Subj:   "Managing Activism" (from the Other Side)   
Date:   3/4/2005 1:52:35 PM Central Standard Time   
From:    [log in to unmask] (Jim Diamond)
Sender:    [log in to unmask] (Biotech Forum)
Reply-to: <A HREF="mailto:[log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]</A> (Biotech Forum)
To:    [log in to unmask]
    
    
Here's a very interesting book review.  The book is Managing Activism: A 
Guide to Dealing with Activists and Pressure Groups and it's written as a how-to 
manual for the Other Side. We can all recognize situations where we've been the 
targets of corporate seduction using these techniques.  It's unavoidable but 
makes you feel a bit sleazy.  Final word: know when to say "No." 
 
    Jim
 
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Managing Activism: PR Advice for "Neutralizing" Democracy

Book Review by John Stauber
 
When I first picked up Denise Deegan's book, Managing Activism: A Guide to 
Dealing with Activists and Pressure Groups, I imagined a roomful of uniformed 
pest applicators at the Orkin company, sitting on benches like military aviators 
before a bombing mission, being briefed on the best tools available for 
eradicating cockroaches. I was a spy for the roaches--the pesty "activists" that 
Deegan works to "manage." Roaches don't generally read the "how to" manuals 
written by their would-be exterminators, but activists certainly should. 

As someone who has spent the last decade investigating the seamy side of the 
"perceptions management" industry, I wish I could tell you that this book is a 
gold mine of revelation, but for me it is not. Still, I recommend that my 
fellow citizens read this book. It is written in classroom text-like fashion, and 
the author is careful to put the best face on her profession and not include 
advice that might offend the atypical reader. Nevertheless, it can help people 
working for democratic social change to understand the often successful ways 
in which we are targeted for defeat, especially the "good cop/bad cop" tactic 
for dividing and conquering activists through "partnering" and co-optation by 
industry. For activists, Deegan's book provides a primer on how to recognize 
these traps and hopefully avoid them. 

Managing Activism is written for PR practitioners whose clients engage in 
risky businesses (fossil fuels, pesticides, genetically engineered foods, nuclear 
waste, toxic dumps, animal testing) and who therefore become the targets of 
"activist groups" including "environmentalists, workers' rights activists, 
animal rights groups and human rights campaigners." Don't expect much sympathy for 
the activists. Deegan is a battle-hardened PR veteran and a committed soldier 
in the war against activists who "in an increasingly pluralistic society" 
present what she calls "a growing threat to organizations of all shapes and 
sizes. And because activists employ a wide range of aggressive tactics such as 
generating bad publicity, seeking government and legislative intervention, 
encouraging boycotts, etc., they can cause severe disruption, including damage to 
reputation, sales, profitability, employee satisfaction and, of course, share 
price." 

The picture that Deegan paints is undoubtedly a chilling scenario if you are 
an executive or major share holder in companies like Monsanto or DuPont that 
have long histories of worldwide trade in everything from nuclear weapon 
components to pesticides and genetically modified crops. What's a besieged CEO to 
do? 

"Fortunately, if dealt with in the right manner, activists have been shown to 
change their approach from aggressively confrontational to cooperative," 
Deegan promises. "Learning to manage activists involves learning about activists. 
Who are they? What do they want? What will they do to achieve their 
objectives? And most importantly, what is the best way to deal with them?" 

Deegan's recommendations are similar to the advice which comes from Peter 
Sandman, E. Bruce Harrison, James Lukaszewski, Paul Gilding and other "crisis 
management" experts whom Sheldon Rampton and I cover in our work for PR 
Watch.Unfortunately, this entire area of PR--how to defeat activism--is insufficiently 
scrutinized by the citizens who need most to be aware of it, the activists 
themselves. Until we "cockroaches" understand the strategies of the 
"exterminators," the PR roach hotels built by corporate crisis management practitioners 
will continue to entrap movements for democracy, ecological sustainability, fair 
trade, human rights, social justice, and all those other extreme threats to 
the corporate bottom-line. Social activists like to believe that we are too 
committed to our causes, too worldly and aware to be sweet-talked into unwitting 
submission by sitting down and partnering with the enemy. As Deegan reiterates, 
however, industry continues to regard this sort of "dialogue" as its most 
effective method for managing activists. 

Deegan's book tries to put the best face on the practice of "managing 
activism," which may explain why she avoids mentioning the Washington-based PR firm 
of Mongoven, Biscoe and Duchin (MBD), one of the worldwide leaders in this 
particular PR subspecialty. As we have documented previously, MBD grew out of the 
successful effort by one of its founders, Jack Mongoven, to defeat the large 
religious-lead boycott campaign aimed at the Nestlé corporation for its deadly 
promotion of infant formula in the third world. In activist lore this boycott 
is touted as a major victory, but in the corporate world it is understood that 
industry really won the day by pulling the rug out from the campaign. By 
making selective concessions to the activists, Nestlé succeeded in negotiating an 
end to the boycott. Later, activists were dismayed to discover that its infant 
formula marketing practices are continuing with only token changes. Third 
world children continue to die, but today their plight receives little attention, 
and activists have found that a boycott, once terminated, is not easily 
turned back on. 

MBD is a sort of spy operation. Its dozens of employees relentlessly compile 
dossiers on activists of all sizes and shapes the world over, advising 
industry how to defeat them. Their favorite method is a "divide and conquer" strategy 
heavily dependent on co-optation: First identify the "radicals" who are 
unwilling to compromise and who are demanding fundamental changes to redress the 
problem at hand. Then, identify the "realists"--typically, organizations with 
significant budgets and staffs working in the same relative area of public 
concern as the radicals. Then, approach these realists, often through a friendly 
third party, start a dialogue and eventually cut a deal, a "win win" solution 
that marginalizes and excludes the radicals and their demands. Next, go with the 
realists to the "idealists" who have learned about the problem through the 
work of the radicals. Convince the idealists that a "win-win" solution endorsed 
by the realists is best for the community as a whole. Once this has been 
accomplished, the "radicals" can be shut out as extremists, the PR fix is in, and 
the deal can be touted in the media to make the corporation and its "moderate" 
nonprofit partners look heroic for solving the problem. Result: industry may 
have to make some small or temporary concessions, but the fundamental concerns 
raised by the "radicals" are swept aside. 

This, in a nutshell, is the strategy that Deegan recommends in what she calls 
"one of the first books to offer a 'how to . . .' format to help people cope 
with the threat of activism." I especially recommend her chapters on 
"relationship building, negotiation and conflict resolution" and "media relations." 
Reading these chapters should help drive home the realization that activist 
efforts are being deliberately targeted for defeat by corporate funding, 
partnership and co-optation. These may seem like unusual weapons, but PR crisis managers 
have taken to heart the advice of military strategist Carl Von Clausewitz: 
"We see then that there are many ways to one's object in War; that the complete 
subjugation of the enemy is not essential in every case." 

Activist readers should remember that Deegan's book only offers part of the 
story, the sanitized version. It does not go into all the real-world ways in 
which nasty, smear attacks against activists are waged and funded by the same 
corporations and industries offering the outstretched hand of partnership. For 
the "rest of the story," also read Secrets and Lies: The Anatomy of an 
Anti-Environmental PR Campaign, by Nicky Hager and Bob Burton. Secrets and Lies is 
included in Deegan's "recommended reading" list. Based on a mother lode of leaked 
documents, its revelations of anti-environmental dirty tricks in New Zealand 
proved so shocking to citizens there that its publication contributed to the 
political downfall of the head of state. 

Center for Media and Democracy
520 University Avenue, Suite 227
Madison, Wisconsin 53703
Phone: 608-260-9713
Email: editor AT prwatch.org

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