Rye, Danny (2024) Activists and Activism Success: Towards a Grounded Conceptualisation. Interest Groups and Advocacy. ISSN 2047-7414
Preview |
Text
s41309-024-00204-y.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (703kB) | Preview |
Abstract
Success is an important aspect of evaluating activism because it is a vehicle for political change. However, the idea of ‘success’ has proved difficult to capture in easily measurable ways. This has led some analysts to overlook its complexities and others to avoid the idea altogether, instead focusing on impacts, consequences and other seemingly less loaded terms. The definition of activism success therefore remains unsettled and under-studied. This article argues that an important perspective in evaluating activism is that of the activists themselves. What constitutes success (or not) for them must be an important consideration in defining and analysing it because it underpins the sense of purpose and value they put on what they do and helps to sustain them in the longer term. A workshop conducted with grass-roots activists in Liverpool provides useful insights towards this. The analysis of their reflections on successful activism suggests that it is still an important idea, but a more complex and nuanced one that is multi-dimensional, political and contested. It reflects attitudes to a wider range of outcomes, the value of participation and attitudes to power, factors that analysts should consider incorporating into future studies.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information and Comments: | © The Author(s) 2024. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. |
| Keywords: | Activism; Success; Political participation; Activism outcomes; Political engagement; Citizenship |
| Faculty / Department: | Faculty of Creative Arts & Humanities > School of Humanities |
| Depositing User: | Danny Rye |
| Date Deposited: | 15 Mar 2024 11:50 |
| Last Modified: | 08 Nov 2024 11:37 |
| URI: | https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/4167 |
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
Altmetric
Altmetric
