A New Weave of Power, People and Politics: The Action Guide for Advocacy and Citizen Participation

by Lisa VeneKlasen (Editor), Valerie Miller (Editor)

This field manual provides a well-tested approach for promoting citizen participation. It breaks down the traditional boxes separating human rights, rule of law, development, and governance, and reconnects them in order to create an integrated approach to rights-based political empowerment. A New Weave of Power, People & Politics combines concrete and practical 'action steps' with a sound theoretical foundation to help users understand the process of advocacy planning and implementation. This is an 'Action Guide' that builds on the authors' 50 years of combined experience in advocacy, gender, human rights, popular education, and social change. These collective experiences were gathered in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, Europe, the former Soviet Union, and North America, and they range from participatory research and community development, to neighbourhood organizing and legal rights education, to large-scale campaign advocacy. It goes beyond the first generation of advocacy manuals to delve more deeply into questions of citizenship, constituency-building, social change, gender, and accountability.

http://developmentbookshop.com/a-new-...

346 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Virgilio Machado · Rating 5 out of 5]

This field manual provides a well-tested approach for promoting citizen participation. It breaks down the traditional boxes separating human rights, rule of law, development, and governance, and reconnects them in order to create an integrated approach to rights-based political empowerment. A New Weave of Power, People & Politics combines concrete and practical 'action steps' with a sound theoretical foundation to help users understand the process of advocacy planning and implementation. This is an 'Action Guide' that builds on the authors' 50 years of combined experience in advocacy, gender, human rights, popular education, and social change. These collective experiences were gathered in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, Europe, the former Soviet Union, and North America, and they range from participatory research and community development, to neighbourhood organizing and legal rights education, to large-scale campaign advocacy. It delves more deeply into questions of citizenship, constituency-building, social change, gender, and accountability.
https://practicalactionpublishing.com...

Excellent material for activists everywhere. The Guide combines very practical tools with conceptual discussions that encourage people to contextualize and reflect critically on their own experience. Its advocacy approach is integrated – not merely a technical exercise of lobbying but a broader process that includes and draws on lessons of social and political struggle.
PATRICIA ARDON, Regional Representative for Central America, CEDPA

A very comprehensive guide book for activists. It helps people who work at different levels understand advocacy in a broader context – dealing with different kinds of power – rather than only policy advocacy. A solid blend of theory, frameworks and field experiences make for easy adaptation to the local context of users.
NANI ZULMINARNI, Asia South Pacific Bureau of Adult Education (ASPBAE) and PPSW, Indonesia.
https://www.amazon.com/Weave-Power-Pe...

A New Weave of Power, People & Politics combines both popularized political theory with tools, methods, frameworks and case studies for understanding, building and mobilizing collective power for social, economic and political justice and rights at the heart of effective movement-building. Based on 25 years of activism, popular education, movement-building, community organizing, and advocacy experiences in dozens of countries and globally, A New Weave draws on the real-life perspectives and less known theories about liberation, human rights and transformation primarily from the Global South, making them relevant and useful to any context. Influenced by feminists, queer, economic and democracy activists, at the time of its publication in 2002 (reprinted in 2007), the guide was unique in its emphasis on structural and internalized power, local leadership and community-driven change discussed through the lens of gender/race/class. It was very influential in defining the strategies and planning frameworks for dozens of international and local NGOs and donors, and is widely used by universities in the US, Europe and Latin America. The approach, tools and network of popular educators who contributed to its content has been the foundation and framework for the building of JASS, its theory of change, and all its training and leadership programs up to the present. We Rise builds on A New Weave and includes many of its tools.
https://justassociates.org/all-resour...

The Action Guide is, first and foremost, a method to analyzing power and figuring out for yourselves how to change its nature, distribution, and impact. It is unique because it doesn’t’ treat advocacy as a technical fix but a political process that occurs in concrete, specific contexts. The framework for analyzing power structures, opportunities and risks is the most complex and nuanced I’ve ever seen.
Srilatha Batliwala, feminist scholar and activist, Hauser Centre for Nonprofit Organizations, Harvard University

All around the world, the question of how to strengthen citizen advocacy is receiving tremendous amounts of attention. This new manual-at once analytically sophisticated but eminently practical-will help aid workers and citizen activists find new approaches to a range of critical challenges in this domain, including constituency building, power redistribution, and participatory learning. The manual’s strong emphasis on gender perspectives is an additional major plus.
Thomas Carothers, Vice President for Studies, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

The Action Guide is an exciting and welcome route map for civil society activism and advocacy because it is not prescriptive. It presents a non-partisan political framework for citizen participation in governance and decision making that examines power and change. The manual challenges dominant assumptions, defines key political concepts within value systems, sets out action strategies and gives guidelines and a comprehensive toolkit for negotiation, advocacy and organizing. Emanating from participatory activities and discussions with women's rights activists from around the world, it provides important insights on the role and process of political consciousness and empowerment in advancing the rights and participation of excluded groups, … and recognizes the difficult choices women and other marginalized groups face when they confront power.
Hope Chigudu, African feminist and social change leader, Chair, Global Fund for Women

A terrific accomplishment that taps the authors’ 50 years of combined international experience as advocates, educators and grassroots organizers. The book’s emphasis is rightly placed on social transformation, power, and analysis.
David Cohen, Co-Director, Advocacy Institute and Co-Author, Advocacy for Social Justice

What makes this manual unique is its holistic perspective on advocacy as a political process within a rights-based framework. User-friendly and practical, it brings together emerging insights on power, politics and policy from around the world. A ground-breaking step forward, it crystallizes the politics and practice of advocacy from a people-centered perspective.
John Samuel, Executive Director, National centre for Advocacy Studies, India
Book back cover

[Marcus Laws · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this for my policy and advocacy course