Balancing Power and Raising Awareness
Dialogue may not always be possible or productive if power is unbalanced and awareness of a conflict is low. Some people with political advantage may see dialogue as an opportunity to reach across the lines of conflict and bring people into their own political agenda. Often people within the more powerful group have little interest in meeting with members of the less powerful group. Those with less political advantage may see dialogue as passive, or even a distraction from the real work for change.
In Nashville, Tennessee, in the 1960s, African-American students couldn’t get a meeting with the mayor to discuss racial integration. The students first had to balance the power between the white leaders and the black community. Black students increased their power by organizing, training themselves in nonviolent action, and carrying out sit-ins, marches, and boycotts of stores that promoted racial segregation. These actions brought media attention, public sympathy for their cause, and pressure on white leaders to do something about the boycotts, which were affecting white businesses. The nonviolent actions opened the door for successful dialogue between the black youth and the city leaders that led to desegregation.
The diagram below illustrates how methods like dialogue are better able to contribute to social change if power is roughly balanced between groups. Dialogue is more productive if participants from all sides of a conflict are committed to better understanding the issues.
Adapted with permission from Adam Curle, Making Peace (London: Tavistock Press, 1971).
As the diagram illustrates, when power is unbalanced and public awareness of an issue is low, it may be important to first raise public awareness and demonstrate collective power through petitions, marches, or some other type of symbolic action. Strategic and persistent advocacy—especially if it avoids framing the issue with a clearly defined set of villains—can increase the willingness of all groups to engage in dialogue.
More People and Key People
A project researching the effectiveness of dialogue, called the Reflecting on Peace Project, compared four different approaches for bringing about social change. [13]
The more-people approach aims to engage large numbers of people in processes to address an issue. Broad involvement of “the people” is seen as necessary to change.
The key-people approach involves certain important leaders or groups of people who are seen as opinion leaders and able to effect change in a situation.
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The individual-level approach seeks to change the attitudes, values, perceptions, or circumstances of individuals as an important first step to bringing about real and lasting social change.
The structural-level approach more directly aims to change socio-political or institutional structures. These programs address the grievances that fuel conflict, and institutionalize nonviolent modes of handling conflict within society.
These researchers found that projects (including dialogue processes) focusing on change at the individual level without translating into action at the structural level have little discernible effect on addressing the broader political or social issues they seek to change.
In addition, the study found that approaches concentrating on including more people, but not necessarily key leaders or groups, did not constructively address social issues. Conversely, the research found that strategies focusing only on key people without including others were equally ineffective. [14]
If programs focus on one strategy only, they are unlikely to create social change. Programs that intentionally link individual with structural efforts, or include key people as well as more people are most likely to bring about change.
Designers of dialogue processes can assess how to include more people and key people, and intentionally plan for how individual change may impact the structural level.
From Dialogue to Action
Ideally, a dialogue process creates a space for people to build relationships and develop new networks that increase people's vision and desire to take collective action. Chapter 5 suggests types of questions that help people assess what they personally and collectively can do.
Creating enough time and space in the dialogue agenda for this phase is important. If people view the last action-planning phase of dialogue as an add-on or as something to get through after a long day, it is less likely to lead to effective action.
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8. Assessing Dialogue Effectiveness
People and organizations that utilize dialogue often do not spend energy or resources to evaluate its effectiveness. Increasingly this is changing as foundations and other entities require applicants to justify their requests for funding. Some regard dialogue as a soft activity that doesn't translate into institutional/structural change. For these reasons, it is important to conduct evaluations, even relatively simple ones, that demonstrate the impact of dialogue on people, groups, and structures.
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