Knowledge roundups are created in response to questions raised by members of the Global Grassroots Support Network (GGSN). The GGSN is an initiative building upon the Blueprints for Change project. The GGSN is building a community of practice that brings together projects supporting grassroots justice-oriented** activist groups in multiple regions and continents. The objective is to share knowledge around common challenges that these groups face, and how each project has solved for them. Questions are raised to other GGSN members to compile the knowledge and resources we have to respond.
In this roundup, we responded to the question: How do you build a broad coalition, a united front, despite frictions in ideology and political positioning? Are there examples from other countries that have been able to do this?
**See the following document for the GGSN definition of “grassroots.”
GGSN anonymized community answers
Recognize that broad coalitions are not long-term
I can tell you first hand, it is impossible to maintain a broad coalition for a long period of time. Unless you find some sponsor who’s willing to pay and keep everybody together. Other than that, coalitions get formed when there’s a common cause. You find the common denominator. What is it that brings you all together, and that’s what you can work on. It’s going to have to be something that’s very general and vague, because the more specific you get, the more particular it gets to each individual group. So at this point you’re wanting to build on ideology.
One of the things that it happens, and I saw it after the trump election, is everybody comes together with a unifying mission that we all have, and it’s not necessarily spelled out, and it’s easy for us to all agree that we’re in in this fight for democracy or in this fight for women’s rights, or whatever it is. It starts to break down when individuals and groups start to feel like there concerns are not being heard or their issues are being minimized. And then you get into this kind of cross fighting that happens and then there’s also a tendency to break into smaller and smaller groups. My sense is don’t worry about that. If these groups form, they’re going to keep going. These are smaller groups that are that will keep going. Stay in touch with them. Keep giving them support, do whatever you can. But the infighting happens in that. I think it’s oftentimes instigated from the outside. I think that there are plants at times so watch for that, but don’t get too paranoid. The main thing is to keep reminding people what’s at stake. That’s something a writer once told me is, what is at stake here? What do we have to lose, and that is that something that’s important to keep in mind.
Identify the specific factor everyone can unite around
I wanna lift up what was said about coalitions being short term and for something specific. When you’re linking and raising with different groups on issues, you should find out, what is it that you’re finding unity on? What is the impact on youth? For the LGBTQ community? For women? For workers? And then you’ll have multiple coalitions and based on the data that you’re finding, what it is it that they want to come together for and it will always be something specific. And maybe it’s for a certain campaign. Maybe it’s for the passing or the protest of a certain aspect of of a campaign. But it’s a tool that is flexible and is not meant to be long term, so it will largely be based on your social investigation. Here in the US, I’m part of [a coalition]. We just had a member join who was part of the military. So maybe when we bring up issues of the military maybe they don’t necessarily agree with that. But largely, they agree that the human rights situation is dire, and that’s our unity. The common denominator is who you want to isolate; the broadest enemy. So how are you helping make that clear to to folks?
Look to broad coalitions formed in India
India has been really successful at doing this. In this podcast episode, the speaker mentioned a little bit about how broad coalitions of people came together to save a forest. They talk about the use of moderators in whats app chats to kind of remind people that they have a common cause and to leave the other things for the other organizing opportunities. And, instead, let’s just focus on the thing that we have at hand, because these are all conversations we can have at a later time. There’s a transcript that explains it in a bit more detail. They say the same thing, it’s not a long-term thing. The coalition broke down. They weren’t able to maintain that momentum, but for a while it was really successful in bringing out people who wouldn’t otherwise have organized and participated, from both the left and the right, urban and rural: https://commonslibrary.org/commons-conversations-insights-into-environmental-justice-movements-in-india-with-radhika-jhaveri/
Look to broad coalitions formed in the United States
I was just thinking of the post trump era, or like the immediate post trump era and the indivisible network. This is an example of a very broad basis of unity to oppose the new trump regime, which broke apart, and it’s now more fissured. But at the beginning, like there was this common cause. It was like not strictly political ideology focus, but focused on building an infrastructure of political resistance to the trump regime.
Elections can be a common cause
The following resource describes how an alliance was formed in Türkiye on anti-gender narratives during the state’s 2023 elections. The alliance was between 4 organizations that are are aligned politically, so it was not a broad coalition. However, the report offers lessons on uniting around a common cause (in this case, elections).
Here are a few takeaways from the report:
A SWOT analysis can be a useful framework for creating grounds for an alliance, by identifying the opportunities and strengths that could make it happen, and the weaknesses that could hinder it.
“Some practical recommendations were provided by the participants regarding alliance-building:
• Organizing regular and thematic meetings within this broader collective,
• Arranging online and physical meetings with guest activists, writers, journalists, and artists from other countries to observe the course of anti-gender movements, the pursuit of new alliances to debunk anti-gender narratives
• Creating spaces where we can stay informed about each other and analyze current agendas,
• Building platforms to strengthen dialogues about getting to know each other and seeing our workspaces, not only following
our press releases or reports but also keeping track of our emotional states and well-being through forms like phone meetings
and coffee gatherings,
• Creating a new synergy space, increasing collaborations and joint alliance projects,
• Reflecting on what we can learn from our dormant or outdated solidarity networks and restructuring the tools of our alliance,
• Attempting to produce shared language for our alliance and molding the substance that brings us together through the practice of creating this shared language,
• Taking steps to enhance our capacity (for anti-gender movements and narrative change), such as organizing reading circles,
benefiting from international networks and experiences, conducting training, and building new bridges between art and activism,
• In the face of the narrowing civic space, carrying out all of these actions while considering regional justice, shifting our practices to rural areas, and organizing more frequent local gatherings.”
In interviews with alliance participants, many emphasized the importance of making political boundaries and experiences visible, and discussing inter-movement grievances and equal representation. (This wouldn’t be advisable for a broad coalition, but makes sense when aligned on a political issue).
