Smashing the Social License of the Weapons Corporations: A Theory of Change
Problem: The weapons corporations have immense detrimental effects on Australian societies and First Nations Sovereign societies.
Theory of Change: A “Theory of Change” should describe a concrete pathway to change and to win. Our theory of change rests on the premise that when people put their bodies in places that disrupt dominant discourse or business practices, demonstrating commitment and moral courage, that discourse or practice is forced to shift. This shift opens possibilities for articulating and creating the world we want to see.
Without people changing where they put their bodies, there is just a clanging of opinions and ideas. With no actual change.
We encourage ordinary people to participate in public discourse about the effects of the weapons industry. As we build a movement across issues and ‘problems’, people participating and strategising will understand the intersections and implication of the weapons industry and militarisation on society and on political / social change processes.
When people move their bodies into new places new opportunities arise.
Processes: Wage Peace looks for opportunities using the following processes
- Join others doing related and mutually reinforcing work
- Reveal Pathways for participation predominantly by ordinary people but also for people in professional, paid and parliamentary spheres
- Build the capabilities of people for full active and conscious participation especially toward independent strategic thinking
- Amplify messages of allies and those with aligned messaging
- Maintain digital (coms) platforms (and other administrative means) to enable opportunities
Part of our theory of change is to build a lattice work of people connected to great strategists. So that when we are ready to move we will be able to make the moves necessary for a just and permanent change.
To build a strong network of change-agents we require a clear strategic purpose.
For us currently this purpose relates to limiting or containing the operation of the weapons corporations.
Our Solidarity Focus is First Nations peoples. Primarily the First Nations people of Australia. But also the West Papuan people, the First Nations people of West Papua.
Our Program aims to
- Stop assistance of Australian corporate entities for Indonesian state violence in West Papua.
- Constrain and stop the power of weapons corporations in Australia.
These are twin or parallel political purposes.
Our program is currently organised into five campaigns.
- Peace in Papua – support and solidarity for West Papuans efforts to demilitarise their Land
- Disrupt Land Forces – a mobilisation against an weapons trade event
- Containment and disruption of weapons companies in society
- Demilitarise (STEM) Education)
- Frontier Wars
We have identified 5 potential sets of campaigns related to Australian support for State violence in West Papua. But we are unable to address all of them. Our strengths and resources are currently aimed at the first two. We are ready to take opportunities for the other areas. Furthermore, we are in a position to assist others in taking on those campaigns.
- Problematise the supply of weapons to Indonesian forces
- Provide solidarity for West Papuan anti military initiatives and civil resistance
- Disrupt the diplomatic silence about West Papua
- Expose Australian Federal Police connections with human rights abuses by Indonesian police.
- Stopping Australian training and joint exercise with Indonesian special forces
Current Plan and Action regarding containing the power of the weapons industry.
1. Stigmatise the power of weapons companies in Australia
2. Publicise instances of ordinary people removing any social license for increasing militarism and indicating they are willing to act, ie put their bodies in new places.
3. Address a single increasing cultural factor pertaining to militarism, for example the increasing access of weapons companies to school children.
Targets and Winning
Identifying targets is iterative and experimental. It’s not always clear. A target is an entity that is participating or colluding in the problem. Ideally they are entities that can be forced to change under certain circumstances. Winning changes from targets is helpful in itself, because it represents ‘change’. But also
- Winning is hopeful. People have feelings of discouragement arise when we never ‘win’ anything.
- Winning is helpful because it gives information about community values.
We look for opportunities for identifying targets. We do the intellectual work necessary to identify potentially winnable demands. We involve people in thinking about this because primarily we are trying to support a lot of people in developing the capacities that lead to strong independent strategic thinking in the ‘political’ arena.
We experiment with different tactics so that when we find a target we are ready to take opportunities with a suitable tactic. Some tactics are from generalist ‘organising’ theory (Whelan and Macleod, 2018) . Some are explicitly from the ‘politics of nonviolence’. (Sharp, 1973)
Our ‘theory of change’ rests on involving lots of people in developing strategies and capabilities so that the ORGANISATION OF TACTICS is achievable and fits our political purpose.
Criteria for choosing ‘targets’.
Which companies?
We focus on those companies that
1/ are directly providing weapons from Australia to Indonesia
2/ are accessible and active in our location
3/ are linked with the US and UK nuclear programs
4/ where there are ‘joins’ to be made in terms of intersectionality, relationships and solidarity.
5/ are receiving taxpayer money to make their weapons
Location and Disruption
We use location based storytelling. We use locations such as hotels or factories to tell the story of what is going on and to present our preferred ways.
As we move forward in time, people will understand what the companies are doing and their influences on Australian society and on terrorising West Papuan people.
We will be able to find more points of disruption to show ordinary people’s disdain for their work.
- Offices
- Associate entities
- Key individuals
- Factories and shipyards
- Events
- Conferences
We are looking for points of disruption that are easy, non-fortified and where ordinary people can use their own culture to tell the stories they want to tell.
We are looking to expose the life-giving parts of our preferred culture.
Locations are important to help people quickly learn and transform how they understand or make sense of things. New locations and new types of action are transformational for those involved and sometimes for those witnessing or watching.
For this reason we will amplify our activities using streaming and photographic story telling and writing. People will get to know us through our story telling and want to join us.
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Meanwhile we try to get people involved in Australia via relationships, through events and collaborative operationalising of tactics . We encourage people from other places in the world to work with us if and when they can.
It’s our theory of change. We think it works. We argue for it. We show it. We think it reveals reality and reveals truth. We think it is a basis for people to be able to begin to think strategically.
Margie Pestorius December 2022
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April 2024 update
Entering the 7th month of the horrific genocide in Palestine, it seems that the social license to operate is under pressure.
So many groups are saying no and standing in resistance to the genocidal violence. So much new action and passionate strategising. We head toward Land Forces 2024 to be held in ‘Melbourne’ – the birth place of Australian genocide.
Weapons companies are being fed huge amounts of public money. Billions still. Both major parties have pragmatically and wholeheartedly supported the killing of tens of thousands of people.
Our solidarity focus has shifted somewhat with so much killing in Gaza. But we still stand with the slower Genocide in West Papua and with all colonised peoples.
The Colony Will Fall.