Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

What is a “Grassroots Movement”?

PTK

Paul Kegan
We often hear an organisation being described as a “grassroots movement”.

What is a grassroots movement?

Are there movements that are not “grassroots”?
 
one you agree with?
I saw an historian claiming that the Anti-Nazi League was a grassroots movement, but I dispute that. I think that ANL was founded by a certain central committee. It was not based on existing campaigns against racism and fascism, such as those that organised the anti-fascist protests in Wood Green and Lewisham.
 
I saw an historian claiming that the Anti-Nazi League was a grassroots movement, but I dispute that. I think that ANL was founded by a certain central committee. It was not based on existing campaigns against racism and fascism, such as those that organised the anti-fascist protests in Wood Green and Lewisham.
Yes it was very top down no democratic structure at all: in all its incarnations. Just like current SWP fronts LMHR-SUTR and of course Hope Not Hate
The. Only anti-fascist group with a democratic structure in any sense was AFA
 
If we're talking about Momentum in the present tense then I don't think Momentum in 2024 is very much of anything at all. Probably a different conversation to be had about what Momentum was in 2015 or 2016 or so, though.
 
I saw an historian claiming that the Anti-Nazi League was a grassroots movement, but I dispute that. I think that ANL was founded by a certain central committee. It was not based on existing campaigns against racism and fascism, such as those that organised the anti-fascist protests in Wood Green and Lewisham.
I think it would be fair to say that some of its local, activity was often initiated at grassroots level
 
I think it would be fair to say that some of its local, activity was often initiated at grassroots level
It definitely had a spontaneous element. Me and several schoolmates went along to the demos, and eventually to the occasional meeting, aged 14-15, and we'd only vaguely heard of the SWP. We were more inspired by the more political punk elements, and a simple wish not to see our black and Asian mates picked on just for being who they were.
 
Yeah, I think with any of these things it's easy to have clear categories in your head but real-life movements rarely fit into these kinds of clear-cut binaries, cos any movement that has any activity at all will likely rely on some kind of grassroots enthusiasm.

Think it's probably fair to say Enough is Enough isn't a great example though.
 
  • Like
Reactions: LDC
Yeah, I think with any of these things it's easy to have clear categories in your head but real-life movements rarely fit into these kinds of clear-cut binaries, cos any movement that has any activity at all will likely rely on some kind of grassroots enthusiasm.

Think it's probably fair to say Enough is Enough isn't a great example though.
Yes. you have expressed what I was thinking: it something is a movement, it must have "grass roots".
 
We often hear an organisation being described as a “grassroots movement”.

What is a grassroots movement?

Are there movements that are not “grassroots”?

There are movements that began as grass roots and then made the mistake of thinking the grass roots don't matter.

Blair did that with Labour, when he tried to wean the party away from union funding and to isolate the constituency party members. It turned round for a while under Corbyn, but now it feels like it's going back the other way.

Cameron looked at the Blair model and decided it was a good idea that would work for the Tories. So they started to ignore the membership, which in the 1950s numbered in the millions but has now diminished to an extremist rump. This now looks like it might be terminal. Which would be good news, except for the possibility that they might be replaced by something even worse.
 
There are movements that began as grass roots and then made the mistake of thinking the grass roots don't matter.

Blair did that with Labour, when he tried to wean the party away from union funding and to isolate the constituency party members. It turned round for a while under Corbyn, but now it feels like it's going back the other way.

Cameron looked at the Blair model and decided it was a good idea that would work for the Tories. So they started to ignore the membership, which in the 1950s numbered in the millions but has now diminished to an extremist rump. This now looks like it might be terminal. Which would
The huge decline in the membership of the Conservative Party occurred long before Cameron.
 
There's all sorts of things relevant to this discussion I think, establishing the difference between groups / organisations and movements (social / political / revolutionary / activist?) would be a good start as they've been used somewhat interchangeably so far on this thread.

As a term I don't think 'grassroots' is that useful tbh, although it has usage further back nowadays it smacks much more of the NGO, funding proposal buzzwords and similar worlds than anything more radical politically. As hitmouse has said it's possible to get some clear descriptions down on paper, but the reality is usually much more complicated and often works on a mix of organisational & structural levels.
 
Is Momentum a grassroots movement?
Is Stand Up to Racism a grassroots movement?

Podemos? Jobbik? I think both would claim so.

The fact is there is great variation in organisations calling themselves 'grassroots'. I think you have to accept that, and accept it has become a messy term.
 
The huge decline in the membership of the Conservative Party occurred long before Cameron.
I did not mean to imply otherwise. But I've seen commentary recently that suggests the decline accelerated significantly under Cameron.

Edited to add: I particularly had this interview in mind, where Peter Oborne talks about the disintegration and "moral horror" of the Tories. The relevant section is from around 2 minutes in.
 
Last edited:
Didn't someone on here years ago say that they'd known him in real life, and the whole David Brent act was no act?

Anyway, the concept of the "grassroots" would seem to imply an autonomous area of society where the manipulations of The System, Man reach their limit. Unfortunately, The System, Man, won a long time ago, and we live in atomised ruins of autonomy.
 
In China, the farmer resistance to government land-grabs of in the early 2000s (? might have my date wrong without checking) was definitely grassroots, rooted in local and kinship networks and careful not to have any visible leadership to get summarily nabbed; you could say similar for the strike wave that followed a few years after; suppose that's a feature of societies where overt political organisation just isn't possible. Think there was however a bit of learning/exchange of experiences between locales, perhaps just by reputation.
 
The Yellow Jackets in France had the air of being a grass roots movement at least from outside.

The anti lockdown protests in NZ appeared to be a grass roots movement until some plucky journos unmasked their shadowy funders from a loose group of evangelical grifters and right wing libertarian millionaires.
 
If anyone fancies a read the 'horizontal movements ' and their limitations are discussed in a recent publication If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution by Vincent Bevins . He examines why there weren't significant revolutionary changes in ten different countries between 2010 and 2020 and concludes that only two enjoyed improvements in reform and social justice.

"Bevins is keen to underline that grassroots movements are not really spontaneous, but involve a myriad of conscious actors, organised in different ways, with diverse political views, contrasting capabilities, and diverging strategies and tactics. And, while protests are good at creating revolutionary situations, they are poor at taking advantage of them, leaving it to better organised forces to reap the benefits. " Counterfire review.

I think I'll add this to my Kindle list
 
There's a thread on the Bevins book here:
 
Back
Top Bottom