Activism is action on behalf of a cause, action that goes beyond what is conventional or routine. The action might be door-to-door canvassing, alternative radio, public meetings, rallies, or fasting. The cause might be women's rights, opposition to a factory, or world peace. Activism has played a major role in ending slavery, challenging dictatorships, protecting workers from exploitation, protecting the environment, promoting equality for women, opposing racism, and many other important issues. Activism can also be used for aims such as attacking minorities or promoting war. Activism has been present throughout history, in every sort of political system. Yet it has never received the same sort of attention from historians as conventional politics, with its attention to rulers, wars, elections, and empires. Activists are typically challengers to policies and practices, trying to achieve a social goal, not to obtain power themselves. Much activism operates behind the scenes. There are many varieties of activism, from the face-to-face conversations to massive protests, from principled behavior to the unscrupulous, from polite requests to objectionable interference, and from peaceful protests to violent attacks. Activism is not well defined, so different people often have somewhat different ideas of what constitutes activism. Activism is not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing. It all depends on the cause and the actions, and a person's judgment of what is worthwhile. One person might say that a protest is a valuable defense of freedom and another person might say that it is a dangerous attack on human rights. Activism and Conventional Politics Activism is action that goes beyond conventional politics, typically being more energetic, passionate, innovative, and committed. In systems of representative government, conventional politics includes election campaigning, voting, passing laws, and lobbying politicians. Action outside of these arenas includes neighborhood organizing, protest marches, and sit-ins. The boundary between activism and conventional politics is fuzzy and depends on the circumstances. Action on behalf of special causes such as animal rights or anti-abortion goes beyond conventional politics. Sometimes, though, political parties are set up to promote special causes, such as labor parties in many countries in the 1800s and early 1900s or green parties since the 1960s. In this way activism becomes conventional politics. Often activism and conventional politics operate side by side, such as the labor movement - including unions and rank-and-file activities - alongside a labor party, or the environmental and peace movements alongside a green party. It is also possible to speak of activism inside an organization, such as a corporation, government department, political party, or labor union. Organizations have their usual ways of doing things, such as senior executives making decisions in corporations. If employees organize to challenge a decision or try to alter the usual decision-making process, this can be called activism, though it is much less visible than activism in public places. What counts as activism depends on what is conventional. In societies in which free speech is respected and protected, making a posting on an e-mail list complaining about the government is a routine occurrence. But in a dictatorship, such a posting might be seen as subversive and both the sender and list manager might be punished. Similarly, when strikes are banned, going on strike is a more daring form of activism than when they are legal and routine. Activism is typically undertaken by those with less power, because those with positions of power and influence can usually accomplish their aims using conventional means. But sometimes those in positions of power might be called activists, when they go beyond normal expectations, such as an "activist president" who pushes through an ambitious agenda or an "activist court" that interprets the law in new ways. Most of the entries in this encyclopedia, though, are about activism from below, often called grassroots activism.
