What exactly are people power and collective nonviolent action? Without understanding the dynamics of these related elements of bottom-up change, we cannot effectively engage, empower and mobilise our fellow citizens, support and protect integrity champions, channel public outrage to productive nonviolent action, and maximize our use of on-the-ground and online tools, as well as other new technologies.
We propose an interactive session using the fishbowl format and group exercises - in order to stimulate a peer-to-peer exchange of experiences, knowledge, and information. We will:
- Examine how people power works when applied to fighting impunity and corruption and the role of power dynamics in achieving social justice.
- Discuss the critical role of strategy to design effective monitoring tactics that can disrupt the corrupt status quo, and create opportunities for engagement with powerholders.
- Highlight successful “people power essentials”, including nonviolent discipline, the many dimensions of unity, and the “three intangibles” - collective responsibility, collective identity and legitimacy.
- Review a people power checklist for effective citizen mobilization and action.
- Apply these concepts and essentials to participants’ own experiences or to a new civic initiative they want to develop.
We will facilitate two group exercises that illuminate people power dynamics. Participants will be given a newly-published educational curriculum: “Freedom from Corruption: People Power to Undermine Impunity and Gain Social Justice.”
There can be no effective solutions or strategies regarding people-integrity-action without an understanding of the dynamics of bottom-up pressure on powerholders and corruptors, the necessity for strategy, and the interplay of power shifts in order to produce changes in policy, practices and norms for accountability and integrity. This session will produce a checklist for effective citizen mobilization and action to undermine impunity – that is both strategic and practical
People power wielded by mobilised citizens in civic initiatives has been documented to disrupt and affect behavior in many cases. However, this requires power analysis, strategy, tactical creativity and diversity of actions, collective citizen responsibility to address the injustice and ownership of the civic initiative, and legitimacy. The session will apply the conceptual elements, and practical insights, and strategic analytical tools from the people power realm to curbing corruption and undermining impunity based on actual anti-corruption civic initiatives.
Monitoring consists of a set of nonviolent actions in which mobilized citizens are the main protagonists. Regular people have the potential to wield extra-institutional pressure on powerholders and uncover corruption, which makes it more difficult for corruptors to operate with impunity.
