The goal is to give the reader an idea of the potential, rather than include enough detail for strategy to be used immediately, on the basis of this article alone. The rudiments of strategy and strategic analysis at their most applied are discussed in three parts. The first discusses how to develop a strategy. The second examines how to analyze a strategy already put in place. The third discusses a series of exercises, whose role is to develop the capacity to strategize and conduct strategic analysis. Table 1, Objectives and Tools, relates these three parts to the possible applications mentioned above. These are only three components of a more detailed step-by-step method which, applied to elections only, includes over 40 exercises and 50 worksheets. The last section provides some sample strategies.
Objectives and Tools
Goals Tools
Mobilization Exercises
Effectiveness Worksheet I
Policy Analysis Worksheets II and III
Some discussion of strategy, however, is in order. A strategy is an imaginative idea, which orchestrates and/or inspires sets of actions (tactics, policies, programs or plans) in response to a given problem. The essential characteristic of strategy is the core idea, because the core idea directs all the subsequent actions or tactics of the strategy when it is implemented. There are three major components to strategy, in addition to the core idea: goals, tactics, and style. Goals are aims or ends to which efforts are directed. The tactics are the means or steps useful or helpful to a desired goal. Finally, the style is the particular manner of taking steps for a particular purpose.
Political mobilization of Youth
This section provides the description of strategic exercises for greater mobilization.
Exercise 1, Identifying Issues. Hand out disposable, development included cameras and ask people to take pictures of what improves their lives, what makes their lives good, what enriches their lives; the following meeting, have the people display and explain their pictures to the group, and from that discussion build a consensus on what the issue they want to act on is.
Exercise 2, Discovering Strategy and your Strategic Potential. Individuals play chess or checkers but are required to think two moves ahead; facilitators interrupts games to turn the tables, change opponents, ask about moves anticipated, etc. Facilitator provides feedback on strategic thinking throughout workshop. Exercise ends with a discussion about what the chessboard represents in a real strategy, what the pieces are, what the rules mean, how the opponent was dealt with.
Exercise 3, Whose Line Is It Anyway? Participants are given brief outline of the situation that they are in and have to improvise. Select different participants for each role-play; after each role play discuss the strength and weaknesses. Observers and participants have to say one good thing for every criticism. Criticism should take the form of Ahow would I do it differently?@ The facilitator stops the role play when the participants are out of ideas.
Exercise 4, Drafting Letters, Faxes, E-mails. Divide participants into three groups and have one team draft a letter, one team draft a fax and one team draft an email. Each communication would be trying to be doing one or more of the following: get an appointment; be put on the agenda of the next meeting; be put on a committee; ask for money for your cause; ask to vote in a certain way for your cause. Each team would have half an hour to write its communication, then they would share it with the group and get some feedback.
Exercise 5, Going for the Jugular. Watch AA Bridge Too Far@ to learn about tactical failure; discuss the various strategic nodes as they occur in the film. Divide participants into groups of three. Have each identify the decision-making process of their issue step by step; once that is done, have each group identify the moments where an activist must be successful or the whole strategy will fail. Bring the group back together and construct the decision-making chart, step by step, to the best of the group=s ability; reconcile the various formats and make a list of the do-or-die moments. Those are the jugulars, the strategic nodes. Assign each jugular to a group or participant, and devise 4 tactics to make sure the strategy is successful at that particular point. Bring the group together again and rank order the solutions for each node. Then assign the additional research or other tasks associated with each node.
Exercise 6, In the Decision-Maker=s Shoes. Preparatory session I: identify all players in the decision making process, including everyone who has some influence. Chart out the decision-making process for issue at hand; assign role-plays of each player to each participant. For example, if the decision-making body is a board of directors, there will be a chair, a secretary, some staff, each director; there will be blocs and alliances within the board, some members more influential than others, some members with strong views and others with undecided points, etc.
Exercise 7,Advocacy Styles. Watch the film ATwelve Angry Men@, available at most videos stores= participants must stop the movie every time they identify an advocacy style; participants discuss that style, its components, its effectiveness, and how to counter it; at the end of the film, they must explain which style is closest to their own.
Exercise 8, Strategy to Take Out. Form teams to work on various levels of government. Once teams are formed, they work together to fill out the various sections of the proposal. Print off the form, and inside the boxes, where there are questions to help you focus on what to write there. There are three major parts: setting the goal, developing steps to goal, and developing a way to assess progress and change the plan.
Exercise 9, Multiple Scenarios of Hostility/Good Will. Assign scenario developing work in writing: ask students to write dialogues between themselves and their contacts for each of the following: absolutely unreceptive; very unreceptive; mildly unreceptive; neutral; mildly receptive; very receptive; completely unreceptive.
Exercise 10, Talking Points. The fact sheet must provide necessary background information on the policy issue in question; must illustrate strategy and tactics for passing (or defeating) a decision in an organization. The memo must identify key members of the decision-making process, jurisdiction and leadership, and suggest ways to influence those members.
Exercise 11, Actual versus Formal Power Structure. Make organizational chart of factual, as opposed to formal organizational chart for power or for decision making; chart of informal influence patterns as discoverable; helps identifying unknown areas, so that narrows down the research agenda.
Exercise 12, Principles of Strategy. Workshop is divided into groups, whose task it is to come up with a basic strategy that can be realized immediately involving the other groups. Past examples of small-scale strategies have been: getting everyone in the room to sit on the floor; getting everyone in the room to applaud or to laugh. As each group carries out its strategy, the facilitator points out components of strategy and principles of sound strategy that are used by participants. Participants also identify components and principles for themselves.
The foregoing exercises can be offered in two programs, the first for fourteen weeks with a regular, weekly meeting time (see Table 2, A 14-Week Program), and the second for a series of intensive workshops which can be scheduled as needed (see Table 3, Program of Ad Hoc, Intensive workshops). A more detailed explanation of each exercises, along with planning notes, and several other worksheets have, again, been discussed elsewhere.
A 14-Week Program
Week Themes Exercises
1 Form teams, identify issue, identify values,
identify organizational culture of team and
dominant culture 1
2-3 Strategy 2 or 8 or 12
4-5 Case studies of activism on youth issues
6 Teams present strategy, get feedback
7-8 Lobbying techniques 3, 4
9 Teams present report and plan
10 Advocacy styles 7
11-12 Decision making; participation; levels of government 6
13 Research 5, 9, 11
14 Presenting strategy 10
Program of Ad Hoc, Intensive Workshops
Time Required Goal Exercises
4.5 hours Introduction to basics of strategy 2, 12, 5
8 hours Developing a complete strategy in a day 8
8 hours Make your existing strategy fool-proof 5, 6, 9
5.5 hours Introduction to tactics 3, 4, 7
4 hours Intensive tactical development 9, 11
Greater Political Effectiveness of Youth
By filling out worksheet I, using the questions included in italics right on the form, and following the instructions below, youth may design their own political strategies.
This worksheet can also be used to develop a policy for fostering great youth participation, within a political party or on the part of the government or a government agency.
Analyzing and Amending Existing Policies
For maximum effectiveness in achieving greater youth participation in the electoral system, it may be necessary to analyze an existing policy. Worksheet II, which is self-explanatory, supports that task.
The pattern of actions may not be immediately obvious – in that case, turn to Worksheet III to help list events. Divide your observations into periods.
Since the development of a core idea is both crucial to a strategy and the component novice strategists find most difficult to identify, some examples can be found below.
Some Sample Core Ideas
We will attack their underbelly.
We will think well of you if you do ......................................
You will think well of yourself if you do ................................
Public opinion will think well of you if you do this......................
The public will think badly of your company if you do.....................
......................... is the morally superior thing to do.
I'm going to embarrass them into it
To do ......................would be unethical.
If you do..........................., the country will think it is unethical.
The economy will be better if you do .........................
Science has shown that .................................is the better course of action.
It will be very difficult for you socially if you announce ..................................
You doing ........................... will be bad for your political future.
We will use our opponents= momentum against them by doing ...............................
We will knock our opponents of their pace by saying .............................
I will defy the government=s expectations of me by...................................
We will take back the lead by .................................
We will change people=s mind about us by ..........................
We will take back control of the agenda by ..................................
We will cut them off at the pass by ...........................
I will cut them off at the knees by.................................
I will get other players to use their power against other players by.................
Conclusion
The foregoing article was the most recent installment in a series of books and articles introducing a new general theory of strategy and its applications to an audience primarily composed of non-strategists. It is also a part of a broader oeuvre, integrated along three axes. The first axis focuses on the methodological and theoretical development of this new theory of strategy. The second axis presents several structured sets of case studies focusing on the various types of actors in political systems, broadly defined. The third axis presents a series of exercises and worksheets which pertain either to particular applications of strategy or which spans the intellectual development of a good strategist. These exercises are intended to offer training for strategy, limbering and strengthening exercises that lead to the gymnastic performance of strategy. The goal of the present article is to propose that strategy can be a suitable foundation for the analysis and development of greater youth participation in the electoral system. Strategy provides a useful forecasting tool for relations between all the actors who may be involved (individuals, groups, political parties, factions within those parties, governments at various levels, pressure groups and even election officials), which are fraught or otherwise difficult.
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