Many organizations engage in collective action to represent the interests of their constituents. Almost all face moments when the political environment shifts unexpectedly or drastically and they are left with the question, “What do we do now?” Prisms of the People: Power & Organizing in Twenty-First Century America contends that organizations faced with this question must develop a strategic logic to organizing that emphasizes building constituents within an organization who are independent, flexible, and committed to each other. This book is essential for scholars and activists interested in understanding how organizations achieve political power.
At the crux of Prisms of the People is the metaphor about how the design of the prism is integral for shaping the kind of light that is refracted outside of the prism (p. 3). Extending this metaphor, Hahrie Han, Elizabeth McKenna, and Michelle Oyakawa argue that the ability of organizations to navigate complex, constantly changing political moments depends on leaders having developed constituents that they can strategically deploy again and again. While organizations cannot predict or control the political environment, they can intentionally cultivate and engage their members. Prisms of the People contends that organizations need constituents who are independent (not dependent on external resources), committed (aligned with the goals of the organization), and flexible (willing to follow the leadership’s choices). Leaders who make deliberate choices that build such constituents can reflect light and power far greater than their membership numbers suggest.
Prisms of the People is necessarily ambiguous about how to execute the strategic logic for achieving political power. The time, space, and conflicts that organizations operate in are unique. So are the issues that need representation and the political environment in which organizations compete for representation. Nevertheless, the focus on building prisms of people power provides a greater understanding of how to successfully navigate political moments than traditional scholarship on social movement organization emphasizing resource aggregation.
Han, McKenna, and Oyakawa suggest that one of the most significant contributions of Prisms of the People is in moving beyond resource aggregation models that focus on amassing people’s money, time, or efforts toward political campaigns. To illustrate this contribution, they describe a 2016 municipal ballot initiative for universal education in Cincinnati, Ohio. Despite gathering the 5,000 signatures necessary to support funding universal preschool, the city council decided not to move forward with the initiative. Faced with the question, “what now?” AMOS, a faith-based organization advocating for racial, social, and economic justice, turned to its strong constituency base. The movement’s leaders were able to call on their independent, flexible, and committed constituency to pressure elected officials to adopt the measure. If AMOS had focused primarily on amassing signatures—traditionally a sign of successful resource mobilization – it would have had a much more difficult time re-engaging people in collective action efforts vital for securing the ballot initiative in 2016.
While AMOS contributed to a monumental policy win for universal preschool in Cincinnati, a policy win is not the primary measure of political power in Prisms of the People. The authors argue that political power is more than just passing policy. Political power is the “extent to which movement actors changed the cost calculations of their targets” (p. 74). It is having influence over how policies develop and a voice in the narratives surrounding those policies. Consequently, successfully achieving people power looks different depending on the specific context in which organizations are competing.
So, how do we measure an organization’s success? The case selection for Prisms of the People is perhaps the first measure of successfully achieving political power. The authors interviewed dozens of national, statewide, local, digital, and labor organization leaders; academics; funders; and people who supported collective action organizations. They asked these leaders to identify successful state-level collective action campaigns. The fact that leaders with deep knowledge of organizing communities and collective action campaigns identified a set of actors as successful is, in itself, evidence of successful political power. Organizations perceived as successful have political power because people think they are successful and should therefore be at the table shaping policy changes.
Prisms of the People also looked elsewhere for evidence of successful political power. For some organizations, Han, McKenna, and Oyakawa rely on network surveys that uncover shifts in power relationships. For another, they examine the quality and quantity of immigration legislation before and after a critical shift in organizing efforts in Arizona. And for a final organization, the authors compared the relationship between candidates’ tweets and the platform of ISAIAH, a faith-based community organization in Minnesota. Each measure of success specifically and effectively captures the outcomes of each organization’s collective action efforts. Indeed, as ambiguous as Prisms of the People is about how to execute the strategic logic at the center of achieving political power, it is equally and necessarily vague about what it means for an organization to be successful in a dynamic, context-specific political environment.
One might ask whether the strategic logic in Prisms of the People leads to policy influence. But there is no clear-cut formula to guarantee success. In their case study of six successful collective action organizations, the authors admit that they initially looked for patterns or a recipe for power that would guarantee success. They found none (p. 99). Instead, the findings revealed a strategic logic focusing less on amassing people for a collective effort and more on how to cultivate a constituency willing to show up again and again for collective action.
The inability to find a formula for success is not surprising and not a weakness of Prisms of the People. As the authors note, many collective action organizations operate amidst widespread structural disadvantages and for issues that would substantially challenge the status quo. Thus, policy wins, let alone political influence are rare and difficult to detect. Yet their goal is to identify plausible, not probable, pathways for change. Prisms of the People triumphs in this effort. With their methodological rigor, illustrative case studies, and commitment to letting the data speak for itself, Han, McKenna, and Oyakawa demonstrate that cultivating an independent, flexible, and committed constituency is a productive strategic logic toward political influence. Nevertheless, two questions critical for understanding and adapting this strategic logic remain.
First, who are the leaders responsible for executing this strategic logic, and how do they develop? Leaders are central to the argument of Prisms of the People. They make decisions about how to engage constituents. And their actions determine how accountable constituents are to each other and the organization and how accountable the organization is to constituents. The authors contend that leaders must be reflective, flexible, and have the judgment to adapt their strategies when necessary (pp. 121-122). But where do those leaders come from? And how do they develop the skills needed to execute the strategic logic at the center of Prisms of the People?
Perhaps the organizing campaigns described in Prisms of the People provide some insight. For example, Han, McKenna, and Oyakawa illustrate how the passage of Senate Bill 1070 in Arizona led to a 104-day leadership training vigil that produced wide networks of leaders and organizations committed to influencing immigration policy in Arizona.
However, this type of leadership building leads to a second question, which concerns the relationship between leaders and constituents. Han, McKenna, and Oyakawa challenge the perspective that successful movement outcomes are based on the strength of charismatic leaders with ideologues as followers (pp. 159-160). But if constituents are more than followers, then what is their role, if any, in contributing to this strategic logic? It is unclear whether and how much constituents contribute to developing and executing the strategic logic at the center of Prisms of the People.
Neither of these questions takes away from the accomplishments of the authors. In moving beyond policy wins as the dominant measure of political power, Prisms of the People exposes the true political power of groups that influence policies and narratives. Moreover, in challenging the dominant organizing perspectives that focus on aggregating resources (e.g., money, volunteers, petition signatures) as necessary conditions for successful collective action efforts, Prisms of the People helps scholars and advocates understand how organizations can answer the question “what do we do now?” when they observe a drastic shift in the political environment.
