(highlight:: Being Strategic in Animal Advocacy Policy Work
Summary:
Doing a PhD in political science provides a unique set of skills and knowledge, including understanding decision-making systems, key actors, veto powers, and key processes for making decisions.
This knowledge is helpful in creating strategies, planning actions, and knowing who to engage with in order to have more impact in advocating for animal rights.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
And what do you think doing a PhD in political science has taught you that is in common? Because I think animal advocates generally, I think don't do that much work on politics. I think having a PhD in political science isn't particularly common. So yeah, any kind of hot takes on what you've learned from that, that's like unique.
Speaker 1
So the first thing is just knowledge of the systems of decision making. Who are the key actors? Who hold the veto powers? What are the veto powers? What are the key processes for making a decision? What are the key votes? When are they how are those votes decided? Like I think in cases like the European Union, which is quite Byzantine, you know, it's really helpful to know those facts and to have some of the theories of decision making from political Science to help you build a strategy, plan your actions, the timing of your actions, the tactics who you have meetings with who are the most important decision makers, rather than just Some more vague approach of just do policy.)
- Time 0:03:22
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(highlight:: The Importance of Coalition Building in Successful Movements
Summary:
Successful movements often prioritize coalition building, both internally and externally.
This involves finding allies in various movements and avoiding internal divisions. The importance of this strategy cannot be understated and should be utilized more frequently.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
Another thing probably is the importance of coalition building seems to be pretty common to most successful movements, that they're not just single issue, that they do find allies In many other movements, and that they avoid some of the classic pitfalls that you see in political science studies, where a movement internally disintegrates, they couldn't get Over some important divide. So you have both internal coalition building and also external coalition building. And it seems to me that more of that could be done and isn't being done.)
- Time 0:04:17
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(highlight:: Surving the Public Doesn't Typically Yield Consistent Results
Summary:
Public opinion in political science is not a stable or real thing.
It is influenced by question wording, context, and events. Surveys can yield different results based on the method and questions used.
Therefore, assessing the true feeling of the public is challenging.
Additionally, the public may not have strong opinions on specific esoteric topics.
Biases should be expected when pitching technical policies.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
And then I think there's also this idea in political science about public opinion, that it's not actually like a real thing or like a stable thing that people don't hold views about these Esoteric topics that we in the movement would bring to them, and that they're very vulnerable to question wording, the context in which you ask them, what are the events happening around Which we can use to our advantage, frame it in a way that is most appealing to them. But when you run a survey, you shouldn't assume that you're assessing the true feeling of the public, because that's quite valuable.
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, I've heard, I've seen myself in our work, you do a survey using one provider on one sample, you get one answer, you do it by another method, new question, whatever, very, Very different answer on supposedly the exact same metric. So yeah, I think that's a big fallacy. And yeah, that's a problem.
Speaker 1
And I think it's also like reasonable for the public not to have a view on like whether eggling hands should have one foot or one and a half foot of space, they can have like more like solid Opinions on general issues that were against animal cruelty, sure. But if you're like pitching a specific policy to them and getting very technical into the weeds, you should really expect these biases to play a huge role.)
- Time 0:04:52
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(highlight:: The Brussels Effect: How EU Policy Tends to Influence Industry
Summary:
The Brussels effect refers to the idea that EU policies can influence other countries.
When the EU sets a new standard in its single market, global companies often choose to meet those standards to access the EU market instead of maintaining fragmented supply chains. There is some anecdotal evidence of EU standards influencing hygiene, stunning, slaughter, and animal welfare practices in Brazil, Argentina, Thailand, and China.
However, there is limited quantitative research on the causal mechanism and its impact.
While there is general research showing cases of EU standards being voluntarily adopted by other countries for commercial benefits, there is no uniformity.
A meta analysis is needed to determine the overall effect size.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
But then there's also this thing I've heard, which is, I think, the Brussels effect in that policy set by the EU can actually spread to other countries and influence them in like a policy Leadership kind of setting. And yeah, I guess David, you've used on that and how real or how large that effect might be?
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Speaker 1
So this is the idea that the EU single market is this enormous commercial opportunity for companies. And when the EU sets a new standard, it's often easier for a global company that wants to sell into this EU market, just change their entire supply chain to meet the EU standards rather Than have very fragmented supply chain with different practices for each different customer and their global supply chain. I haven't seen any quantitative estimates of this effect. Like most of my knowledge comes from this like pretty obscure European Parliament report, my professor Broome, where they sort of mentioned some anecdotal evidence that EU standards On hygiene and stunning and slaughter and animal welfare based outcomes have led to changes like Brazil and Argentina and Thailand and China. But I haven't seen like really detailed discussion of that and like clearly linking the causal mechanism with the EU regulation and actual changes on the ground. Is there any non animal related research on the Brussels effects, you know, there's like general research that shows there's definitely cases where it seems clear EU standards have Then been adopted in other countries, even though it's not legally required to them because there's a commercial benefit. But it doesn't seem to be uniform. And I haven't seen like a meta analysis that would like give you an effect size.)
- Time 0:09:03
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(highlight:: Political Strategy: Using Smaller Reforms in One Country to Achieve Larger Reforms in Another
Summary:
Taking a small country as a precedent, advocates can gather evidence and case studies to show larger countries that change is possible.
However, it is important to have a clear strategy and step-by-step plan instead of expecting change to magically happen. Instead, resources should be focused on bigger countries with neglected animals, with only marginal resources spent on smaller countries.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
I think there could be some value in taking a region that has maybe a small number of animals, but a strong advocacy movement like Europe to generate a precedent. And then you can use that precedent, gather the economic studies on how it's done, case studies, successful farms that use that new reform practice, and then advocates in these larger Countries can show those to producers, to policymakers, it's like, this is actually possible. And maybe you can do that more cheaply in a small country, because it's easier to access the political opportunity structures. But I think it's like mostly valuable in these cases, like where you have the Brussels effect, where there's some sort of policy diffusion where you can take what's been done in the small Country, get it to a large country. But I don't think we should be naive and just think, oh, we'll do a meat tax in Luxembourg and boom, China has a meat tax. It has to be part of a bigger strategy with a clear theory of change. So let's take this EU example. You identify a group of reform-minded countries. You pick a small one where you have strong advocacy movement, it's relatively easy to access the policymakers, get them to introduce this meat tax or whatever policy you prefer. Then you have some precedent that you can bring to larger reform-minded countries, let's say Germany, show them look, this isn't a crazy idea from advocates like a real country near You has done this. They can adopt it in theory. And then you have maybe already a momentum within that region to push for broader change. And then you have this mechanism where those countries can push the European Commission and the parliament to introduce this reform to cover all of those countries. And then maybe if the process effect applies, then you can maybe extend it to China or other countries. But again, I think you should actually map out the steps of how you would go from change in a small country to change around on a much larger scale and not engage in magical thinking.
Speaker 2
It'll just somehow, magically diffuse the world.
Speaker 1
So unless you have that, I'm pretty happy with the idea that we should spend a lot more resources in bigger countries. Countries that have been neglected and have a lot more neglected animals, and only I spend marginal resources in these small countries when you have a clear idea of why this will be worth
Speaker 3
It.)
- Time 0:11:02
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(highlight:: Animal Advocacy Heuristic: Engage the Public on Moral Issues and Policy Makers on Technical Issues
Summary:
Engaging the public on moral issues like animal cruelty and discreetly discussing technical matters with policy makers is a helpful heuristic for effective policy making.
It provides a good framing for decision making.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
I think like a useful heuristic I have for policy making is like engage the public on like moral issues like animal cruelty and engage policy makers discreetly on technical issues. It's good framing, I like that.)
- Time 0:27:57
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