A Plan for Legislative Advocacy
This is a paper in which you will present a plan to engage in legislative advocacy. You must choose a specific case, cause, law, or group of people to advocate for, as well as a forum for advocacy (local, state, or national government, or even the UN). If you would prefer to present an advocacy plan at the organizational level, advocating for a particular policy or people with a specific organization (in particular with their administration), please check with me first to determine if this will work for this assignment.
The paper should outline the following: a brief history and background of the case, cause, law, group, or concern, along with the context in which they arose; who are the critical parties involved in this negotiation?; what are their basic positions and interests?; what relationship would you have with the constituents that you would be representing?; what kind of relationship would you want to have with your opponents?; what is your overall strategy?; what are the more specific strategies that you would use?; would these change over time?; what would your main messages and possible recommendations be?; how would you frame them?; who you would you communicate them to?; and how you would communicate them?; what specific negotiation techniques or strategies you would use?; how you would use the media and/or allies?; would issues such as power and cross-cultural differences come up and how you would address them?; would emotions or perceptions play a role in this negotiation and how?; as well as any other pertinent concerns that you can think of.
The paper should be presented with an introduction and conclusion, as well as subheadings for the various sections. The paper should be 10-12 pages (approximately 2500-3000 words). Researching the topic beyond the class readings is required and citations of class readings should be integrated into the paper, as well. Typically, in a paper of this type, I would expect you to utilize at least 10 - 15 different sources that are cited within the paper.
Key Considerations
As some questions arose as to what I would be looking for in the paper, I thought that I would provide you with some key considerations for your analysis. I know that all of your papers will be slightly different depending on your issues, the level of government that you lobby, etc. I hope that everyone will find these considerations helpful though:
1) Your issue or concern, as well as the background or context for it and how the context could affect advocacy (key moments in time for your issue, including now, as well as the cultural, economic, political context). How did you get involved in this concern and what is your role?
2) Your position and interests (remember there are 3 kinds of interests, as well as intangibles)
3) What is your BATNA?
4) Who are your targets for your message (stakeholders) such as legislators (specific or general), grassroots, coalition members, the public, etc.), what pertinent information do you know about them (e.g. the position drivers of specific legislators or public opinion), and how you will frame your message for them? What data will you use to back-up you views?
5) How will you involve your constituents?
6) Who are your allies and what are their interests? How do you plan to work with them? What challenges do you foresee and how will you manage them?
7) Who are your opponents and what are their interests and frames? What arguments and frames will you use to address their arguments and frames?
8) What is your overall media strategy and strategy for specific media?
9) What will be some specific negotiation practices or lobbying practices that you will use: when and why?
10) What kind of dynamics could potentially arise that could affect your advocacy: power, culture, emotion, etc.
The question also came up around the number of references... Remember to cite your course materials when you discuss key concepts that we covered. Coming up with a sufficient number of references to provide evidence to address the above points should not be a problem if you are comprehensively addressing your area of concern. Your references should be reliable but I don't expect them all to come out of scholarly journals... There are websites (some cited in the Gelak book), newspaper articles, etc. that can help you understand these key points. Ideally, by the end you will have crafted a viable plan for legislative advocacy.