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Activism

Organizing vs. Mobilizing

Bookmarked Labor organizer Jane McAlevey on The Ezra Klein Show by Ezra Klein (Vox)

The organizer, scholar, and writer gives a master class in political organizing.

Mobilizing is essentially doing a very good job at getting people off the couch who largely already agree with you. In the mobilizing model, you may be involving people in very large numbers, but the limitation of the mobilizing approach is that you’re only talking to people who agree with you already.

Organizing, which I put the highest value on, is the process by which people come to change their opinions and change their views. Organizing is what I call “base expansion,” meaning it’s expanding either the political or the societal basis from which you can then later mobilize.

By Tracy Durnell

Writer and designer in the Seattle area. Freelance sustainability consultant. Reach me at tracy.durnell@gmail.com. She/her.

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