- 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.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member greeniezona

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.

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