Individual Advocacy

Individual advocacy projects are intended (1) to encourage individual research on a topic of interest to students in Ethics and International Politics; (2) to promote the ability to apply research to efforts to ameliorate global problems; (3) to illustrate the problems and possibilities of individual initiatives designed to address transnational issues; and (4) to help students learn, by doing, what works and what doesn’t work in activist politics.

The range of potential projects is virtually unlimited.  The following are just a few of the possibilities:

• organizing a letter-writing campaign directed at a particular regime’s human rights abuses;

• creating an educational program designed to raise public awareness of an overlooked problem in international politics;

• filming a brief documentary or advocacy message concerning a transnational issue to be run on public access television;

• creating a web site designed to educate the public about global environmental threats;

• organizing a letter-writing campaign intended to promote U.S. Senate consideration of an unratified human rights treaty; and

• raising funds or assistance-in-kind for an organization that works on international issues.

Resources

The following web sites may provide additional ideas along with some guidance concerning activist politics:

Advocacy Tips by Michael Stein on the Institute for Global Communications web site (This collection of links is primarily devoted to using the Internet for advocacy.)

Global Exchange (Note especially the "Get Involved" section of the site.)

Amnesty International's Human Rights Action Center (Constantly updated, this list of concerns presented by AI can provide the rationale for a lifetime of human rights activism.)

Human Rights Watch Campaigns (HRW also offers opportunities to get involved in human rights work ranging from the ongoing effort to ban landmines to eliminating the use of child soldiers and beyond.)

Portfolios

Portfolios documenting the individual advocacy project should include, at a minimum, the following elements:

1. narrative description--a brief paper describing the problem being addressed, the means of addressing the problem, the results achieved, and the lessons learned from the project;

2. supporting documents--copies of letters, e-mails, responses, testimonials, or any other documents that support the narrative description of the project and its assessment of efficacy; and

3. contact information for any individuals who assisted with the project or who have first-hand knowledge of it.

Grades

Grades for individual advocacy projects will be based on a holistic assessment of the following factors:

1. evidence of understanding of the problem being addressed and of the best means of addressing it;

2. creativity and appropriateness of the project design;

3. evidence of time and energy devoted to the project;

4. evidence of efficacy; and

5. quality of the portfolio, with particular attention being paid to the narrative description.