident of the campaigns long-term ability to thrive, despite the decision of the Chinese government to postpone making a decisive statement on electoral reform until summer 2015.
Le Devoir: “Diplomacy is opening to new actors”
Following the publication of our qualitative research report, Thibaut Temmerman of the CÉRIUM gave an interview (in French) to Jean-Frédéric Légaré-Tremblay in the Quebequois newspaper Le Devoir, onhow diplomacy is gradually opening itself to new actors.
Direct diplomacy : an interactive blog
For the second year, a practicing diplomat and a young academic have begun an online exploration of the new phenomenon of digital diplomacy.
This research into the use of the internet by practitioners of diplomacy and newly-empowered individuals involving in global affairs is meant to be more than a review of practices, successes and risks in the emerging field. Our goal is to open a dialogue with our readers, to engage in the two-way communication that is the hallmark of Web 2.0.
We’d like to get your views, both those of you that are practitioners yourselves and those of you in the general public interested in the subject. We look forward to your participation.
With this goal in mind, we are now launching a new section of the blog for comments and suggestions. Over to you to continue our discussion!
Our capstone project on digital diplomacy
(Read in french, in spanish) Joining forces with the Direct Diplomacy project run out of the CÉRIUM this past year, six students from the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto have launched a Capstone project of their master’s program to explore how digital tools are allowing individuals to transform global affairs. To meet the six Munk students plus the one from the University of Montreal that are driving this effort please see: About us.
This project, led by Mr. Ben Rowswell, Canada’s Ambassador to Venezuela and fellow CÉRIUM aims to study online campaigns conducted by various actors of the civil society to achieve their mandates. The purpose of this research is to produce an analysis on the tools used for this purpose, to measure their impact, successes and problems or deficiencies encountered. In all, a dozen representative cases were selected, including the online activism site Avaaz and its petitions on the situation in Syria, or the campaign Principle 6 (upholding of the Olympic principle of inclusion, particularly in the context of the Olympic Games held in Sochi and Russian legislation against LGBT people).
In the coming weeks, we will gradually issue the first results of our research on this blog and notable features of some of the cases studied. Ultimately, we plan to publish video clips of interviews with some of those interviewed, and a practical guide for initiators of citizen-based campaigns.
Until then, we hope to gather your feedback on the project as well as your professional and personal experiences, which will allow us to fuel our thinking.
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