Doing the work: the cycle of Momentum
-
Pillars of support
Symbolic and instrumental demands
Here’s where it all comes together.
We’ve learned where the Momentum framework of organizing came from – a desire for a hybrid model of organizing that would blend the best of the mass protest and structure-based organizing traditions.
We’ve learned to unpack the basic assumptions our organizations operate on – such as our theories of change and our views of power.
We’ve learned that we need mass participation to win, and that there’s a difference between passive supporters and active supporters.
We’ve learned about trigger events and moments of the whirlwind – those times that seem to ‘magically’ appear and get everyone excited to participate in the movement.
Now, let’s look at what Momentum organizing looks like in action.
What does winning look like?
First, let’s be clear about where we’re going: a big-picture victory looks like pulling out the pillars of support from the status quo and winning the symbolic and instrumental demands of the movement.
Along the way, winning will look like accumulating more and more passive support and active popular support – essentially, progress towards "changing the political weather" as more and more people side with the movement's values, as well as more consistent, active participation in movement activities.
The Cycle of Momentum
Adapted from Momentum training participant guide:
So, we need a certain threshold of popular support to win our demands. The process of building active and passive popular support requires the constant cyclical creation of momentum.
The pieces of the cycle come together like this:
Decentralized movement teams deploy regular and strategic escalation (dramatized actions that employ sacrifice and/or risk to attract attention).
That escalation draws the attention of the media and the public and polarizes the public - asks them, “which side are you on?” and attracts new participants.
Movement teams use absorption strategies to integrate these newly interested participants into further participation and even organizing.
The movement spends some preparation time strategizing and planning for the next escalation.
Active and passive popular support continues to build until the symbolic and instrumental demands of the movement are won.
Each step of this cycle is crucial and it is important for movement activists to understand that momentum does not build linearly or exponentially but, rather, cyclically.
Thinking about it in cycles prepares us to experience drops in momentum as an opportunity for absorption and preparation - which itself, enhances our capacity to build more momentum. With the cyclical framework in mind, we can avoid discouragement that can destroy our movements.
Keep reading for more information about each piece.
Polarization means the opposition grows, too
From Momentum training participant guide:
A note on polarization, which we noted happens above as movements escalate in a cycle of Momentum. Polarization is the practice of asking the public, ‘Which side are you on?’
Through actions – small, symbolic action as well as mass civil disobedience – we dramatize the crisis in the public eye, creating new awareness of our issue and new opportunities for people to join our movement.
These actions, if they are effectively targeting the public and aiming to increase active popular support, will pull people toward our movement.
Inevitably, when our movement grows, the opposition will grow, too: that’s how polarization works.
The active opposition may react by becoming violent, isolating themselves further from the general public. The Westboro Baptist Church, for instance, emerged in the context of the gay liberation movement in the early 1990s; the Church’s anti-gay protests emboldened its homophobic members but alienated them from the general public.
Absorption
Adapted from Momentum participant guide:
A major political announcement just hit the deadlines, causing massive outrage. Or you planned an amazing protest – a moment of escalation – that just made the news. In other words, a trigger event has just happened.
If you want to build a movement, you have to be prepared to capture energy and interest when it explodes.
Absorption refers to the tactics you use to plug new people into the movement. In most situations, you only have one opportunity to engage someone and get them involved, so absorption needs to cast a wide net. Email lists, petitions, online donations, and social media pages are all ways of collecting new names of people actively interested in your movement. But we believe that mass training, as the primary means of absorption, is the best tool to ensure popular movements can go to scale and deal with the complexity as they grow.
Put simply, a mass training is when you gather a ton of newly interested people in one space where “trainers” hand them thetools they need not only to attend a march, but also for each and every one of them to start planning actions and campaigns that are aligned with the movement’s strategy, vision and principles.
For example, the Bernie Sanders campaign realized that mass trainings were the most efficient way to train the massive amount of volunteers they would need to run a successful campaign with very few paid staffers.
If you can do absorption well, your movement’s capacity for growth will be exponential: you will absorb the momentum, rather than watch it dissipate over time.
Escalation
From Momentum participant guide:
Escalation is measured by sacrifice and disruption (increased sacrifice + increased disruption = escalation).
The function of escalation in the cycle of momentum is to force the public to take notice of your issue and take a stance on that issue. It drives a wedge into the spectrum of support by asking: which side are you on? Ultimately, escalation is geared to push more and more of the public to choose the side of the movement.
For example, the Civil Rights Movement’s march on the Edmund Pettus Bridge was designed to show the public the brutality of the police and the repressive Southern power structure bent on disenfranchising African-Americans. The march - which took great amounts of personal sacrifice from the marchers and which was highly disruptive to Selma’s status quo - effectively forced the national public to pick a side: the marchers’ or the violent repressors’. The art of escalation is critical to the success of the movement, since escalation is the primary dramatic interaction with the public.
Why sacrifice and disruption? Because sacrifices brings moral authority to the movement, while disruption causes a stir. This looks like significantly disrupting daily life for a significant amount of time.
The graph below shows where some tactics of nonviolent resistance fall in a matrix of disruption and sacrifice.
Preparation
Preparation is simply the time in the cycle of Momentum where you’ve recruited new folks through absorption tactics, and you’re continuing to train them and strategize together for your next round of strategic escalation.
Preparation can feel like a “low energy” part of the movement cycle – and some people may even feel discouraged if they don’t recognize the cyclical nature of Momentum and that the “energy” of the movement will come back through trigger events and moments of the whirlwind.
In conclusion
That was a lot to cover! Momentum hosts trainings that go into these concepts in-depth, which you can find out about on their website. You can also view some of this content as webinars from previous trainings.
Essentially, the key takeaway is understanding that movements grow through cycles of escalation, absorption, and preparation – until they gain enough popular support to pull the pillars of support out from under the status quo and their demands are won.
Bonus terms
See more terms defined in the glossary.
Pillars of support
The“pillars of support”are the various pieces (institutions, organizations) of a society that uphold the status quo and sustain a ruler’s power. For example, some pillars may be:
The media
The police
The military
Financial & banking system
Educational system
Religious institutions
Some pillars sustain the ruler/decision-maker through coercion and some through their cultural influence.
Symbolic and instrumental demands
From Momentum participant guide:
Symbolic and instrumental demands can be understood best by their relationship to their audience.
Instrumental demands are generally oriented toward decision-makers of dominant institutions. In general, they are specific and winnable within the political climate of the moment. For instance, an instrumental demand might be a legislative or policy change – such as body cams for cops, closing corporate tax loopholes, or increasing state budget line items. The public may not know about or intuitively understand instrumental demands – organizers might have to explain what “earned sick time” is and why it matters – but when those demands are won they bring concrete change to people’s lives and are often seen by organizers as one step on a long path to justice. Instrumental demands are usually unpopular in the sense that they do not immediately galvanize people to action.
Symbolic demands are oriented to the broader public, and are intended to convey big picture, big story ideas. They aim to galvanize people to action and appeal to popular convictions and desires: desegregation, no more deportations, and living wages. Symbolic demands are popular demands. They may take many years to win, but they mobilize many people in the process – this mobilization and a shift in the common sense are the real victories. Symbolic demands are just a way to get there.
Sometimes we see demands that are both instrumental and symbolic: this happens when campaigns or movements “make a mountain out of a molehill,” turning a particular issue into the symbol of a larger whole. The Keystone XL pipeline was an instrumental demand of the climate justice movement that became a symbol of the extractive economy; the instrumental demand to indict officers like Daniel Holtzclaw is also a symbolic demand for a justice system that holds its own officers accountable. The Fight for $15 is an example of an instrumental increase to the minimum wage & a symbolic demand for a living wage.