Advocacy, Redux

Continuing today's mini-theme about advocacy, just wanted to highlight two of the most interesting blog posts I've read in a while, both looking at what makes for successful (and unsuccessful) advocacy campaigns:

- First, William Easterly on the "trinity of WHO/WHY/WHAT":

"Political advocacy is most successful when you can identify WHO is to blame for an injustice, and WHY (according to what principle) the situation is unjust. This points to WHAT the WHO should do.

The trinity of WHO/WHY/WHAT worked for positive social change, for example, for movements such as the American Revolution, the abolition of the slave trade, slave emancipation, the extension of the vote to the working class, the women’s rights movement, the end of colonialism, the civil rights movement, and gay rights."

- Second, Texas in Africa on what makes for badvocacy, including: oversimplification of the issue, western-conceived solutions, focus on celebrities and trendiness rather than intelligent analysis, focus on the advocates rather than those they purport to help, the insistence that "we have to do something," and finally a lingering sense of the white man's / white woman's burden.