Movement Action Plan
Definition
Bill Moyer’s Movement Action Plan (MAP) — articulated in Doing Democracy (2001) and the accompanying Movement Action Plan pamphlet (2002), with earlier Movement for a New Society writings — is a model of how social movements move from a triggering event through stages of growth to success. [source: moyer-movement-action-plan]
It identifies four roles every movement needs (citizens, rebels, change agents, and reformers) and a recurring backlash stage that defeats movements which fail to understand it: the campaign’s momentum provokes a counter-mobilisation, and the movement that has not prepared for that backlash loses ground it cannot recover.
Practitioners use the model diagnostically — where is our campaign in the cycle, what role are we playing, what is the next step — rather than prescriptively, since MAP is a description of historical patterns, not a recipe. The Moyer source page treats it as the canonical practitioner-level framework for diagnosing where a social movement is in its development. [source: moyer-movement-action-plan]
Full page: [[movement-action-plan]].
FAQ
What is the Movement Action Plan (MAP)?
Bill Moyer’s Movement Action Plan (MAP) — articulated in Doing Democracy (2001) and the accompanying Movement Action Plan pamphlet (2002), with earlier Movement for a New Society writings — is a model of how social movements move from a triggering event through stages of growth to success [source: moyer-movement-action-plan].
What roles and stages does MAP identify?
It identifies four roles every movement needs (citizens, rebels, change agents, and reformers) and a recurring backlash stage that defeats movements which fail to understand it: the campaign’s momentum provokes a counter-mobilisation, and the movement that has not prepared for that backlash loses ground it cannot recover [source: moyer-movement-action-plan]. The diagnostic value of MAP is in naming the backlash as a normal, expected stage rather than as failure.
How is MAP used by practitioners?
Practitioners use the model diagnostically — where is our campaign in the cycle, what role are we playing, what is the next step — rather than prescriptively, since MAP is a description of historical patterns, not a recipe [source: moyer-movement-action-plan]. The Moyer source page treats it as the canonical practitioner-level framework for diagnosing where a social movement is in its development.