features of effective boycotts

Classic boycotts have these features:

A goal: What the boycott aims to achieve.
A target: a decision-maker who is capable of doing something relevant to the goal.
A demand: something that the target could agree to do.
A cost: something that the target will lose if they don’t meet the demand.
Negotiators: Individuals who can credibly agree to stop the boycott if the target complies sufficiently.
A message: a description of the boycott that is aimed at relevant third-parties, such as observers who are undecided about the issue.
Accountable leaders: people who decide on the previous six points and are answerable to those who actually boycott.

I am not posting this list to cast shade on the national boycott that took place on Feb. 28. I participated! And some of these components may have been in place. For example, people who boycotted through “Black churches with longstanding social justice ministries (like Trinity UCC in Chicago)” did have accountable leaders who articulated a message.

Also, it is possible that the seven features that made the Great Salt March and the Montgomery Bus Boycott succeed are not required in every successful action.

Nevertheless, we must think critically about strategy, or else we are less likely to win. I would recommend attention to the strategies that were so important to Gandhi and King.

A teaching case that I wrote for Johns Hopkins’ Agora Institute about the Montgomery Bus Boycott is available free here and can be used by voluntary groups as well as by students in courses. At its heart, it asks people to think about goals, targets, demands, methods, and decision-making processes.

the rise of oligarchy

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The public money and public liberty, intended to have been deposited with three branches of magistracy, but found inadvertently to be in the hands of one only, will soon be discovered to be sources of wealth and dominion to those who hold them… They [the assembly] should look forward to a time, and that not a distant one, when a corruption in this, as in the country from which we derive our origin, will have seized the heads of government, and be spread by them through the body of the people; when they will purchase the voices of the people, and make them pay the price. Human nature is the same on every side of the Atlantic, and will be alike influenced by the same causes. The time to guard against corruption and tyranny, is before they shall have gotten hold of us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered (Thomas Jefferson, 1785)

In current parlance, I think, an “oligarch” is someone with great personal wealth who influences politics, whether directly or via media. Oligarchs are not publicly traded corporations, and the threat they pose to democracy is different. The rise of oligarchs is also different from income inequality. It’s not about whether the top one percent or the top 10 percent of a country has disproportionate influence but whether a few individuals are “wolves in the fold”–literally making political decisions without accountability.

In fact, wealth inequality may have declined globally since 1980, but we now have about 2,500 billionaires who collectively own about $15 trillion, which is equivalent to the GDP of China (population 1.4 billion people). Some are uninvolved with politics, but a fair number either derive their wealth from government or buy political influence. I count at least 17 countries that have been directly led by billionaires in the last decade (not including the UK, since Rishi Sunak is only worth about $850 million). There are many other countries in which billionaires wield influence without holding office.

Above all, the President of the United States is a billionaire. His sidekick is more than a third of his way to being a trillionaire. The owner of The Washington Post is about a quarter of the way there.

This situation is not exactly unprecedented. John D. Rockefeller was worth about $1.4 billion in 1937. Measured in current dollars, his fortune rivaled Musk’s today. And the Rockefeller wealth transmuted into political power. Three descendants became governors; one was also a vice-president.

However, there are distinctively 21st-century ways in which private individuals sway national politics, here and overseas. Both Musk and Trump are celebrities with massive popular influence. They have millions of followers who treat their wealth as evidence of brilliance and superiority to government. They purchase impunity from almost all forms of accountability. And they enrich themselves at the expense of the government. As Jefferson writes, they “make interested uses of every right and power which they possess, or may assume.”

Google’s NGram tool suggests that the frequency of the word “oligarch” in printed books has risen 13-fold since the millennium (see above). This is just one sign that we are living in an age of oligarchy.

Carlo Crivelli, Lamentation

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In every painting entitled “Lamentation” that I recall or can find with a Google image-search, Jesus lies prone, usually with a shroud behind him, and Mary looks downward at his limp body. She usually has companions: most often Mary Magdalen, because the relevant Gospel passages (e.g., Matt. 27:61) place the two women together from the Crucifixion to the empty tomb. (The specific moment of lamentation is not explicit in the Gospels.)

An exception is Carlo Crivelli’s Lamentation over the Dead Christ (1485) in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Crivelli shows Jesus’ body propped up so that he appears to look down at Mary with a gentle expression. Jesus’ hand has fallen so that it is on the same level as the hands of Mary and St. John and is intertwined with John’s in a rotationally symmetrical pattern. However, Jesus and John display opposite emotions: Jesus calm, John in anguish. Mary Magdalen’s hands help to support Jesus’ thigh so that his right foot appears to take a step.

To my eye, the color of Jesus’ body stands out more from the rest of the painting in the original than in the photo above (supplied by the MFA). Crivelli makes Jesus look animated and yet strikingly pallid.

The garland of fruit is a common motif in Crivelli’s work and seems to represent a local tradition in the region where he worked, the Marches, of hanging fruit above religious paintings during festivals. Crivelli–who favored trompe-l’oeil to the extent that Susan Sontag cited him as an example of “camp”–has incorporated this popular tradition into the painting. The garland includes a cucumber, which is so common in Crivelli’s work that it functions as a signature. The whole structure looks like a throne in the Netherlandish painting that Crivelli often imitated.

By making Jesus sit and appear to look down on Mary, and by intertwining his hands with the others’, Crivelli asks us to ponder the relationship between the living and the dead. In the Gospel account, Jesus will soon rise again. Nevertheless, he has died. It would be as much of a theological error to ignore the reality of his death as to deny his pending resurrection. I think that Mary Magdalen may be tempted by the former error as she tries to make his body move.

Katharine Bradley (1846-1914) and Edith Cooper (1862-1913) were partners in life and work who published joint poems under the pseudonym “Michael Field.” One of their poems describes a pietà by Carlo Crivelli–this one, if I am not mistaken. It is similar enough to the MFA’s Lamentation that some of their words apply to both paintings.

For instance, Michael Field writes: “His body, once blond, is soiled now and opaque / with the solemn ochres of the tomb.”

The poem implies that Mary Magdalen had found the living Jesus attractive. But now, “no beauty to desire / Is here–stiffened limb and angry vein.”

Yet there is such subtle intercourse between
   The hues and the passion is so frank
      One is soothed, one feels it good
      To be of this little group
      Of mourners close to the rank,
Deep wounds ...

apply for the 2025 Institute for Civically Engaged Research (ICER)

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The American Political Science Association (APSA) Institute for Civically Engaged Research (ICER) is a four-day, residential institute that provides political scientists with training to conduct ethical and rigorous civically engaged research. Up to 20 scholars will be selected as ICER Fellows and invited to attend the 2025 Summer Institute. ICER Fellows will network with other like-minded political scientists, and together, learn best practices for conducting academically robust, mutually beneficial scholarship in collaboration with communities, organizations, and agencies outside of academia.

ICER is organized in partnership with UCLA Social Sciences and the Center for Community Engagement (CCE) at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The 2025 Institute will be held in person at UCLA in Los Angeles, CA on July 7-10.

To apply, please complete this form. Application deadline: April 20, 2025.

What is Civically Engaged Research?

Scholars in many disciplines are grappling with how to produce rigorous scholarship that addresses significant social challenges in collaboration with communities, organizations, and agencies. They strive to learn from those working outside of academia, to benefit from the insights of all kinds of groups and institutions, and to give back to communities rather than extract value from them. Civically Engaged Research (CER) is an approach to inquiry that involves political scientists collaborating in a mutually beneficial way with people and groups beyond the academy to co-produce, share, and apply knowledge related to power or politics that contributes to self- governance. Conducting robust community and civically engaged research entails a different set of practices than other kinds of political science research,

APSA’s Institute for Civically Engaged Research

ICER trains political scientists at all career stages in best practices for conducting academically rigorous, mutually beneficial CER. The Institute Directors are Peter Levine (Tufts University), Samantha Majic (John Jay College & The CUNY Graduate Center), and Adriano Udani (University of Minnesota). Together with practitioner experts and scholarly guest speakers, ICER Directors and fellows will explore key topics related to civically engaged research by discussing relevant readings, by analyzing specific examples of civically engaged research from political science and cognate disciplines, and by considering the research plans and ideas of institute participants. From 2019-2024, ICER was hosted by the Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University.

Topics to be covered

Expertise: what do political scientists uniquely contribute? What are the limitations of scholarly expertise? What types of expertise do those outside of academia have?
The ethics of collaboration: sharing of credit, funds and overhead, navigating IRB, dealing with disagreements.
Communicating results: to partners, relevant communities, the press, and directly to the broader public.
How to navigate common social science values and norms while doing civically engaged work.
Career considerations: publication and credit, tenure and promotion, funding your research.
Mapping the different and varied ways that political scientists engage through research and beyond

2025 Summer Institute

The Institute will take place on campus at UCLA from July 7-10. Approximately twenty fellows will meet each day for intensive discussions and workshops. Thanks to generous support from the Haynes Foundation, participants will have access to complimentary housing on the UCLA campus alongside scholarships available to defray costs of meals and travel. Applicants are expected to seek financial support from their home institution, but admission to the Institute will not be affected by financial need.

How to Apply

ICER is intended for advanced graduate students in political science and political scientists at any stage of their careers who wish to learn more and shift to integrate Civically Engaged Research (CER). It is not meant for scholars who are already experienced CER practitioners. Scholars may apply with a current or planned project that involves CER, or without an ongoing research project. All scholars with an interest in topics or approaches to civically engaged scholarship are welcome to apply. To apply, please complete the form located here. Applications are due by April 20, 2025. Applicants to ICER will be notified of decisions by early May.

For more information about ICER, please visit our website: https://connect.apsanet.org/icer/. If you have further questions about the institute, please contact APSA’s Centennial Center at centennial@apsanet.org.

a generational call to rebuild

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In January 2024, I wrote a post entitled “calling youth to government service.” I noted that many talented young people would vote to expand government, but few were interested in working in government. I posited both demand- and supply-side explanations. Young people do not know enough about public-sector employment, nor do they sufficiently value it. At the same time, the federal government has been very bad at recruitment and retention.

Now, as someone who advises many talented and idealistic undergraduates, I cannot encourage them to apply for federal jobs.

We don’t know how long “now” will last. Bad-case scenarios envision an extended period of crisis and the kind of kleptocratic authoritarianism that will keep federal (and some state) agencies from functioning appropriately for years.

Nevertheless, it is important to begin envisioning a rebuilding phase, even while we also strive to defend current institutions. The opportunity to rebuild could begin as soon as two years from now. At least, that is when presidential campaigns will launch, and one of their core messages could be rebuilding the government. Meanwhile, today’s college students and recent graduates can be obtaining further education or experience in local government or the private sector with an eye to joining the federal civil service in 2028.

Besides, having a positive vision can change the political situation in the present. Optimism is important for morale. We should be struggling to make change, not just to block threats.

Donald Trump and Elon Musk are already educating Americans about the value of the federal government. In the latest CNN poll, substantial majorities of Americans oppose “laying off large numbers of federal government workers,” “shutting down the agency that provides humanitarian aid in low-income countries,” and (by the widest margin) “blocking health agencies from communicating without approval from a Trump appointee.” Since foreign aid generally lacks public support, and the Trump/Musk layoffs have yet to affect many voters directly, I suspect that subsequent cuts will be even more unpopular.

Many of my recent predictions have been wrong. I thought that some of the Biden-era spending would be popular, and I thought that Musk’s layoffs at Twitter would break that platform. Nevertheless, I predict that mass federal layoffs will raise awareness of the value of the federal workforce. Meanwhile, the civil service already needs hundreds of thousands of new workers to replace retiring Baby Boomers, and Trump’s layoffs will create many additional vacancies.

Under these circumstances, how should the federal civil service be rebuilt? I would posit these principles:

1. We need an eloquent generational call. Today’s young people can reconstruct their government to address social and environmental challenges. This is their historical calling. Government service is an essential means to the ends that many of them care about, including saving the earth from climate change.

2. The paradigm of service should be a full-time, professional career in the government. I am not against social entrepreneurship or temporary community service, but the civil service is much larger and more important. We do not need alternatives to government careers nearly as much as we need more and better positions within the civil service (federal, state, and local).

3. The goal is not to return to 2024. The federal workforce had well-documented problems before Trump was inaugurated. Although we must tolerate some degree of sclerosis and waste in any large system–and although current federal workers deserve credit for much valuable work under difficult circumstances–there was already a need for change. Young people should be recruited to rejuvenate and reform federal systems, not just work in them.

4. But any changes should be scrupulously legal. Rule of law is a fundamental value, and nowhere is it more important than in the executive branch, which monopolizes the legitimate use of violence in our society. The federal government can kill, imprison, monitor, or financially ruin people. Its every action must be governed by statutory law. This means that rejuvenating the federal civil service must proceed within the clear statutory authority of the president, unless new legislation passes. (And I am not expert enough on this topic to recommend legislation.)

5. Federal agencies already do some work that I would label “civic”: collaborating with groups in civil society, convening citizens for important conversations, and educating (not propagandizing) the public. But they also (inevitably) play many roles that are bureaucratic, technocratic, and managerial. A rebuilding effort should emphasize the civic aspects of government, because these are valuable, they can appeal to younger people who are skeptical of bureaucracy, and they can reinforce the public legitimacy of the executive branch. If you want people to trust experts, give them opportunities to work with experts on common problems.

The overall message should acknowledge the value of the institutions that we have built so far–and the service of our current and past public sector workers–while envisioning new and better ways of governing.