Skip to content

6 min read

Case Study Template

A real-world campaign — the empirical base of the wiki. A case study is what the wiki cites when it needs to anchor a method or tactic in evidence: this is a campaign that did X, here is what happened, here is what was portable to the next campaign. One paragraph of narrative on the campaign; the rest is a worksheet the contributor fills in.

This is the artefact — for the method (what makes a case study good, how to write one that travels), see case-studies and evaluation.

Frontmatter (copy verbatim)

---
title: "<Name of the campaign>"
slug: <kebab-case-slug>
status: stub
languages: [EN]
categories: [case-studies]
license: link-only
updated: 2026-MM-DD
region: <one of: africa, asia-pacific, europe, latin-america, middle-east, north-america, global>
country: <one country, or "transnational">
issue: <one of: democracy, climate, labour, human-rights, health, peace, economic-justice, anti-corruption, other>
outcome: <one of: win, partial-win, loss, ongoing, mixed>
outcome_status: <one of: confirmed, contested, preliminary>
tactics: [<list, see tactic-star menu in [[the-tactic-star]]>]
actor_type: [<one or more: ngo, movement, union, grassroots, coalition, individual, other>]
modi: [<one or more: confrontational, catalytic, defensive, prefigurative, building-alternatives>]
tradition: [<one or more: organizing, mobilizing, advocacy, service, prefigurative, direct-action, electoral, research, solidarity>]
level: [<one or more: local, regional, national, supranational, global>]
year: <YYYY>
sources: [<list of source slugs — `[source: slug]` markers in body cite these>]
---

Field-group comments:

  • Identity (title, slug, status, languages, categories, license, updated): standard wiki frontmatter — see CONVENTIONS.md. Keep the slug short and kebab-case.
  • Geographic scope (region, country): where the campaign ran. region is one of the seven standard regions; country is one country or transnational for cross-border campaigns.
  • Subject (issue): the policy / political issue the campaign was about. Pick one from the controlled list — it powers the by-issue.md hub.
  • Outcome (outcome, outcome_status): what concretely shifted (see ## Outcome below). outcome_status is epistemic — whether the outcome is confirmed, contested (sources disagree), or preliminary (too early to call).
  • Repertoire (tactics, actor_type, modi, tradition, level): the wiki’s tactical taxonomy (the-tactic-star). tactics is the specific actions used; modi, tradition, and level are the higher-order classifications — pick whichever the source actually supports. Multiple values allowed.
  • Year (year): the year the campaign started. For multi-year campaigns, list the start year.
  • Sources (sources): the source slugs in Wiki/sources/ that back this case study. Body citations use [source: <slug>] markers.

Summary

One paragraph (~5 lines): the headline of the campaign — who ran what when, what concretely happened, and what is portable from it. This is what readers see in the case-studies index, so write it for someone scanning 50 case studies at once.

  • <one paragraph — verb-led, dated, named actors where possible>

Background

2-4 paragraphs of guidance, then a blank for the writer.

The political / social / economic context the campaign emerged from. Answer: what was the world like one paragraph before this campaign started? The reader needs enough context to understand why the campaign’s choice of target, message, and tactics made sense in that moment — not in ours.

  • The political moment — what was the governing coalition, the public mood, the salient institutions?
  • The trigger — what event or window opened the campaign (an election, a crisis, a leaked document, an anniversary)?
  • The base — who was already organised and angry about this when the campaign started?
  • What other campaigns had already tried — and why this one had to be different (or had an opening they didn’t).

<paragraph 1>

<paragraph 2>

<paragraph 3>

Tactics used

Pick 3-7 tactics. The list shows the campaign’s repertoire, not every micro-action — link each to the concept page and write one line on its role in this campaign.

Keep the list short. A reader skimming 50 case studies should walk away with a sense of what kind of campaign this was (lobbying-heavy, disruption-heavy, mass-mobilisation, legal), not a transcript.

Outcome

What concretely shifted. State the outcome category from the frontmatter (win / partial-win / loss / ongoing / mixed) and justify it in 2-3 paragraphs.

A concrete outcome is one of:

  • a policy change (a law, regulation, or budget line moved)
  • a court ruling (a judgment that constrains or enables the parties)
  • a public-opinion shift (measured, with the source of the measurement)
  • a behaviour change (a target stopped doing something, or counter-parties changed their tactics)
  • a discursive shift (the dominant framing changed — even without a vote, the terms of debate moved)

Avoid outcomes that aren’t outcomes: raised awareness, built capacity, strengthened the movement. Those are intermediate outcomes; if the campaign only achieved those, the outcome field is ongoing and outcome_status is preliminary.

  • What shifted (the specific, dated change):
  • Who was the immediate mover (the named actor who flipped, conceded, decided, ruled):
  • What evidence confirms it (the document, vote, ruling, data point):

Lessons

Use bullet points. Each lesson should be a portable claim — true of other campaigns too — not a description of this specific campaign. The reader should be able to lift the bullet, paste it into their own playbook, and act on it.

Good lesson: “Mass-mobilisation campaigns that lock in a public commitment within 72 hours of an announcement convert at 2-3x the rate of those that wait for coalition-building first.”

Bad lesson: “In 2019, Movement X organised a march that drew 50,000 people.” (That’s a fact, not a lesson.)

  • <lesson 1 — portable, falsifiable, with the conditions under which it holds>
  • <lesson 2>
  • <lesson 3>

If the source doesn’t support portable claims, write no portable lessons surfaced and move on — inventing lessons is worse than missing ones.

Sources

At least 3 sources, one per [source: <slug>] citation that appears in the body. Use existing source slugs from Wiki/sources/ — common choices: actipedia, beautiful-trouble, global-nonviolent-db, navco, tactics4change. If you cite a source that isn’t yet in Wiki/sources/, add it there first (use source template) and use its slug here.

  • [source: ] —
  • [source: ] —
  • [source: ] —

The grounding rule (see PUBLISH_GATE): every claim in the body that isn’t common knowledge needs a [source: <slug>] marker; every marker in the body needs a corresponding entry here.