Some kinds of activists are more willing to try stuff out, see if works and think on their feet, but some of the people who are working on [change] find that very difficult: They've been schooled into thinking you have to come up with the perfect plan in advance. It has become a bit technocratic.

Duncan Green

Categorized in : Thinking Feet Perfect

I keep coming back to the phrase "Dance with the system" - not just march onwards no matter what happens.

Duncan Green

march phrases matter

The post-Second World War simple system of social democracy and organized labour has fragmented massively, but just because people aren't organized in workplace trade unions doesn't mean they aren't in associations with other people - work-based, place-based, culture-based, sport-based, faith-based - there's a bit of an old rainbow coalition argument.

Duncan Green

sports war mean

You have a huge number of people who spend their time writing papers which show that migrants pay more to the country than they take out in benefits, and they say, "Why don't you approve of migration? Why don't you open up borders?" They're not able to empathize with how people feel about migration.

Duncan Green

writing numbers country

To be effective at selling ideas, at being a lobbyist, influencing other people, you have to be very sure of yourself.

Duncan Green

lobbyists people ideas

Until you have looked in depth at the system and found out where women in Egypt are not being cut through female genital mutilation, or where kids in Vietnam are not malnourished, or where hospitals in America are getting rid of the superbugs anyway - unless you have that level of curiosity about what's going on without you, you will always come in with your great new recipe and just ignore what's going on, and that will make you much less effective at what you're trying to achieve.

Duncan Green

egypt cutting kids

The question, "When did you last listen to a poor person properly and try to understand what's going on inside their own experience?" enables you to connect.

Duncan Green

poor lasts trying

If you were disabled in Russia, you had to re-register every year, and it took up to six months to re-register, so people who lost limbs in Afghanistan had to prove that their leg hadn't grown back.

Duncan Green

russia people years

There are always pressures on decision-makers other than just what is right or what is wrong.

Duncan Green

makers decision pressure

When we do work in places like China and Vietnam, research tends to be really effective as a way of getting change, whereas in more open places, mobilization and the creation of public pressure through the media often seem to be the things we try.

Duncan Green

vietnam media trying

Lots of people in the open system are very determined to try and strengthen evidence-based policy.

Duncan Green

determined trying people

When you get talking to people in positions of power, you find that often their worldview is framed either in terms of their disciplinary studies at university and/or the country where they first got interest in development.

Duncan Green

position-of-power talking country

I see [activists] getting really angry that people won't just do what the evidence tells them, and that's not very helpful. You need to actually think why that is.

Duncan Green

people needs thinking

I have to be sure of myself - in a conditional way, always being open to the possibility that I'm wrong.

Duncan Green

conditional possibility way

There's no point in just hankering for the big trade unions of the 1950s or '60s.

Duncan Green

unions trade bigs

I sound like a church nut, but look at the role of the churches in the civil rights movement in the States. People are brought together in other ways that can become drivers of change.

Duncan Green

rights nuts people

In any system, there will be change happening without you.

Duncan Green

happenings without-you

Somewhere like Russia or China, decision-makers have far fewer constraints on acting than in more open systems.

Duncan Green

russia acting decision

People are saying, "I have a right to my opinion. Don't just keep condescending, telling me what to think." There's something slightly liberating about that, but also it lends itself to being taken advantage of, because in come the demagogues.

Duncan Green

taken people thinking

The death of deference seems to be general at the moment, so everybody has to earn their reputation and trust all over again. You don't just get it by virtue of being a professor or a politician or anybody else.

Duncan Green

reputation politician moments

In the end, that's a blind alley - we have to get back to being able to think on our feet and react.

Duncan Green

able feet thinking