Newsletter 158 - Thursday, Sept 21, 2023

by Heidi Burgess and Guy Burgess

Julia Roig's Response:

While I appreciate very much the distinction between power-over and power-with (and use the same framework often in my trainings and facilitations,) I think the paper would be strengthened if justice-seeking was incorporated into the analysis – because power-with for what purpose matters in our current contexts.

From my experience, what we’re trying to do in the US and around the world is build power WITH as many people/sectors/ideologies as possible to then build enough power to stop those who are promulgating injustices and anti-democratic systems (could be construed as power over…if it’s political power over those in order to de-incentivize anti-democratic behaviors and violence.) This is not a left-right axis as your graphic implies – but an anti-democratic/pro-democratic axis. I know your graphic applies to policy arguments and electoral politics – when we’re in business as usual moments of democratic contestation. But when severe injustices are being perpetuated by those in political power, it’s not purely a policy argument. We’re emphasizing power-building in order to make the injustices and threats to democracy stop.

If you are one (of the hundreds) of jailed journalists in Guatemala, you want your supporters to be organizing WITH as many people as possible to make sure to build political power over a regime to stop using the police state to illegally quelch any accountability or dissent. And if you’re an LGBTQ activist or sympathizer in Uganda, you want your allies to be building power WITH any and all who cry out against an unjust law that would sentence you to death for your sexuality and jail anyone who offers you support.

I’m using international cases – and those most egregious - on purpose because it would be helpful to include in your analysis when building power over is actually called for….and the distinction we need to make here in the US. We need to know when we are “blocking” and where the red lines really are going to be for our collective organizing.

With that said – I agree that we can’t conflate “pro-democracy” with the “pro-policy” agendas that we may want. This happens often in our organizing spaces, and we definitely need more political education throughout our pro-democracy ecosystem to know the difference and to grow the movement to the broadest ranks as possible. The [22nd Century Initiative] (22ci) conference was an excellent start of a particular progressive segment of the ecosystem to begin aligning around that broader agenda, as we build both long and short bridges to build power with as many folks as possible.  It was an event to build short bridges – not long ones…and did so quite successfully for those willing to listen to a constituency on the receiving end of a lot of injustice. I’m not sure that your publicly calling out the framing of that conference helps to build longer bridges with that slice of the ecosystem.

And, as you know very well from your work - when those on the receiving end of injustices feel heard and valued and legitimized for their lived experience (no matter the ideology)  they are more likely to join forces with others…to start to form longer bridges with other network nodes for a higher shared purpose of a democratic future for all.

Thanks to all of the email chain for being a part of this important conversation. Grateful for the space to reflect together.

The Burgess's Response to Julia

Thanks for sending this thoughtful response. First of all, we should have been clearer about this, but we were thinking of the United States when we wrote our post. While we think that most of what we had to say could fairly easily be adapted to other struggling democracies, its applicability to authoritarian (and near-authoritarian) regimes is less clear. Such situations involve a substantially different set of problems — problems that are much more likely to require a significant power-over component. That said, disempowered groups, by definition, have trouble beating dominant groups in a power contest. The only way that  stand a chance of prevailing is by building a very large, power-with coalition that unites pretty much everybody against the authoritarians and then, should they succeed, offers a path toward governing for the benefit of all. Without such a path, Increasingly violent infighting among the various revolutionary groups is likely to lead to the emergence of yet another authoritarian (we call this the Crane Brinton effect).. 

The same principle applies to the United States and its efforts to resist the slide toward increasingly authoritarian rule. Here, aspiring authoritarians are employing a time-tested, divide-and-conquer strategy that inflames and profits from our divisions. To defeat that strategy, we need to reverse those divisions. A power-with approach with its long bridges is, we think, the best the way to do that. 

As to our "calling out" of the 22nd Century Initiative (22ci) conference, we were not meaning to burn bridges and hope we did not. But we are really concerned that the way their framing papers, and indeed, many other social justice advocates' writings, are framing the "threat to democracy" as being the fault of "white Christian men" with traditional beliefs about gender and abortion will not only anger many potential allies, but, also, in so doing, will make the chances of obtaining justice for the folks being championed in the 22ci conference less likely. So we are not trying to close off our bridge to them—we're trying to encourage them to open their bridge to others by using language that is even more inclusive than the inclusion that DEI programs talk about. (Many conservatives are just as concerned about threats to democracy as are progressives, though they see those threats differently. And, in many respects, their fears seem to us to have as much legitimacy as the fears of the left.)  We certainly need to follow the peacebuilding field's long-standing advice — listen to the other side. There are always two sides to the story. These are topics we will need to explore further.

Caleb's Response to Guy, Heidi, and Julia

By and large, I tend to agree with your observations...I especially appreciate the spectrum that you offer and the distinction between power-over and power-with.  In pondering your writeup and Julia's response, I was struck by the dynamic nature of the spectrum — regardless of the degree of devotion we have to "power with," every decision, statement, and action we make has the potential to fall into the "power over" category.  This would mean that we are all capable of pursuing "power with" and "power over," so there may be some harm in boxing individuals/groups of individuals into static "power over" categories.  If correct, this may be a worthy justification for finding new ways to identify and categorize people (avoiding mass othering) and for attempting to form unlikely allies.

I also especially appreciate how you pointed to the prisoner's dilemma, which demonstrates why considering pursuing "power over" in the pursuit of the common good is not irrational.  Especially when you are in fear of violence, marginalization, and/or oppression from anti-democratic "power over" forces, it is not unreasonable to want to hold the line at all costs. That being said and as with most ethical deliberations, there are risks to moving off the moral, "democracy with" high ground.  

At the conceptual level, acting prefiguratively (being the change that we want to make) is how to inject "power with" into the DNA of American democracy.  Without acting prefiguratively, we are simply arguing for theoretical change to "power with" without demonstrating and helping the citizenry experience that "power with."  At the practical level, part of anti-democratic "power over" forces' playbook is to sideline anything they are in conflict with as "partisan," which is easier to do to "power over" efforts.

I am also inclined to think that it is especially important to focus on the who/what the power is either "with" or "over."  If a democracy or system has abandoned democratic values and processes, it seems as though taking a "power over...that democracy/systems" approach (vice a "power over other ideological groups" approach) via building power with willing/unlikely/diverse allies to ultimately make that democracy/system better could still be a "power with...that democracy/system" approach.  In my mind at least, the distinction is whether the intended target is the democracy/system or the people/groups with different ideological perspectives (even though they are causing harm to the democracy/system and/or you).  

My final thought is that we are all a work in progress, are not going to do everything perfectly, and have a lot to learn from each other, which is the beauty of being part of a democracy and civic health-promoting community.  The structural reformers are well-versed in running campaigns.  The bridging divides field knows how to connect unlikely allies.  The countering authoritarianism field understands where and who democracy is failing and brings a courage and critical sense of urgency.  The civic education field knows how to empower citizens and recognizes the need for generational change.  Broad-based/constituency-based organizers excel at mobilizing citizens and creating new, positive identities.  The participatory democracy field are experts in enabling communities to identify and pursue their own solutions.  This is just the tip of the iceberg.  All of these efforts are required to transform American democracy and civic health.  As a result, we sink or swim together, and we are all accountable to and responsible for each other, to this community as a whole, and to American society."

Guy and Heidi's Response to Caleb

These are really helpful clarifications and we agree, pretty much, with all of them.  We were certainly not intending to label people as "power over," but rather things that people do. Anyone — even tyrants — can change what they do (though I can't think of a tyrant who did that). That's why we think this distinction is so important to understand.  We all need to recognize when we are using power-with tactics, and when we are using power-over tactics.  We also need a better understanding of the likely outcomes of each approach, and which is best suited to which situation. We'll be exploring this more later in a coming essay.

Our second thought, upon reading Caleb's comment about the prisoner's dilemma is it is worth remembering the structure of the game, and the way to "win it." For those who don't know the game, the premise is that two criminals are caught and put in different holding cells. They had already agreed not to confess. But a cop comes in to each one's cell and explains that if one of them confesses to the crime, while the other does not, the one confessing will be set free, but the other will receive the maximum sentence. If neither confesses, then they will each receive the minimum sentence.  If they both confess, they will both receive a reduced sentence, but will not, but will be set free.  That's the dilemma. The way the "game" is usually played, the criminals (for reasons unknown) are given multiple chances to confess or not. They can change their behavior based on what happened in the earlier rounds of play. (Often the game is played 10 times.) As the BI essay on game theory explains: 

In a computer-simulated experiment, Robert Axelrod demonstrated that the "winning" strategy in a repeated prisoner's dilemma is one that he terms "tit-for-tat." This strategy calls for cooperation on the first move, and in each subsequent move, one chooses the behavior demonstrated by one's opponent in the previous round. Still, there is no "right" or best solution to the paradox presented by Prisoner's Dilemma. One lost round in a two-player game can be devastating for a player, and the temptation to defect always exists.

So, yes, there are good reasons to move away from the power-with (stay quiet) approach, but it is risky. And the winning strategy, among the many student teams with whom I have run this game over many years, is to cooperate at the beginning, and continue to cooperate (not confess) for the entire run of the game.  That always yields the best score. Of course the prisoner's dilemma game is not the real world.  But it is structured in the same way many of our social relationships are structured and presents the same dilemma--power with or power over, as the one we were talking about in the original essay.

There is a variation of the prisoner's dilemma game that focuses on an arms race that more directly applies to the political conflict that we've been talking about. In this game, if both sides decide to continue arming themselves, they are certain to be stuck in a costly hurting stalemate. However, if both sides decide to disarm, then they both save a lot of money and increase their security (since the other side no longer has the ability to attack them). The worrying possibility is that both sides might agree to a mutual disarmament treaty, but one side cheats on the agreement and arms itself to the point where it could overpower the other.  In this context, giving up on power-over approaches, when the other side does not, could obviously lead to catastrophic results.  The way you get around this problem is through careful monitoring to assure compliance with any agreement.  Unfortunately, this is very hard to do in the political context with lots of independent actors and the widespread use of clandestine power-over tactics.

And finally, we love Caleb's final paragraph! Yes!  We call this "massively parallel democracy building." We think it is the only way we are going to be able to overcome the massive numbers of challenges we currently face. But fortunately, as Prabha Sankaranarayan observed during the TRUST Network meeting yesterday, MPP is exploding in the United States! All of these groups are actively growing and hopefully learning from and reinforcing each others' work.  There are also increasing numbers of networks of networks. The inter-movement project that Caleb has been helping organize is one, the TRUST Network is another, Listen First is a third, the Bridge Alliance is a fourth. There is lots going on, we need lots more, and we all need to be supporting each other in a power-with, not a power-over framework, at least that's the way it seems to us.

Thanks, Julia and Caleb for continuing this conversation.  We hope others will join us!