§0. As we strategize in social movements, one issue that comes up as part of our frustration with the response of decision-makers (be them politicians, the general public, or an organization that we are part of and want to change) is that of trying out new, perhaps spicier things. Leaving the tried-out tactics, some folks suggest “escalation”. The word is generally loaded with negative connotations, as something we want to avoid. There is, however, a simpler definition of what conflict escalation might mean:
You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.
Here, Martin Luther King Jr. refers to conflict escalation as a series of activities to bring into surface (“escalate”) an existing conflict in society. Only when a conflict is visible can it be resolved. Structural conflicts would by definition be implicit, assumed, and perhaps not even recognized by the general public. In those cases, we would need to do a lot of escalation work.
With this definition, the point of escalation is not to create conflict but rather to resolve it.
§1. Escalation is very much connected to our “theory of change” (our set of beliefs about how we expect change to happen). Our theory of change in turn depends on the size of the problem at hand and the flexibility of the status quo, and our analysis of those.
We identify four poles of theories of change for social movements: 1) Reason. 2) Representativeness. 3) Empowerment. 4) Disruption.
Reason is the theory of change when there is almost no conflict of interest. Sharing knowledge and appealing to rational arguments would bring about change through negotiation.
Representativeness is the theory of change when the people who are affected by change are themselves the agents of change. If you persuade them (rationally or emotionally (or by manipulation)) by raising awareness, then change would follow; because you believe that society represents people’s opinions.
Empowerment is the theory of change when there are two unequal poles of power. If you organize the less powerful pole, you would make the powerful yield to your demands.
Disruption is the theory of change when there is a strong conflict of interest or when the status quo does not have flexibility. In this case, you would mobilize to force them to compromise.
§2. We can use these four main theories of change as four centers of grativy. The two axes would be (1) whether we expect to confront or convince the decision-makers and (2) whether we expect to reform the status quo to facilitate change or take action against it.
Mobilization and Organization would confront the decision-makers, whereas Awareness Raising and Negotiation would aim at persuasion. Mobilization and Awareness Raising would go against the status quo, whereas Organization and Negotiation would change its shape.
§3. We do actions and activities based on these theories of change. The activity itself may be corresponding to a specific center of gravity, but its underlying theory of change might be something else.
For instance,
- a flash-mob is a mobilization, but it aims at raising awareness,
- an open letter to decision makers published in a journal is raising awareness, but its final goal is to reason with decision makers,
- Extinction Rebellion famously used the recruitment pipeline of talks (which raise awareness) aimed at recruiting people to trainings (therefore organizing them) to then take disruptive direct action.
§4. Organizations and campaigns can be situated in this configuration. However, organizations are not just “dots” but rather “weighted shapes” depending on how much they rely on which theory of change.
For instance,
- traditional trade unionism relies on a balanced mix of mobilization and organization,
- large NGOs are using some awareness raising and some membership leverage, with the final aim of negotiating with powerholders,
- small affinity grops are doing disruptive actions without any explicit aim of organizing others into their group nor to have a communication strategy for the general public.
§5. Now let’s look at how conflict escalation operates in this framework of theories of change.
Step 0: The zeroeth step of any escalation is that some change would be necessary.
Step 1: The first step then is that the status quo fails to implement the necessary change.
This level of conflict can be found anywhere in our lives, from personal relationships to groups of friends, from our organizations to societal level decisions.
Step 2: At this point, someone starts pointing out to the problem. This would be the basic Awareness Raising activity.
If there is no structural conflict of any kind and if the scope of the problem is small, the issue can be resolved at this step. Maybe there was no more olive oil in your house and you texted your friend who is arriving home to buy some on their way. Maybe your roommate forgot to wash the dishes and with a simple reminder they would take care of it.
Step 3: Once there is enough awareness in the community, then they would start forming small groups (the embryonic stage of Organization).
Step 4: These small groups may be informal and organic, without any structures at all. Even so, they will bring the topic into public agenda.
It is then possible that the problem is resolved.
For instance, when my father needed blood in the hospital, we contacted all our friends who then contacted their own networks, and in a few hours a donor was found.
Any kind of “unnoticed” problem fits into this category: the street lamps in my street were not working; after receiving several requests from the neighbors, the city council repaired them. Conflict was escalated (Many of us complained in written and by phone.) and it was resolved.
If the issue is not resolved, then
Step 5: the “movement” starts organizing interest groups.
As they do so, they can harvest the awareness embedded in their communities and bring people together. Petitions are sometimes used for the simple purpose of gathering contact information of many people in one place.
Interest groups may be able to negotiate change. For instance, a mayor may be available to make concessions to their constituency during an electoral campaign, in order to avoid a bad image.
It is also possible that an empowered group simply outpowers another person: if your roommate would not wash the dishes despite reminders and warnings, you may call for a meeting with all your roommates and tell the person that it’s not okay that they ignore their responsibility. I’ve seen this work many times (even though technically it’s just another reminder).
Step 6: When negotiation is not possible, then the movement starts mobilizing to hold demonstrations.
At this point, there are probably different small groups and perhaps some existing large groups are also showing interest. What is sometimes called “networking” activities start happening, where people in different parts of society start coming together.
For instance, when tuitions rise, classmates start talking, then they start talking to students from other departments; as they form small groups, they reach out to other universities; and in a matter of weeks you end up with a “student movement”.
In many issues and in many parts of the world, at this stage the status quo makes a compromise. They negotiate with the movement (or they pretend negotiating) and they suggest a “solution” which parts of the movement find reasonable. (It is also possible and common for the status quo to simply agree with the demands as they are.)
Step 7: If the status quo fails to respond, then the movement starts organizing to challenge the status quo. These can take the shape of large campaigns and alliances, and they would gradually lead to
Step 8: the movement starting to mobilize in order to disrupt.
Probably the word “escalation” starts appearing only at the last two steps, although this entire process from Step 0 to Step 8 should be considered escalation.
§6. These stage of escalation are natural for all emerging movement. They are not normative, they are just the natural evolution of a movement.
This is not to say that all movements pass through all stages: it is possible that people get tired, it is possible that repression strangles the movement in a very early stage, it is possible for the dominant elements in the movement to have a theory of change that doesn’t allow them to escalate, and so on…
The stages also don’t mean that any movement that reaches Step 8 automatically wins. These schematic steps are just for us to make sense of the evolution of our movement.
§7. Now combining the theories of change with the stage of escalation, we can the following flow of escalation (and it might also look like a radicalization pipeline).
This flow of escalation works only as a flow: as more people are persuaded, more of those are organized into the movement; as more organized the movement gets, the more mobilization capacity it has; more mobilization capacity in turn gives it more disruptive capability.
§8. The flow tells two apparently contradictory things.
On the one hand, for escalation to work, the movement should invest in all four centers of gravity. If the flow stops, then the movement slowly faded away and its activists might feel isolated and/or abandoned.
On the other hand, the activities in any center of gravity are only meaningful if they are contributing to escalation. If the movement reiterates same kind of activities without a perspective of escalation, it can enter into a strategy slippage.
§9. Conflict escalation is an essential part of powerful movements and a movement-level approach is crucial to distribute different tasks and capabilities to different movement actors in order to differentiate the roles of each organization within the movement.
