Innovation Dialogues: POWER

On October 11-12, 2024, in Jordan, ActionAid will host the first of its Innovation Dialogues series of workshops, designed to uncover knowledge and explore themes of fundamental importance to our current and future work. The theme of this workshop is power:

•    How does power concentrate in today’s social, religious, business, and political formations?
•    What are the emergent possibilities for power redistribution?
•    How are counter-power, resistance, and counter narratives being built and repressed?

Context

All of the work that ActionAid does is in many ways connected to power – power imbalances, power struggles, power realization – that it makes sense for this to be our first Innovation Dialogue topic. This connecting thread of power also means that any outputs produced as a result of this work will be usable for a long period of time, also reflecting and reviewing  ActionAid’s role and that of international CSOs more broadly, in line with our commitments to feminist leadership, locally led development and disintermediation.
 

Framing

While there is scope for the conversation to be wide-ranging and flexible, there are a number of general and specific questions that we plan to use to influence and ignite the conversations. These include:

Leading Questions to Help Frame the Dialogue

•    How is power accumulated, redistributed or dispersed within and across State structures and other public institutions? How is dissent disregarded or repressed by institutions?
•    How is power accumulated, redistributed or dispersed in corporate type formations? How is dissent marginalised or repressed by such formations?
•    How will different forms of oppressive power be resisted in the 2030s? 
•    How is power, consistently with the assets above, accumulated, redistributed or dispersed in social formations / movements?

More specific questions to explore

•    Is geography still divided into spaces where the monopoly of the use of force is held by States or state-like entities?
•    Are there any cultural differences to be acknowledged in how power is accumulated, exercised and distributed in different geographical contexts or organised settings?
•    How is power defined in the latest / most progressive social science circles? What framing of power is relevant to the Dialogues. Power “to”, power “with”, power “over” or other framings such as ‘visible, invisible and hidden power’?
•    How is “people’s power” defined when often people are mobilizing, voting and generally rallying behind formations that work against their interest? Who are the “people”? How does organised people power balance the rule of the majority and the protection of minorities?
•    Can organised citizenship counter state or corporate power at all? If yes, in what areas, using what sources of power and with what legitimacy beyond critical mass? 
•    What should organised civil society stop doing to prevent the wasting of time and resources?

Preparatory Reading

Power to the People: Use your voice, change the world by Danny Sriskandarajah 

Power to the People: Use Your Voice, Change the World by Danny Sriskandarajah | Goodreads 

The book is his radical manifesto for change designed to inspire citizen action around the world. It presents a blueprint for how we, as individuals, can make a difference through greater community engagement, and how we can deliver a society that works for the many and not the few. He speaks to voter apathy and a growing sense that elections no longer matter, with politicians and institutions too focused on short-term issues to grapple with complex global problems such as climate change, rising inequality, and digital disruption. Yet the book is also filled with inspiring real-life examples of citizen power in action, ranging from a volunteer-run repair café in Danny's local suburb to Avaaz's successful campaigns to tackle endemic corruption in Brazil. 
From public ownership of social media spaces to democratizing share ownership, and from re-energizing co-operatives to creating a people's chamber at the United Nations, this campaigning book has a clear mission to make us reclaim our power as citizens of the world. 

The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism by George Monbiot, Peter Hutchinson 

The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism by George Monbiot | Goodreads 

How can you fight something if you don’t know it exists? 

We live under an ideology that preys on every aspect of our our education and our jobs; our healthcare and our leisure; our relationships and our mental wellbeing; the planet we inhabit – the very air we breathe. So pervasive has it become that, for most people, it has no name. It seems unavoidable, like a natural law. 

But trace it back to its roots, and we discover that it is neither inevitable nor immutable. It was conceived, propagated, and then concealed by the powerful few. Our task is to bring it into the light—and to build a new system that is worth fighting for. Neoliberalism. Do you know what it is? 

Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy by Quinn Slobodian

Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy by Quinn Slobodian | Goodreads 

In a revelatory dispatch from the frontier of capitalist extremism, an acclaimed historian of ideas shows how free marketeers are realizing their ultimate goal: an end to nation-states and the constraints of democracy. 

Look at a map of the world and you’ll see a colorful checkerboard of nation-states. But this is not where power actually resides. Over the last decade, globalization has shattered the map into different legal spaces: free ports, tax havens, special economic zones. With the new spaces, ultracapitalists have started to believe that it is possible to escape the bonds of democratic government and oversight altogether. 

Crack-Up Capitalism follows the most notorious radical libertarians - from Milton Friedman to Peter Thiel - around the globe as they search for the perfect space for capitalism. Historian Quinn Slobodian leads us from Hong Kong in the 1970s to South Africa in the late days of apartheid, from the neo-Confederate South to the former frontier of the American West, from the medieval City of London to the gold vaults of right-wing billionaires, and finally into the world’s oceans and war zones, charting the relentless quest for a blank slate where market competition is unfettered by democracy. 

A masterful work of economic and intellectual history, Crack-Up Capitalism offers both a new way of looking at the world and a new vision of coming threats. Full of rich details and provocative analysis, Crack-Up Capitalism offers an alarming view of a possible future. 

Participants list

• Tasneem Essop, biography to follow
• Mr. Hani Al Masri, Executive Director of Masarat (The Palestinian Center for Policy Research) Masarat is an ActionAid partner. Mr. Hani is a political analyst and a daily columnist who makes daily appearances on local and international media commenting on political developments in Palestine and wider region. Confirmed.
• Salil Shetty, India. Waiting for confirmation
• Steen Folke.waiting for confirmation
• Jamila Mahmoud, waiting for confirmation
• Stefano Prato, waiting for confirmation
• Lapo Pistelli, yes but yet to confirm.  
• Danny Sriskandarajah, shall be ok for opening online and peer review  ex post.  
• Bhaskar Sunkara.   
• David Goel   
• Christian Duarte, Minister of Tax and Revenue, Govt of Honduras  
• Mariela Castro Espin, Cuba (daughter of Raul Castro)  …. Doctora en Ciencias Sociológicas, Directora del Centro Nacional de Educación Sexual (CENESEX) y Diputada a la Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular  
• Nathan Anderson, Hindenburg Research   

Agenda

Day 1, 11 October

Morning session: 9.30 - 12.45
Chair for the session: Poonam

9.30-10.30: Check in and intro (Arthur/Hellen Grace welcomes and Marco introduces the Dialogues for some 20 minutes), followed by a round of personal expectations (3-5 minutes each). Expectations are noted on a flipchart and will be addressed in the end.

10.30-11.00: Andreia interviews Danny (online) based on four initial questions and the book.

Leading questions to help frame the dialogue

•    How is power accumulated, redistributed or dispersed within and across State structures and other public institutions? How is dissent disregarded or repressed by institutions?
•    How is power accumulated, redistributed or dispersed in corporate type formations? How is dissent marginalised or repressed by such formations?
•    How will different forms of oppressive power be resisted in the 2030s? 
•    How is power, consistently with the assets above, accumulated, redistributed or dispersed in social formations / movements?

11.00-11.15 Comfort break/Coffee/informal chats

11.15-12.00: Q&A + debate on intro session (ignited by Poonam).

12.00-12.45: Round of comments and dimensions of power not addressed in the Terms of Reference or that need further exploring (with suggestions how/when)

Rapporteur for the next morning: Marco

12.45 – 14.30: Lunch

Afternoon session: 14.30-17.45

Chair of the session: Salil 

14.30-16.45 (with a 15 minute break 16.00-16.15): Deeper dive session

We are pre-assigning the “specific” questions in the Terms of Reference to participants, so that they can come in with organised thoughts on those. Give 20 minutes each to ignite the debate.

•    David and Arthur: How is power defined in the latest / most progressive social science circles? What framing of power is relevant to the Dialogues. Power “to”, power “with”, power “over” or other framings such as ‘visible, invisible and hidden power’?

•    Andreia and Tasneem: Are there any cultural differences to be acknowledged in how power is accumulated, exercised and distributed in different geographical contexts or organised settings?

•    Hani Al Masri, Stefano, Sandeep: Is geography still divided into spaces where the monopoly of the use of force is held by states or state-like entities? Or is it that the power of capital, data, media is dominant?

•    Gino, Hani Al Masri, Stefano: How is “people’s power” defined when often people are mobilizing, voting and generally rallying behind formations that work against their interest? Who are the “people”? How does organised people power balance the rule of the majority and the protection of minorities?

•    Tasneem, Lapo: Can organised citizenship counter state or corporate power at all? If yes, in what areas, using what sources of power and with what legitimacy beyond critical mass? 

•    Salil, Lapo, Stefano: What should organised civil society start and stop doing to prevent the wasting of time and resources?
 

16.45-17.45: Overall plenary: What has emerged from the session overall on each question in the Terms of Reference and more emerged in session 1.

Rapporteur of the session for the next morning: Gino does a summary (or swap with Salil, Salil does a summary)

20.00: Informal dinner and meeting of steering committee.

Day 2

Morning session: 9.30-12.45
Chair of session: Luca

9.30-10.00 : Rapporteurs from first half days and quick debate.

10.00-11.00: Suggestions of areas to further explore and how, what institutions, with what resources and partners (on power). Round table.

11.00-11.15: comfort break

11.15-12.15: Each participant writes one pager of their own learning and future engagement

12.15-12.30: Reflections on the Power dialogue vs the wider Terms of Reference of the Innovation Dialogues

12.30-12.45: Plenary to share and decide on follow up (1 hour)

13.00: Informal lunch and goodbye

Your ActionAid contact will provide you with more information as it becomes available.