Learning from Stop the Pipeline campaign

The Stop the Keystone pipeline campaign is one that may have passed many in the UK by but in the US its resulted in a huge victory for environmental campaigners. In brief, the campaign was looking to halt the construction of a pipeline that would transport tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada across the Midwest [...]

What are the OccupyLondon protests teaching us?

Now in its fourth week, the OccupyLondon protests outside of St Paul’s Cathedral have been able to keep their cause in the media for such a sustained period of time, something many other campaigns fail to do. While this was certainly helped by the mess that the Church of England made over it decision to close [...]

What we can learn from the Robin Hood Tax campaign

The Robin Hood Tax campaign has used a range of new and innovative tactics that other campaign coalitions could learn from.  I suspect that you’ll be hearing a lot about the Robin Hood Tax in the coming week. The campaign has a great opportunity to succeed when G20 leaders meeting in France at the start [...]

What makes a successful demonstration?

Ensuring you are clear about your objectives is vital if you plan to organise a successful public mobilisation event. A late night drive back from Manchester after being involved in ‘Bearing Witness‘, a mobilisation which saw 1000+ supporters of Tearfund, Christian Aid and CAFOD march through the streets of the city ahead of the Conservative [...]

Review: Counterpower by Tim Gee

This book will make a bold claim: that a single idea helps to explain why social movements past and present have succeeded, partially succeeded, or failed. So begins, Tim Gee’s new book Counterpower, released last week which asks the question. Why do some movements bring about transformational change while others fail? It’s a question that [...]