Understanding Conjunctural Analysis for Strategic Action

Progressives need a strategy upgrade, and this episode points the way, first by delving into one of the greatest victories of the civil rights movement and the strategic masterstroke of Rev. Wyatt T. Walker. Next, we talk with Maria Poblet, Executive Director of the Grassroots Power Project, who argues that “the way strategy is being developed in progressive movements now in the United States is failing us.” She calls for progressives to build skill in what’s known as conjunctural analysis (pioneered by the great theorists Antonio Gramsci and Stuart Hall) and shares case studies of how it can lead to strategic breakthroughs. Then, Columbia Professor Alex Hertel-Fernandez details the lessons he learned from studying right-wing strategy for his book State Capture: How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses and Wealthy Donors Reshaped the American States and the Nation. The episode closes with a look at reverse engineering, one of thirty-six strategic tools described in the book Practical Radicals.

You can buy the book and find out more about the show at www.practicalradicals.org