Pillars of Support
Summary
Pillars of support are the constituencies that hold up the target — the people and institutions whose continued consent, compliance or resources let the target act. The campaign aims to weaken, split or remove those pillars rather than attack only the target’s declared enemies. The model is rooted in civil-resistance scholarship and is presented as closely linked to the spectrum of allies by both the Commons Library [source: commons-library] and Beautiful Trouble [source: beautiful-trouble]; the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict extends the framework with contemporary pillars (the international community, institutional allies, media) that Gene Sharp’s original work did not name [source: icnc]. Tactics are designed to peel away or pressure specific pillars — workers, customers, allied politicians, regulators, the public — and a common mistake is to overlook pillars whose occupants are sympathetic to your cause in general but need only a specific reason to withdraw their cooperation.
Pillars of support are the constituencies that hold up the target — the people and institutions whose continued cooperation lets the target act. A campaign aims to weaken, split or remove those pillars.
In the pillars model, each pillar represents a segment of society whose consent, compliance or resources the target depends on. Tactics are designed to peel away or pressure specific pillars — workers, customers, allied politicians, regulators, the public. The model comes out of civil-resistance studies and is closely linked to the spectrum of allies [source: commons-library], [source: beautiful-trouble]. ICNC extends the framework with contemporary pillars (the international community, institutional allies, media) that Sharp’s original work did not name [source: icnc]. Alinsky.fr uses the same idea under piliers de soutien as the natural complement to the spectrum [source: alinsky-fr]. A common mistake is to attack only the target’s enemies — but pillars of support often include groups who are sympathetic to your cause in general and need only a specific reason to withdraw their cooperation.
Use it for
Designing a corporate-accountability campaign; planning a multi-front strategy against a government; sequencing who to apply pressure on first.
Related
- power-mapping
- spectrum-of-allies
- nonviolent-direct-action
- civil-resistance
- beautiful-trouble
- commons-library
- icnc
- thinkers/gene-sharp
- thinkers/robert-helvey
Summary
Pillars of support are the constituencies that hold up the target — the people and institutions whose continued consent, compliance or resources let the target act. The campaign aims to weaken, split or remove those pillars rather than attack only the target’s declared enemies. The model is rooted in civil-resistance scholarship and is presented as closely linked to the spectrum of allies by both the Commons Library [source: commons-library] and Beautiful Trouble [source: beautiful-trouble]; the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict extends the framework with contemporary pillars (the international community, institutional allies, media) that Gene Sharp’s original work did not name [source: icnc]. Tactics are designed to peel away or pressure specific pillars — workers, customers, allied politicians, regulators, the public — and a common mistake is to overlook pillars whose occupants are sympathetic to your cause in general but need only a specific reason to withdraw their cooperation.
FAQ
What are pillars of support?
Pillars of support are the constituencies that hold up the target — the people and institutions whose continued cooperation lets the target act [source: commons-library]. A campaign aims to weaken, split or remove those pillars rather than attack only the target’s declared enemies, with each pillar representing a segment of society whose consent, compliance or resources the target depends on.
How does the pillars-of-support model relate to the spectrum of allies?
The model is rooted in civil-resistance scholarship and is presented as closely linked to the spectrum of allies by both the Commons Library and Beautiful Trouble [source: commons-library], [source: beautiful-trouble]. Alinsky.fr uses the same idea under piliers de soutien as the natural complement to the spectrum [source: alinsky-fr]. The two frameworks together describe the campaign’s full landscape of constituencies, from the target’s declared allies to its declared enemies.
What contemporary pillars does ICNC add to Sharp’s original work?
The International Center on Nonviolent Conflict extends the framework with contemporary pillars (the international community, institutional allies, media) that Gene Sharp’s original work did not name [source: icnc]. Sharp’s civil-resistance scholarship focused on the immediate domestic pillars (workers, customers, allied politicians, regulators, the public), while ICNC adds the transnational and reputational pillars that contemporary campaigns increasingly rely on.
What is the common mistake when targeting pillars?
A common mistake is to overlook pillars whose occupants are sympathetic to your cause in general but need only a specific reason to withdraw their cooperation [source: commons-library]. Tactics are designed to peel away or pressure specific pillars, and the campaign that attacks only the target’s declared enemies misses the pillars where the leverage actually sits.
Sources & verification
- sources/commons-library — grounding: secondary — RAW (5257 chars)
- sources/beautiful-trouble — grounding: secondary — RAW (2589 chars)
- sources/icnc — grounding: secondary — RAW (15436 chars)
- sources/alinsky-fr — grounding: secondary — RAW (1304 chars)
Learn more
- On Wikipedia: Power (social and political) — CC BY-SA 4.0