In the book All In, in the articles in this website and in life, we repeatedly use the word “strategy”, without properly defining it. In this small note, we want to bring in some clarity to vocabulary. Our goal is not to prescribe meanings to words but rather clarify how we have been using specific words.
Very briefly: Strategy is a consciously built sequence of diverse tactics that would take us to our goal.
The word derives from Greek military terminology. But the broad definition above could apply to anything from politics to social movements, from family relationships to any department of any organization. And it does. Hence the confusion.
Any coherent series of activities would be a strategy.
- In the case of a family problem, you may want to consult with your aunt first, before talking with your parents. Or you may want to ask your aunt to talk with your parents. In all these cases, the point is that a certain message is transmitted between yourself and your parents. However, you would be implementing a sequence of tactics that you might find more effective.
- An association might decide to hold a series of presentations in different peripheral neighborhoods of a big city. As stand-alone activities, they might have the purpose of bringing into public discussion a specific topic. However, as combined series of activities, they might have the strategic goal of building a cross-neighborhood campaign.
- A communication department in an organization might decide to target specific audiences. This might imply publishing specific social media posts (tailored for that audience) at specific hours (when the audience is watching).
- An organization might agree on a strategic alignment of moving away from a campaign to another one. This would require orchestrated changes in communications, internal structures, and recruitment efforts.
In All In, strategy appears in three more places in more specific contexts.
1) In Eric O. Wright’s Envisioning Real Utopias, three “models of transformation” are presented: (1) ruptural, (2) interstitial metamorphosis / outside-the-system, and (3) symbiotic metamorphosis / inside-the-system .
One could call these theories of change for large-scale societal transformation. We have also seen them called “transformative strategies” (for instance, in the Movement Learning Catalyst Learner’s Guide).
2) Within revolutionary movements, there are different approaches to why a revolution would be successful. These different approaches could be classified into three large “grand strategies“: (1) spontaneous uprising, (2) mass agitation, and (3) ideological mobilization.
The movement power is a function of participation (how many people are in the movement) and organization (how organized are the movement participants). A movement would choose a grand strategy depending on how much emphasis it might give to these two variables.
3) Finally, we talk about “movement-level strategy“. With this, we mean different organizations fulfilling different functions coming together to identify their strengths and weaknesses, analyze risks and opportunities, and coordinate their forces accordingly.
At the movement level an entire campaign would be part of a strategy, even though it would have its own strategy and its resulting sub-strategies (communication strategy, recruitment strategy, etc.). One organization might be focusing on building mass support while another may be training activists, while yet another might be creating internal conflict among the ruling class. In many cases groups are already doing these things, but without coordination and without a common agenda. So, we refer to movement-level strategy when all these activities are taking place to achieve a specific movement-level goal, as parts of an overarching strategy beyond each organization’s domain and scope.
