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Political Action: A Practical Guide to Movement Politics
Political theorist Michael Walzer's classic guide is a perfect introduction to social activism, including what-to-do advice for deciding which issues to take on, organizing, fundraising, and providing effective leadership
Political Action is a how-to book for activists that was written at one of the darkest moments of the Nixon administration and remains no less timely and intelligent and useful today. Michael Walzer draws on his extensive engagement in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s to lay out the practical steps necessary to keep movement politics alive both in victory and in defeat. What do people need to do when out of outrage or fear of looming disaster they come together to demand change? Should they focus on one or several issues? Should they form coalitions? What can and can’t be accomplished through electoral politics? How can movements operate democratically? What is effective leadership? Walzer addresses such questions with clarity, concision, wisdom, and wit in a book that everywhere insists not only on the centrality of movement politics to the health of democratic societies but on the deep satisfaction that is to be found there. Political Action is both an indispensable resource for activists and a lasting and inspiring summons to arms.
Political Action is a how-to book for activists that was written at one of the darkest moments of the Nixon administration and remains no less timely and intelligent and useful today. Michael Walzer draws on his extensive engagement in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s to lay out the practical steps necessary to keep movement politics alive both in victory and in defeat. What do people need to do when out of outrage or fear of looming disaster they come together to demand change? Should they focus on one or several issues? Should they form coalitions? What can and can’t be accomplished through electoral politics? How can movements operate democratically? What is effective leadership? Walzer addresses such questions with clarity, concision, wisdom, and wit in a book that everywhere insists not only on the centrality of movement politics to the health of democratic societies but on the deep satisfaction that is to be found there. Political Action is both an indispensable resource for activists and a lasting and inspiring summons to arms.
121 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1971
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About the author
Michael Walzer
115 books153 followersMichael Walzer is a Jewish American political philosopher and public intellectual. A professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, he is editor of the political-intellectual quarterly Dissent. He has written books and essays on a wide range of topics, including just and unjust wars, nationalism, ethnicity, economic justice, social criticism, radicalism, tolerance, and political obligation and is a contributing editor to The New Republic. To date, he has written 27 books and published over 300 articles, essays, and book reviews in Dissent, The New Republic, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and many scholarly journals
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February 18, 2025on the third chapter in, walzer makes the statement that there are only two viable ways to influence politics as a citizen activist -- pressure politics and electoral politics. once pressure politics stop working, "electoral politics are the necessary next step." no wonder the new york review thought this would be an interesting book to reprint. its entire framework is neutered.
the rest of the book is cookie-cutter bullshit that you could have gotten from any broadly left-wing youtuber or even an HR person talking about equity in their office.
unsurprised to look up the author and learn that he's a "left" wing zionist. with leftists like these, who needs fascists?
the rest of the book is cookie-cutter bullshit that you could have gotten from any broadly left-wing youtuber or even an HR person talking about equity in their office.
unsurprised to look up the author and learn that he's a "left" wing zionist. with leftists like these, who needs fascists?
March 10, 2024
Excited to use this book as part of Project Term this year. Here are my notes .
Political Action: A Practical Guide to Movement Politics by Michael Walzer
We will reflect on Goal 3: A social awareness that impels to action
We will consider how much , if any, of the contemplated action should be political, using Walzer’s classic 1971 guide
P.5 … the democratic system offers a standing invitation to the rest of us to enlist in political life, an invitation to commitment and participation.
P.6 Every man has his own sense of crisis and outrage… Would-be activists must have some sense of their future constituency; they must know that so many people will support the strike, attend the mass meeting, join the march, before they put themselves forward and call for action.
P.7 We become political men when we act for public and not private reasons, or at least for public in addition to private reasons, and when we imagine our effects in terms of other people as well as ourselves.
P.16 New political movements generally take shape around a single issue– a wrong being done to the people who join or to some other group with whom they have political connections or moral sympathies.
P.18 Political activity anywhere in a society obviously produces adjustments, not necessarily transformations, everywhere. But the character and extent of these are almost impossible to predict. We make guesses and are usually wrong.
P.19 Generally, movements seeking to respond to injuries or injustices endured by particular groups of people plausibly direct themselves to those same groups. But sometimes such groups are thought to be incapable of defending themselves; someone must act on their behalf. And sometimes a movement is aimed at a policy thought to be unjust or immoral, but which is not injurious, or not obviously injurious, to any group of possible political actors.
P.23 When working among the poor, there is one thing that must never be forgotten: they have more immediate and pressing concerns than those of the movement. The worst kind of middle-class bias is the assumption that everyone else has, or ought to have, leisure, disinterest, and a passion for distant gods. In fact, for many pele, a cause, even their own cause, is a luxury they can only occasionally afford.
P.25 With all the good will in the world, cooperation is not easy, and in practice one must make do with considerably less good will than that. The crucial problem is that the different organizations compete with one another. They find themselves fighting for a limited supply of members, money, media coverage, and so on. To some extent, the single issue movement can reduce the intensity of these fights and save itself a lot of trouble if it sticks to its own issue, promising in effect, to go away once the cause has been won.
P.29 Young activists can occasionally choose the communities where they want to work, but most citizens simply are where they are.
P.32 The most common organizational structure is that of the front group. Here power is firmly held by a central staff or by the group of men (sometimes a party or sect) that outs the staff together and pays its members.
P.33 Pressure politics is often organized on the model of the front group: the massive civil rights ad anti-war demonstrations of the 1960’s were essentially staff operations. In such cases, members of the central staff represent the interests or values of the participants to the rest of the world. They petition public officials, lobby in Congress, appeal to the country through the mass media, plan and publicize the march or rally itself.
P.34 The front group is not an instrument for sustained popular mobilization. Its staff can collect large numbers of signatures or even turn out thousands of people for an occasional demonstration or an election canvass. But ongoing activity requires a structure within which significant powers rest, at least formally, with the mass of activists.
P.38 A surprisingly large number of people do not want political power. They have no eagerness for command, no thrusting willfulness. They want to do the right thing; they also want someone to tell them what the right thing is.
P.46 In citizen politics, women play a much larger part… The subordination of women, especially older women, in the new party or movement is only one more example of their position in the old society.
P.51 One of the problems of citizen politics is that most new activists come to meetings not knowing what they want to accomplice before they leave.
P.55 It is a mistake to join the movement in search of love. Intimacy is neither a necessary nor a common feature of political life… Political association is the art of keeping one’s distance: too close is a danger and a distraction; too far is a loss of control and influence.
P.57 Solidarity is a political tie, subject to political strains. It may not outlast the first serious argument over strategy and tactics. The movement itself is an arena of conflict and antagonism. Commitment and camaraderie most often mute the everyday disagreements.
P.58 Marginal politics attracts marginal people who are ill at ease, resentful, graceless, unhappy, or frightened in the everyday world. They experience the perversions of common sense, perhaps in a profound way; foolishness, so to speak, is thrust upon them. The movement liberates them, or leads them to think that they are liberated , and so it becomes an arena within which their repressed discontents are acted out, their secret nostrums revealed, often in naive and extravagant ways.
P.59 So long as the outrage of the activists is not hysterical or their appearance outlandish, the combination of gaucherie and righteousness makes a powerful political force. There is a strong popular presumption in favor of the inexperience of a moral man and also of the morality of the inexperienced man
P.61 [telling the truth] Two questions are crucial: How complex (or simple) should political arguments be? How straightforward (or evasive) should political speakers and writers be?
P.64 Most citizens will take their first step beyond the conventions only if they think they have an option (as in fact they generally do) about the second step. So the discontent out of which the movement grows needs to be pointed and made precise, and proposed actions need to be described in concrete and limited terms.
P.69 There are, however, two dangers to the movement in the media’s bias toward novelty and excitement .The first is the danger of rhetorical and tactical escalation in the search of publicity. If this activity doesn’t attract enough attention, then perhaps this one will, or this one… The inevitable progress is from orderly demonstrations and more or less rational speeches to window-breaking, obscenity, and melodramatic calls for revolution. Steadily over time the ante is raised, wilder things are said, greater risks accepted.
P.70 The second danger is the overexposure of movement leaders and spokesmen. One of the ways the media produce excitement is by focusing on personality. If no leader has clearly emerged, or if leadership is shared within a movement, the most colorful figure will be sought out and designated Prince.
P.73 Canvassing should aim at nothing more than making people aware of the movement and its issue, finding those who are already in agreement , and opening up the others to future persuasion. No one is likely to be turned around in an hour or a day, and to try to turn people around so quickly only suggests the arrogance of the committed.
P.80 Activist citizens rarely if ever confront a single opponent, a unified hierarchy of professional politicians and bureaucrats, or an all-powerful Establishment….
Instead of presuming enmity, on the basis of this or that ideological vision, activists must always be on the lookout for secret allies.
P.81 No one should be called an enemy until he has earned the title. Movement leaders, of course, must calculate their chances of winning support here or there in society as realistically as they can.
Even if it does not seek out enemies, however, a movement may find itself fundamentally at odds with conventional moral or political standards, or with established social interest. Then it is forced to make the best of its embattled state, and since its every action is an affront or a threat to large numbers of men and women, the available options are limited.
P.84 People are not favorably influenced by being assaulted. Doubtless they can be forced to act in some new or different way, and if politics comes to that (to war and revolution), then one wants one’s assaults to be massive.
P.89 It is best to win. It is also best to appear to be winning, and since the movement is involved in an ongoing series of activities, it is usually possible to plan for a series of successes.
P.90 Major defeats are often caused by reaching too soon for major victories. But judgments about timing are among the most difficult of political choices.
P.93 In the United States today, a society whose government and economy have been progressively removed from the effective control of its citizens, or whose citizens feel themselves to be powerless and disorganized, suddenly faces a series of revolts. These are spurred by real injustices, but are not necessarily dependent on injustice for their energy and force. Very often the revolts don’t have an obvious terminating point or a clear political character. Reflecting as much the general crisis as the concrete necessities of any particular cause, citizen politics has taken on the most inchoate forms, failing to achieve either national leadership or collective discipline, generating a kind of random militancy.
Political Action: A Practical Guide to Movement Politics by Michael Walzer
We will reflect on Goal 3: A social awareness that impels to action
We will consider how much , if any, of the contemplated action should be political, using Walzer’s classic 1971 guide
P.5 … the democratic system offers a standing invitation to the rest of us to enlist in political life, an invitation to commitment and participation.
P.6 Every man has his own sense of crisis and outrage… Would-be activists must have some sense of their future constituency; they must know that so many people will support the strike, attend the mass meeting, join the march, before they put themselves forward and call for action.
P.7 We become political men when we act for public and not private reasons, or at least for public in addition to private reasons, and when we imagine our effects in terms of other people as well as ourselves.
P.16 New political movements generally take shape around a single issue– a wrong being done to the people who join or to some other group with whom they have political connections or moral sympathies.
P.18 Political activity anywhere in a society obviously produces adjustments, not necessarily transformations, everywhere. But the character and extent of these are almost impossible to predict. We make guesses and are usually wrong.
P.19 Generally, movements seeking to respond to injuries or injustices endured by particular groups of people plausibly direct themselves to those same groups. But sometimes such groups are thought to be incapable of defending themselves; someone must act on their behalf. And sometimes a movement is aimed at a policy thought to be unjust or immoral, but which is not injurious, or not obviously injurious, to any group of possible political actors.
P.23 When working among the poor, there is one thing that must never be forgotten: they have more immediate and pressing concerns than those of the movement. The worst kind of middle-class bias is the assumption that everyone else has, or ought to have, leisure, disinterest, and a passion for distant gods. In fact, for many pele, a cause, even their own cause, is a luxury they can only occasionally afford.
P.25 With all the good will in the world, cooperation is not easy, and in practice one must make do with considerably less good will than that. The crucial problem is that the different organizations compete with one another. They find themselves fighting for a limited supply of members, money, media coverage, and so on. To some extent, the single issue movement can reduce the intensity of these fights and save itself a lot of trouble if it sticks to its own issue, promising in effect, to go away once the cause has been won.
P.29 Young activists can occasionally choose the communities where they want to work, but most citizens simply are where they are.
P.32 The most common organizational structure is that of the front group. Here power is firmly held by a central staff or by the group of men (sometimes a party or sect) that outs the staff together and pays its members.
P.33 Pressure politics is often organized on the model of the front group: the massive civil rights ad anti-war demonstrations of the 1960’s were essentially staff operations. In such cases, members of the central staff represent the interests or values of the participants to the rest of the world. They petition public officials, lobby in Congress, appeal to the country through the mass media, plan and publicize the march or rally itself.
P.34 The front group is not an instrument for sustained popular mobilization. Its staff can collect large numbers of signatures or even turn out thousands of people for an occasional demonstration or an election canvass. But ongoing activity requires a structure within which significant powers rest, at least formally, with the mass of activists.
P.38 A surprisingly large number of people do not want political power. They have no eagerness for command, no thrusting willfulness. They want to do the right thing; they also want someone to tell them what the right thing is.
P.46 In citizen politics, women play a much larger part… The subordination of women, especially older women, in the new party or movement is only one more example of their position in the old society.
P.51 One of the problems of citizen politics is that most new activists come to meetings not knowing what they want to accomplice before they leave.
P.55 It is a mistake to join the movement in search of love. Intimacy is neither a necessary nor a common feature of political life… Political association is the art of keeping one’s distance: too close is a danger and a distraction; too far is a loss of control and influence.
P.57 Solidarity is a political tie, subject to political strains. It may not outlast the first serious argument over strategy and tactics. The movement itself is an arena of conflict and antagonism. Commitment and camaraderie most often mute the everyday disagreements.
P.58 Marginal politics attracts marginal people who are ill at ease, resentful, graceless, unhappy, or frightened in the everyday world. They experience the perversions of common sense, perhaps in a profound way; foolishness, so to speak, is thrust upon them. The movement liberates them, or leads them to think that they are liberated , and so it becomes an arena within which their repressed discontents are acted out, their secret nostrums revealed, often in naive and extravagant ways.
P.59 So long as the outrage of the activists is not hysterical or their appearance outlandish, the combination of gaucherie and righteousness makes a powerful political force. There is a strong popular presumption in favor of the inexperience of a moral man and also of the morality of the inexperienced man
P.61 [telling the truth] Two questions are crucial: How complex (or simple) should political arguments be? How straightforward (or evasive) should political speakers and writers be?
P.64 Most citizens will take their first step beyond the conventions only if they think they have an option (as in fact they generally do) about the second step. So the discontent out of which the movement grows needs to be pointed and made precise, and proposed actions need to be described in concrete and limited terms.
P.69 There are, however, two dangers to the movement in the media’s bias toward novelty and excitement .The first is the danger of rhetorical and tactical escalation in the search of publicity. If this activity doesn’t attract enough attention, then perhaps this one will, or this one… The inevitable progress is from orderly demonstrations and more or less rational speeches to window-breaking, obscenity, and melodramatic calls for revolution. Steadily over time the ante is raised, wilder things are said, greater risks accepted.
P.70 The second danger is the overexposure of movement leaders and spokesmen. One of the ways the media produce excitement is by focusing on personality. If no leader has clearly emerged, or if leadership is shared within a movement, the most colorful figure will be sought out and designated Prince.
P.73 Canvassing should aim at nothing more than making people aware of the movement and its issue, finding those who are already in agreement , and opening up the others to future persuasion. No one is likely to be turned around in an hour or a day, and to try to turn people around so quickly only suggests the arrogance of the committed.
P.80 Activist citizens rarely if ever confront a single opponent, a unified hierarchy of professional politicians and bureaucrats, or an all-powerful Establishment….
Instead of presuming enmity, on the basis of this or that ideological vision, activists must always be on the lookout for secret allies.
P.81 No one should be called an enemy until he has earned the title. Movement leaders, of course, must calculate their chances of winning support here or there in society as realistically as they can.
Even if it does not seek out enemies, however, a movement may find itself fundamentally at odds with conventional moral or political standards, or with established social interest. Then it is forced to make the best of its embattled state, and since its every action is an affront or a threat to large numbers of men and women, the available options are limited.
P.84 People are not favorably influenced by being assaulted. Doubtless they can be forced to act in some new or different way, and if politics comes to that (to war and revolution), then one wants one’s assaults to be massive.
P.89 It is best to win. It is also best to appear to be winning, and since the movement is involved in an ongoing series of activities, it is usually possible to plan for a series of successes.
P.90 Major defeats are often caused by reaching too soon for major victories. But judgments about timing are among the most difficult of political choices.
P.93 In the United States today, a society whose government and economy have been progressively removed from the effective control of its citizens, or whose citizens feel themselves to be powerless and disorganized, suddenly faces a series of revolts. These are spurred by real injustices, but are not necessarily dependent on injustice for their energy and force. Very often the revolts don’t have an obvious terminating point or a clear political character. Reflecting as much the general crisis as the concrete necessities of any particular cause, citizen politics has taken on the most inchoate forms, failing to achieve either national leadership or collective discipline, generating a kind of random militancy.
March 23, 2019
Doggedly centrist and pragmatic, "Political Action" is the "Curb Your Enthusiasm" of political activism. More sobering than rousing, the book focuses on forming and maintaining single-issue groups, alliances, and coalitions. By focusing on a single issue, Walzer argues, blocs can be formed by people who agree at least on one point and agree to work together to achieve a goal regarding that one point. The more issues a group takes on, Walzer points out, the more like a political party it becomes and thus the more compromises it must make among its membership. The major parties want their members to agree to *all* vote a certain way, even on issues individual members disagree with. Independents want to choose candidates according to the specific issues that matter to them rather than endorse entire platforms.
Although Walzer's book is a product of center-left politics, nothing about the strategies he proposes seems limited to party or ideological affiliation (assuming the affiliation has recourse to rational thought). The book is really about how to campaign for a single issue that matters a lot to you, your friends, and your family.
Although Walzer's book is a product of center-left politics, nothing about the strategies he proposes seems limited to party or ideological affiliation (assuming the affiliation has recourse to rational thought). The book is really about how to campaign for a single issue that matters a lot to you, your friends, and your family.
March 19, 2021
Nice short book about how to organize and get political results. I did not find it that good and full of great advice, but it is not totally useless. There are some actual ideas, some outdated as far as I remeber. There is an introduction by Eugene McCarthy, who run many times for USA President but never won. I think this book was written in the context of Vietnam War protests and after the Student Riots of '68, that is why I do not feel it that actual. But nice reading though.
July 15, 2023
Me'l vaig baixar amb l'últim perquè era curtet i tenia curiositat. Per sort era curtet. Alguna cosa interessant (hi ha un apartat sobre sectarisme polític que és especialment lúcid). La resta, consells per un activisme polític bastant relaxadet, pragmàtic i poc molest –és estatunidenc així que multipliqueu-ho per 100. De totes maneres és prou entretingut, reflexions bones que aterren regular. 3.5.
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February 7, 2022A short, concise overview of political movements. How to set up, join, and push a movement. It's kept very vague, only going into examples and details when it needs to. A lovely starter guide for any budding organizer or activist.
December 11, 2021
I wish I had heard of this book when I was a student activist. It is essential reading for anyone interested in organizing for social change, and it's very quotable.
May 28, 2023
Vital reading
March 2, 2024
3.5 stars rounded up. I liked the middle chapters about the activities of political movements the most.
February 21, 2020
Impulse selection from the New Books section at the library. A very short, condensed work that does what it set out to do and no more -- give action groups very practical advice on how to run a successful political campaign. None of the advice here is really surprising, at least to me, but it is hard-won information that could be invaluable to those new and on fire for activism. The advice on when to and not to collaborate with other groups seemed like the most potentially helpful -- from what other groups could add, are actually likely to add, and the potential pitfalls.
I hope there are lots of specific action groups springing up around the country who could make good use of this book -- as for me, I tend to gravitate more toward long campaign and get-out-the-vote organizations, so I'm not sure how much I'll be able to use myself.
I hope there are lots of specific action groups springing up around the country who could make good use of this book -- as for me, I tend to gravitate more toward long campaign and get-out-the-vote organizations, so I'm not sure how much I'll be able to use myself.
April 10, 2021
This book is very short and completely insightful. Provides such accurate account and detailed perspective of the current and idealistically favorable ideas for political action movement attempts, and developments for an organizational group.
This book helps create a reassurance in stead fasting, and in head starting a person's passion to start an organizational group in the modern current time.
This book is a must read if the person is someone that is thinking or contemplating on becoming more involved in political action activism.
The Book is a little heavy with the sentiment, but it’s manageable. Also, the author provides a unique reading experience, but nonetheless, the book is great and a quick read.
Suggestion: First step to political action that will prepare a person on their journey, personally perceived, other than reading this book… is to read another book.
This book helps create a reassurance in stead fasting, and in head starting a person's passion to start an organizational group in the modern current time.
This book is a must read if the person is someone that is thinking or contemplating on becoming more involved in political action activism.
The Book is a little heavy with the sentiment, but it’s manageable. Also, the author provides a unique reading experience, but nonetheless, the book is great and a quick read.
Suggestion: First step to political action that will prepare a person on their journey, personally perceived, other than reading this book… is to read another book.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews