A civil society campaign is one that is intended to mobilize public support and use democratic tools such as lobbying in order to instigate social change. Civil society campaigns can seek local, national or international objectives. They can be run by dedicated single-issue groups such as Baby Milk Action, or by professional Non-Governmental Organisations, such as the World Development Movement, who may have several campaigns running at any one time. Larger coalition campaigns such as 2005's Make Poverty History may involve a combination of NGOs. This article is about the political effort. ... It has been suggested that Social development be merged into this article or section. ... The World Development Movement (WDM) exists to mobilise public pressure for fundamental change. ... // The Make Poverty History campaign (which is written as MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY) was a British and Irish coalition of charities, religious groups, trade unions, campaigning groups and celebrities who mobilized around the UKs prominence in world politics in 2005 to increase awareness and pressure governments into taking actions towards relieving absolute...

Lobbying

A key element of campaigning is researching and offering policy suggestions. A campaigning organisation will usually attempt to keep track of legislative processes, and mobilise its supporter base to provide mass lobbies at critical junctures. ^[1]

Stunts and actions

While civil society campaigners may come from a range of political backgrounds, modern campaigning owes its largest debt to the ideas of the Situationists, such as Guy Debord, who recognised that as society falls increasingly under the thrall of the Spectacle, is is impossible to generate political momentum without existing in the visual plane. The Situationist International (SI), an international political and artistic movement, originated in the Italian village of Cosio dArroscia on 28 July 1957 with the fusion of several extremely small artistic tendencies: the Lettrist International , the International movement for an imaginist Bauhaus, and the London Psychogeographical Association. ... Guy Ernest Debord (December 28, 1931, in Paris – November 30, 1994, in Champot) was a writer, film maker, hypergraphist and founding member of the groups Lettrist International and Situationist International (SI). ... In general spectacle refers to an event that is memorable for the appearance it creates. ...

A frequent tactic of civil society campaigns is thus the deployment of high profile stunts and actions to draw attention to their cause. An example of a stunt is the group Fathers4Justice dressing as popular superheroes and scaling tall buildings to draw attention to their cause. The occupation of the Brent Spar platform by Greenpeace to prevent Shell dumping it at sea was an action rather than a stunt as it had intrinsic influence as well as generating publicity. ^[2] Game title screen Stunts is a racing game from 1990. ... Fathers 4 Justice (sometimes abbreviated to F4J) is a campaigning group in the United Kingdom which works for fathers rights. ... The Brent Spar oil storage buoy Brent Spar or Brent E, was an oil storage and tanker loading buoy in the Brent oilfield, operated by Shell UK. With the completion of a pipeline connection to the oil terminal at Sullom Voe in Shetland, the storage facility had continued in use... Greenpeace protest against Esso / Exxon Mobil. ...

References

1. ^ Lattimer, Mark (1994). The Campaigning Handbook.
2. ^ Rose, Chris (2005). How to Win Campaigns.