Social Action for

Community Development UNIT 4 STRATEGIES AND SKILLS IN

SOCIAL ACTION
*Archana Kaushik
Contents
4.0 Objectives
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Strategies and Tactics in Social Action
4.3 Planning Strategies
4.4 Managerial/Mobilization Strategies
4.5 Skills in Social Action
4.6 Let Us Sum Up
4.7 Further Readings and References

4.0 OBJECTIVES
This unit focuses on the strategies and tactics applied during the process of
social action. With ample field examples, it describes skills required by social
actionists at various stages of social action. More specifically, the unit would
cover:
a) Meaning, importance and relevance of strategies, tactics and skills in social
action.
b) Specific strategies and skills required at different stages of planning, mass
mobilization, management and evaluation.
c) Strategies and skills in communication and networking.
After reading the unit, you would be able to comprehend various skills needed
in social action and would gain insight into appropriate usage of strategies and
tactics in the process.

4.1 INTRODUCTION
The process of social action involves usage of a wide range of strategies,
tactics and skills by the social activists/actionists to achieve the desired
objectives. These strategies, tactics and skills differ while dealing with different
stakeholders or target audience like affected community people, policy makers,
bureaucrats and officials, change agents, general public, media and the like.
For instance, in the first stage of analysis of the social situation, the social
actionist relies on skills to find answers to key questions like — what are the
problems and key concerns of the marginalized group; existing gaps in the policy
layout and implementation of policy objectives; what changes are required at
the policy and programmatic levels and how these changes would influence the
reference public (marginalized group); types of changes required at legislation,
proclamation, regulation, legal decision, institutional practice and other forums
— specific instruments for analysis like problem tree, resource (material, human
and financial) analysis, PRA/PLA techniques, SWOC (Strength Weakness
*Dr. Archana Kaushik, Delhi University, Delhi
Opportunities and Challenges) analysis, etc., become quite handy at this stage. Strategies and Skills in
Social Action
Likewise for mobilization, carefully and consciously, specific strategies are
adopted for coalition building, strengthening partnerships, reaching consensus/
agreement for resource distribution, building networks, communication for
motivation, conflict resolution, dealing with internal dissents and other aspects.
There is a clear connecting thread between one stage to the other and success of
each stage subsequently helps in forming strategies and tactics at the other stage.
Keeping all partners together with persistence in making the cases are both
essential, in carrying out social action. Effectively used communication
strategies, at this stage, go a long way in defining the success of social action.
Developing and maintaining media support with personal contacts, press release,
press conferences and dealing with controversy, holding policy makers
accountable for commitments, monitoring public opinion and publicizing positive
changes along with time to time public acknowledgement of the roles of various
coalition partners are some of the dynamic features of the stage of ‘Action’. All
these areas of operation require specific expertise and judicious use of strategies.
The social actionist/activist must be skillful enough to get all these tasks
accomplished effectively. Evaluating the intervention and ensuring sustainability
of desired changes would call for different types of skills and strategies. In this
unit you would be studying about these aspects of social action at length. A
word of caution— merely reading about skills and strategies does not make a
person acquire dexterity in these areas. Practice in the field is a must along
with critical and analytical thinking abilities.

4.2 STRATEGIES AND TACTICS IN SOCIAL

ACTION
Social action involves collaboration, motivation, negotiation, mediation,
persuasion, confrontation and conflict resolution in its process and, in order to
show its dissent against the authority, may adhere to sit-ins, hunger strike, protest
march, boycott, slogan display, and other such strategies and tactics. Strategies
and tactics form the core of social action practice. A look at the meaning of
strategies and tactics, which, more often than not, are used interchangeably,
may be beneficial to understand the concept better.
The dictionary meaning of strategy is plan/ policy/ approach/ stratagem.
Likewise, tactic means method/ approach/ course/ ploy/ policy/ device/ scheme/
way/ trick/ maneuver. It may be noted that, though both terms appear quite
similar, ‘strategy’ is a larger term equivalent to form or model of social action
while ‘tactic’ would cater to specific, pinpointed action. Let us examine various
strategies and tactics delineated by academicians and researchers being used
in the process of social action.
Strategies and tactics provide dynamism to the process of social action. Therefore,
forming a consensus on the strategies that are possible and available is quite
difficult as newer strategies and tactics are being used with changing times in
various stages of social action. Lees has described following main strategies:
1) Collaboration: In this, the underlying assumption is that to bring about
change in power equation, resorting to conflictive strategies are not always
Social Action for necessary. The authority may be responsive and bring out necessary changes
Community Development
to provide equitable resource sharing to the marginalized groups too. In
this, social workers collaborate with the local authority and other
authorities or agencies with the aim to bring about needed improvements
in the existing social policy. This strategy is based on homogeneity of
values and interests, through which substantive agreement on proposed
interventions is obtainable. In collaborative strategy, the change in the social
structure or institution is brought through peaceful means. Such means are
education, persuasion, demonstration, and experimentation.
2) Competition or bargaining, negotiation, advocacy: The second set of
strategies are based on the premise that one anticipates some resistance to
change, and the activity of the change agent may have to be accompanied
by tactics which are not exclusively persuasive but rather seek to affect
change through pressure. In this strategy, contending parties utilize commonly
accepted campaign tactics to persuade, to negotiate and to bargain, with
the willingness to arrive at a working agreement.
3) Disruption or conflict/confrontation: Third set of techniques are based
on the premise that in the struggle between those who are pro status quo
and those who are pro change, resistance is an aspect of the change effort
and therefore the dynamic of conflict is inherent in the social action effort.
This strategy signifies a more militant approach and it may include strikes,
boycotts, fasts, tax-refusal, ‘sit-ins’ etc. Lees also includes riots and guerilla
warfare though these may be omitted by many other social workers as any
use of violence will be unacceptable to values and ethics of professional
social work.
Likewise, Lees has suggested nine tactics used by social actionists/activists in
various stages of social action. These tactics generally overlap across various
stages in the process of social action. They are:
1. Research 2. Education
3. Co-operation and 4. Organization
5. Arbitration 6. Negotiation
7. Mild coercion 8. Violation of legal norms
9. Joint action.
Both the overall strategies and tactics suggested by Lees seem to follow a
sequence, which may mean that one should begin from a collaboration approach
and may resort to a disruption strategy for the achievement of the desired objective
if the earlier strategies do not produce the desired results. The use of strategy
or the tactics would also depend on the goals selected and the socio-cultural
milieu.
Richard Bryant has also postulated two sets of strategies: Bargaining and
Confrontation. Bargaining includes lobbying, submitting petitions, information
and publicity campaigns, etc. Similarly, confrontation contains strikes,
demonstrations and sit-ins. To this, Singh adds another strategy — Administrative
approach. He mentioned that “most often than not, any struggle or effort towards
drastic or radical change is viewed by the establishment as a law and order
problem and therefore, an administrative approach or strategy is adopted to
deal with the situation”. It includes persuasion, bargaining, pressure, coercion,
infiltration, concession, co-option, splitting, etc.
Further, Hornstein lists certain strategies for social intervention — individual Strategies and Skills in
Social Action
change, techno-structural, data-based, organizational development and culture
change, violence and coercion, and non-violent direct action, accommodation,
exposures, living examples, public support, presentation of proposals,
competition, lobbying, agitation and subversion. Hornstein has classified these
strategies or tactics of social action as:
1) Direct action tactics: Picketing, marches, fraternization, haunting, leafleting
and renouncing honours.
2) Non-cooperation: Strikes, boycott, tax-refusal.
3) Intervention: Sit in, reversal strike, obstruction.

Next, in the Gandhian tradition, non-violent protest and persuasion, non-

cooperation and non-violent intervention have been included as the three
broad categories of strategies or methods of social action. In fact these three
characteristics of Gandhian social action shares striking similarity with the
ethics, values and philosophy of professional social work. It may be noted that
though social action requires confrontation, negotiation or persuasion, it does
not approve of any violence, or hostility, cruelty and blood shedding. It means
that even the discontent is shown in a peaceful manner.

Check Your Progress 1

Note: Use the space provided for your answer.
1) What strategies can you use to record your discontent peacefully against
government’s move on Special Economic Zone at Nandigram?
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4.3 PLANNING STRATEGIES

Planning is one of the most crucial aspects of the process of social action. It is
developing a blue print of the action to be taken. It is often said that good
planning is half the work accomplished. In social action, at the planning stage,
enough information about the causes of the problem at hand is collected and
analyzed. There are certain newer techniques and strategies being used in social
action, as we observe in other fields wherever management of people and
administration of programmes are involved.
The planning process starts with collection of basic background information
about the problem. Identification of causal and precipitating factors, gravity
and extent of the problem, socio-economic and cultural background of the
marginalized community or section of people, their felt, unfelt needs and
aspirations are looked into. Certain strategies becoming handy in this planning
stage are as follows:
Social Action for Situational analysis: This strategy gives a clear and comprehensive view of
Community Development
problematic environment and justifies social action. Depending upon the problem
at hand, through research or other objective methods, information is collected
about political factors (favourable/ unfavourable national and regional policies
and programmes; political decision-makers and decision-making mechanisms;
relevant local reform policies and strategies; and related legislations and
regulations), Institutional factors (responsible administrative system and their
efficacy related to handling the ‘problem’), economic and financial resources
and factors (economic policy and economic reform and their impact on common
people in general and poor in particular; system of micro-credit and loan, etc.),
infrastructure and civic amenities (any differential, implicit or explicit service
delivery system in civic amenities and infrastructure), social and cultural
conditions (social and ethnic groups, linguistic groups, gender roles, religious
and caste system, social values and attitudes and their impact), environment
factors (natural resources, geographical and climatic conditions and their impact
on living conditions of habitants). This would give an overview of the situation
that needs to be changed.
Problem Analysis: It is more specific and confined approach where not only
the root cause of the problem is analyzed but also its multifarious effects.
Analysis should be based on objectively identified facts and apparent reasoning
of the problem. For instance, in a village of Thakurs and dalits, the latter not
getting access to safe drinking water, may be due to political rivalry at the
panchayat level and seemingly obvious reason of Thakurs oppressing dalits
may not be the real case. It is always useful that this analysis should be
participatory and not merely the academic exercise undertaken by the agency
taking lead or an intellectual exercise by social work professionals. Participatory
Rural Appraisals are quite popular as well as effective not only as important
research tools but also helps in developing good rapport and mobilizing people
as it involves affected people in the analysis of their own problems.
Resource Analysis: This includes appraising the availability/non-availability
of human, material, financial, technical, social and political resources. It also
involves identifying stakeholders who have resources which are deficit in the
case of marginalized community and strategic planning of redistribution of the
same needed for development of disadvantaged group for whom social action
is initiated.
Stakeholder Analysis: This is a dominant strategy to sharpen the intervention
focus and design appropriate strategies ahead for action. Stakeholder analysis
provides the social actionist/activist with information about all the stakeholder
groups like target groups, direct beneficiaries and final beneficiaries and whether
they are favourable or unfavourable. The analysis starts with identifying the
various players who are affected by the problem (mainly the marginalized group)
or who affect the situation (the oppressor group like state, elite, etc.), might
become useful partner (like electronic or print media) or might become conflict
partners or threats to the intervention (say, administrators or elected
representatives at various levels). Categorizing them according to levels of
favourability or unfavourability (for instance, highly favourable, favourable,
uncertain, unfavourable or highly unfavourable) would be the next step.
Identifying the interest and expectations of various stakeholders and accessing
their strengths and potential contributions would be the subsequent step.
SWOC (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Challenges) Analysis: This Strategies and Skills in
Social Action
goes hand in hand with stakeholders’ analysis. It gives an insight into the
intervention designed for achieving goals. The main actors/leaders/facilitators
analyze what are their strengths and weaknesses and well as that of their
opponents’, what are the opportunities available to them and what are their
challenges or constraints. This is basically cost benefit analysis after which
intervention strategies are designed.
After understanding the concept and principles of social action, let us take a
look at the skills needed by social workers for social action. These skills are
no different from the general skills the social worker possesses by imbibing the
ethics and principles of professional social work. A social worker using social
action, as a method of social work requires certain skills, main among them are
dealt with below in brief.
Planning strategies are quite crucial as they lay foundation for success or failure
of the intervention. Chances of successful social action are least, if problem is
wrongly identified at the initial stage or real cause is not looked into or strengths
and weaknesses of partners and opponents are not realized properly. Objectivity,
observation, analytical skills, skills to use strategies like SWOC analysis,
stakeholders analysis, skills to analyze and present qualitative and quantitative
data, skills in research, skills to help people identify their problems and probable
solutions, skills to communicate results of baseline study for problem analysis
to the target audience are some of the vital skills needed in the planning stage.
Planning helps in setting realistic objectives that in turn would help in monitoring
and evaluating the intervention. Let us now pay attention to managerial strategies.

4.4 MANAGERIAL/MOBILIZATION
STRATEGIES
Managerial/mobilization strategies would aim at influencing those people who
have social, political and economic power so as to facilitate re-distribution of
resources and power with the aim of improving the life of disadvantaged sections
of society. It includes — lobbying, public mobilization, mediation, civil
disobedience, strikes, dharnas, protests, signature campaigns and legislative
efforts ways, to mention a few. Mobilization strategies are meant to facilitate
marginalized group raise their voice regarding the oppression and exploitation
against them.
Advocacy is considered the key strategy in social action, which in fact, is a
combination of various strategies aimed at bringing about change in social
systems and influence power and political relations between various social
agencies. It is the process of raising the voice on behalf of the weaker sections
of the population who lack political powers and economic resources, whose
voice die out before reaching the top officials and who depend on the mercy of
bureaucracy. Success of advocacy is dependent on the strategy, tactics, capability
of leaders and workers, knowledge about the problem, related legislations,
policies and appropriate use of media. Advocacy is a powerful tool for
intervention. Advocacy may be initiated by anybody, and many successful
advocacy campaigns have been initiated by common but knowledgeable and
committed people.
Social Action for Advocacy begins by providing opportunity to people to unite. In this, various
Community Development
groups and communities can be motivated to create public opinion through
discussions. Through this process concerning issues, their solutions emerge,
and people learn to develop an insight into the solution of problems that affect
them. Many a times, advocacy is done simultaneously at various levels. Therefore
knowledge about various systems is important. There can be formal as well as
informal structure of a system. Only knowledge about the system is not enough,
strategies and tactics to influence the system are also required. One should be
able to anticipate how the opposition can counteract your agreement and then
what should be your move.
Advocacy may be done at various levels — personal level (raising issues
concerning daily life), family level (gender discrimination, age related issues
like child abuse, elderly abuse; not letting a member live life in his/her own
terms; unequal distribution of family resources, etc.), community level (issues
related to community well-being, any section of community not getting equitable
share and discriminated against on account of ethnicity, religious, caste bases),
area (basic amenities and services like water, sanitation, health facilities,
school, and other infrastructure not made available by the responsible
administrative authorities), state (schemes, programmes, implementing policies,
political representation, land rights, etc., are not in consonance with equality
and social justice), nation (influencing policy intervention, human rights, basic
rights, interventional conventions, ties and relations for the benefit of poor and
disadvantaged) and International ( issues related to world trade treaties,
international loan, Arms deals, illegal trade, global warming, etc.)
Decisions taken at one level may influence people at other levels. Therefore,
for long term and sustainable change, advocacy should be done simultaneously
at various levels. For example, if a nation has taken a lot of international loan,
it would be difficult to provide primary education to all. Therefore, if we are
fighting for the right to education to all, we must also raise the issue of
international debt.
Active participation of people in the process of social action would build trust
and credibility that are important for mobilization of people. For mobilization,
disadvantaged sections of society or reference targets are informed that people
are given equal rights in democracy and it is the duty of the state to protect the
rights of its citizens. As a responsible citizen, it is our duty that we too remain
alert regarding our rights and related issues. It is known to us that in today’s
world, violation of rights are not uncommon especially among those who are
socially, economically and politically backward. Merely helping people think
about their problems in human rights perspective, facilitates mobilization
process. Consistent communication with the affected group to keep their spirits
high for fighting for their rights would be vital strategy for mobilization.
Mainly three types of advocacy have been identified — Legislative, Bureaucracy
and Judiciary advocacy. Legislative advocacy aims to influence the legislative
process and recommend new legislations, to amend legislations or raise voice
against proposed and accepted ordinance or record dissent against
implementation of legislations. Legislative processes are held in parliament or
Vidhan Sabha. Policies are passed through legislatures, new legislations are
made and amendments are made to older ones. For this legislative procedures
like question hour (first one hour of the (Parliament) House, lower or upper, is Strategies and Skills in
Social Action
reserved for asking and answering questions, Zero hour (time period between
question hour and parliament’s next session), adjournment motion, violation of
parliamentary privilege, call attention notice, Half-an-hour discussion, no
confidence motion, petition, etc., may be used for advocacy purposes. These
are some of the procedures, under certain code of conduct and rules and
regulations that are maintained in parliament and Vidhan Sabha. Knowledge
about these procedures and their functioning can become a powerful advocacy
tool for pressure and advocacy groups.
Bureaucracy advocacy: At times, rigid bureaucratic structure, red-tapism
causes much hurdle in the process of implementation of pro-poor policies and
programmes, which calls for social action against the system. At present, Right
to Information Act has become a strong tool to fight against negative aspects of
bureaucratic system and ensure transparency and accountability. There have
been many success stories after the advent of this RTI Act.
Judicial advocacy mainly aims to protect public interest, challenge state’s anti-
poor policies and programmes, enforcing constitutional and legal rights and
bringing forward desired changes in the existing legations. Public interest
litigations are filed, participation as Amicus Curie and knocking doors of
Supreme Court under Right to Constitutional Remedies are some of the measures
advocacy groups can make use of.
This apart, coalitions and networks are formed which are groups that come
together for a common cause and fulfillment of shared objectives. They are
powerful tools for furtherance of advocacy objectives. Any advocacy can be
successful only if it involves more and more people, that is why coalitions and
networks are developed. The chances of success of an advocacy strategy become
higher if it involves many different types of groups (religious, social, youth,
women, etc.) as these groups have their own influence reach and public
acceptance. A coalition becomes very strong if such groups come together whose
association or coming together was considered unexpected. Various groups in
coalition possess diverse and multi-dimensional qualities and capabilities,
which is shared when these groups come together for a collective reason, making
the coalition very strong. These coalitions may be permanent (initially they are
temporary but later become permanent, they are structured, have rules, Board
that work under specific well defined regulations, e.g., trade unions, etc.) or
temporary (after fulfillment of objective, it is dissolved), formal (membership
is specific and paid) or informal, geographic, multi-goal, single goal centred.
Media advocacy: It is the most popular strategy in the contemporary scenario.
Usage of media for fulfillment of objectives of social action is called media
advocacy. Radio, Television, newspapers, street plays, stories, the Internet,
and such others, may be used for advocacy. Media advocacy is used not only to
create pressure on policy makers and bureaucratic system but also for creating
public opinion, mobilizing and involving common man for the cause.
It may be noted that perception of the situation by the leaders or decision-
makers and their experience counts much more in the selection of the strategy.
To exemplify, in the backward classes or peasant movements, strategies like
withdrawal, self-organization, conversion, combining of caste with class,
mobilization, division of labour, attacking the monopoly of elite groups by the
Social Action for deprived, use of secular and religious themes, participation in or shunning of
Community Development
elections (democratic political processes), emulation, propaganda, mass-appeal,
articulation, of deprivation, sensitization, protest, demonstration, etc. have been
used.

Thus, we see that many strategies and tactics are used by the social workers in
the process of social action. Here, it may again be reminded that though social
action may use strategies such as confrontation and tactics like boycott, sit-ins,
rallies, blockades, marches, tax-refusals and other forms of showing
disobedience and discontent to the authorities having power and resources,
stress is on equitable distribution of resources and power and social justice
through a peaceful process.

Let us now talk about a different set of strategies that form the heart of social
action. These strategies are ‘omnipresent’ in the process of social action and
are grouped as Communication strategies. These communication strategies
are used in seeking information, convincing, mobilizing, advocating, motivating,
discussing, persuading and negotiating with various stakeholders. Success of
social action depends on how well the issue is communicated with stakeholders.

Usage of appropriate strategies ensures mobilization of marginalized sections

of the community. In fact, social worker makes use of different communication
strategies throughout the process of social action right from rapport formation,
in exploring various dimensions, causes, implications of problem at hand,
informing marginalized community about problem and its alternative solutions,
motivating them to raise their voice against injustice, resolve conflicts, encourage
people’s participation, negotiate, confront authority, engage in logical disputation
and withdraw after the objectives of social action are achieved.

Communication is defined as a process of sending a message through a channel

to receiver. The process of communication means sharing information, sending
and spreading, receiving and giving message. A message can be verbal or non-
verbal or a combination of two. Skills lie in the treatment of the message,
which may be used to motivate and mobilize people or argue with the oppressive
system. Social workers who have the nick of using appropriate words according
to the situation often lead the social action to success. For sending the message
across, many channels like posters and banners, street plays, even one-to-one
or group meetings, radio, television, newspapers, emails and the internet, etc.,
can be used.

It is important to take into account the socio-economic background, differential

linguistic characteristics, perception, cultural milieu, literacy and educational
levels of the stakeholders before conceiving the message to get the desired
results. Adequate selection of channel of communication depends on various
parameters like capacity of medium to reach to the poor, capacity to seek
cooperation, capacity to reach to the common people, cost effectiveness and so
on. A good message is the one that is simple, focused on main point, can be
easily remembered and can be repeated. Slogans, rhymes, parody of songs
often catch attention of the people and explicitly and implicitly help in
mobilization.
 Strategies and Skills in
Check Your Progress 2 Social Action
Note: Use the space provided for your answer.
1) Briefly describe different types of advocacy.
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4.5 SKILLS IN SOCIAL ACTION

Look at specific skills needed by social actionist would be beneficial, especially
at the planning stage. These can be broadly identified as follows:
Relational skills: Social workers (or social actionists or social activists) should
have skills for building rapport with individuals and groups and skills for
maintaining these relations. They should be able to develop and maintain
professional relationship with the clients. The social workers should have the
ability to identify the leadership qualities among the clientele and should be
skillful to harness these qualities for social action. Along with this, working
harmoniously with the established local leaders is needed. They should be able
to deal with intra-group and inter-group conflicts effectively. Also ability to
diagnose problematic behaviour among the clients and providing counseling is
needed to develop and maintain integration within the community people. The
social workers should identify tension-producing situations and diffuse them
before they become serious. Developing and maintaining cordial relations with
other agencies and NGOs working in the same geographical area and those
working for similar causes is also required.

Critical thinking skills: The seed of Social Action lies in the critical thinking
approach. When a social worker looks at the social situation from Rights based
perspective and observes that poverty, discriminations based on gender, caste
age, religion, region, colour, creed, are based on unequal power distribution
signifying injustice and inequality, he/she sets the mission to create a just and
egalitarian society. So, firstly, critical thinking skills are required by social
work practitioners to locate issues and then enabling the disadvantaged or
oppressed groups to glance their situation from this framework of critical thinking
in the paradigm of Rights based Approach. From a critical perspective,
assessment should also be translated into some kind of social action (Freire,
2006). Social workers need to develop their understanding of the human
condition taking its socio-economic elements into account. This involves
developing a broad understanding of power and oppression in society and
contemplating transformation from this perspective. Within a critical approach
social action is a way of making use of conscientization and reflection using the
Freirean praxis.
Social Action for Analytical and research skills: Social workers, engaged in social action, should
Community Development
have the ability to objectively study the socio-cultural and economic
characteristics of the community. They should be able to find out the pressing
problems and needs of the clientele. They should be able to analyze the social
problems, contributing factors and its ramifications on the social, economic,
political, ideological, cultural, ecological aspects of life. They should be able
to conduct research and/or understand the likely impact of research studies in a
functional sense. Added to this, the social workers should be able to facilitate
the community people to speak out their own felt needs and prioritize them.
They should never try to impose their own understanding of the social situation
and problems to the community people.
Intervention skills: After need identification, the social workers should have
the ability to help the clientele chalk out practical intervention strategies to
deal with the problem. They should provide various options to the clientele
and help them in analyzing pros and cons of each option for taking up proper
steps. Social action requires ‘confrontation’ with authorities. The social workers
must inform the community about the consequences of taking up hard steps like
sit-ins, boycotts, strikes, etc. They should be able to maintain the desired level
of feeling of discontent and emotional surcharge to bring about the necessary
change, enthusiasm and courage among the community people for a fairly long
time so as to minimize the scope of failure of mass mobilization before the set
objectives are achieved. The social workers should be able to maintain patience
and composed behaviour, as they have to deal with emotional tranquil of the
clientele in a rational way.
Added to this, the social worker should have the ability to create the environment
wherein individuals and groups can actively participate. The interventions should
be developed keeping in mind the pressing need, resources (human and material)
and socio-cultural milieu of the community. They should be able to improvise
situations for targeted interventions.
Managerial skills: The social workers also need the knowledge and ability to
handle organization, which may be the outcome of the institutionalization of
people’s participation. They should be able to coordinate and collaborate with
various groups and local leaders so as to unite the clientele for the required
intervention. They should be skillful to make policies and programmes,
programme planning, coordinating, recording, budgeting and elementary
accounting and maintenance of various records. They should be able to mobilize
internal/external resources in terms of money, men, materials, equipment, etc.
The social workers also require the skills of supervising human and material
resources and their effective utilization for the welfare and development of the
targeted community.
Communication skills: These skills are highly crucial for social action. The
social worker should have the ability to develop effective public relations with
local organizations and leaders. They should be able to effectively communicate
verbally (including public speaking) and in writing as well. The social workers
should be able to deliver or identify adequate people to deliver powerful
speeches. They should be able to devise programme media for effectively
communicating with the target audiences. The social worker should be able to
evaluate and use folk and mass media suited to diverse groups. These skills are
used for developing slogans and motivational songs, speeches and IEC materials Strategies and Skills in
Social Action
for mass mobilization. The social workers should have skills to educate,
facilitate, negotiate and persuade for necessary actions at needed places.
Training skills: The social workers should be able to train local leaders and
identified leaders for taking up the charge of mass mobilization and confrontation
with the authorities. They should be able to train selected people at the local
level aimed at imparting knowledge about the social issue taken up for action
and the modalities of carrying out the intervention including the ‘confrontation
process’. These people should be trained for creating public opinion for or
against the social issue taken up and identify and involve people in social
action. They should also be trained to utilize social action strategies and tactics
(confrontation, persuasion, negotiation, boycott, etc.) without the use of violence.

Check Your Progress 3

Note: Use the space provided for your answer.
1) Enlist skills required by social workers at various stages of social action.
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4.6 LET US SUM UP

In this unit, you have studied various strategies and tactics that are used in the
social action. In the background of various stages through the process of social
action, strategies and tactics have been described. In the planning stage, strategies
like stakeholder analysis, SWOC analysis, resource analysis and problem
analysis have been described at length. For mobilization and management of
social action process, various types of advocacy strategies like legislative
advocacy, judicial advocacy, bureaucratic advocacy, network and coalition,
media advocacy have been delineated. Importance of communication and
communication strategies at various stages of social action have also been dealt
with. In the end, skills needed for successful social action have been given in
detail.

The key words given below also are a source of substantial information on this
aspect.

Competition: In this strategy contending parties utilize commonly accepted

campaign tactics to persuade, to negotiate and to bargain, with the willingness
to arrive at a working agreement.

Disruption: This strategy signifies more militant approach and it may include
strikes, boycotts, fasts, tax-refusal, sit-ins, etc.
Social Action for Tactics used in social action are strikes, boycott, tax-refusal, persuasion,
Community Development
picketing, marches, fraternization, haunting, leafleting, sit in, reversal strike,
obstruction, renouncing honours, etc.

4.7 FURTHER READINGS AND REFERENCES

1) Chowdhry, D. Paul, (1992): Introduction to Social Work, Atma Ram &
Sons, Delhi.
2) Davis, Martin, (2000): The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Social Work, (eds.)
Blackwell Publishers, Massachusetts, pp.317-318.
3) Samuel, J. (2000): Social Action: An Indian Panorama,(ed.), Pune:
Voluntary Action Network India.
4) Foran, J. (2003): The Future of Revolutions. Landon: Zed Books.
5) Lees, R., (1972): Politics and Social Work, Routledge and Keegan Paul,
London.
6) Moorthy, M.V., (1966): Social Action, Asia Publishing House, Bombay.
7) Siddiqui, H.Y., (1984): Social Work and Social Action (ed.), Harnam
Publications.
8) Singh, Surender (1986): Social Action in Horizons of Social Work (ed).
By Surender Singh & K.S. Soodan, op. cit. p. 161.