UNDERSTANDING ADVOCACY: CONTEXT AND USE

"Advocacy" is a word that is widely used in public discourse, research and policy. Journalists, activists, academics, lawyers, government officials, non-profit managers, and others use the word differently in their profession. "Advocacy" describes a wide range of individual and collective expression or action on a cause, idea, or policy. It may also refer to specific activities or organizations. Sometimes a distinction is made between advocacy on behalf of others and grassroots advocacy or civic or political participation. Words associated with "Advocacy" include Defending, Influence, Sensitizing, Interviewing, Change, Decision-Making, Persuasion, Selling an Idea, Exposure, Lobbying, Communication, Attracting Attention. Colleagues in Romance language-speaking countries point out that the term that sounds like advocacy in English is too closely connected with lawyers and legal defense. But it should be pointed out that these words share the common root voc-or voz, meaning voice. In that context, ad-voc-acy means giving voice to a group.

Advocacy Activities and Organizations

Advocacy activities can include public education and influencing public opinion, research for interpreting problems and suggesting preferred solutions, constituent action and public mobilizations, agenda setting and policy decision, lobbying, policy implementation, monitoring and feedback, and election-related activity. However, there is no agreement on which activities constitute advocacy, and no one source gives a full account of the many kinds of activities and strategies groups use to leverage influence in the policy process.

It is also important to clarify which groups are "advocacy" organizations. All non-profits build organizational capacity and infrastructure to meet their missions, although groups that engage in advocacy are likely to strengthen their organizations in ways most useful to achieving their political goals. Groups engage in advocacy activities to various extents: as primary focus of their work, as a regular part of their overall activities, and on occasions when an issue spurs them to action. Some groups have specific organizational structures and decision-making processes to accomodate their political affairs; others join coalitions or policy networks to increase their capacity to advocate effectively.

Most analysis of the non-profit sector requires a rigorous look at the links between specific activities and specific organizations. Advocacy activities are embedded in distinct organizational models, setting boundaries around the practice of advocacy and participation in the political process by insiders and outsiders alike. Interest groups, political organizations, mobilizing groups, public interest groups, citizen organizations, multi-issue organizations, social movement organizations, and other descriptions of non-profit organizations as policy actors fill the democratic vocabulary and adopt different activities and strategies.

Representation and Participation

Non-profit organizations are intermediaries between citizens and other institutions of government and business. They deepen the ways in which people are represented and participate in democracies. Contrasting advocacy as organizational representation with advocacy as social and political participation can be a useful way to describe how non-profit organizations relate to the body of politics. Non-profit advocacy as representation evokes the familiar phrase 'on behalf of' which derives from the Latin word advocare (coming to the aid of someone).

When advocacy is viewed as representation of interests, values, or preferences, questions may arise about the legitimacy of organizations to represent us. Non-profits that are regular players in policy and politics may or not include citizens in their internal organizational affairs or engage citizens in public action. Further, organizational styles of advocacy vary and the non-profit community can be divided in its approaches to social reform. Social justice advocates prefer their efforts not to be associated with private interest lobbies or inside political operators. Community organizers, who urge citizens to come together and speak out about their concerns , prefer not to be confused with the paternalistic styles of professional do-gooders.

Advocacy, examined as social and political participation, emphasizes how people take action 'on their own behalf'. Non-profit advocacy as participation refers to collective action and social protests as well as face-to-face contact of people and their political leaders. Language about the practice of advocacy as participation includes grassroots action, civic voice, public action, citizen action, organizing, mobilization, and empowerment.

Non-profit organizations are central to civic engagement, especially trade-unions and other groups that link citizens to governance. Social networks that develop norms of trust and reciprocity among citizens-social capaital- may shape the conduct of citizens in democratic decision-making. Advocacy as participation addresses the ways organizations stimulate public action, create opportunities for people to express their concerns in social and political arenas, and build the resources and skills necessary for effective action. Professional advocacy organizations and political consultants may have replaced earlier traditions of civic engagement and political action.

The distinction between advocacy as organizational representation and as participation has led to the contradictory use of the terms 'direct' and 'indirect' advocacy in practice and in research. In research, indirect advocacy may describe the participatory aspects of non-profit advocacy, particularly the capacity of groups to stimulate individual citizens to take action on their own behalf. In contrast, direct advocacy may refer to lobbying and other appearances before key decision-makers by organizational representatives on behalf of others.

Government-Centered and Society-Centered Advocacy

Government-centered advocacy and society-centered advocacy suggests different venues available for building the political will to leverage policy change. In the American political system, for example, the organization of interests is often described as an intersection of three sectors: government, society, and business- with competition and cooperation among these sectors when matters of public concern need attention. Global advocacy in the international system refers to advocacy among organizations and their networks in civil society, international institutions and national governments.

Policy advocacy most frequently refers to advocacy that influences government policy making. Administrative advocacy, judicial advocacy, and legislative advocacy can help us focus on the uniqueness of decisions and processes in the different branches of government: Administrative advocacy and programme advocacy focus on advocacy during the implementation phase of the policy process, when rules and regulations are promulagated and service delivery systems designed and put in place, sometimes with feedback from citizen groups. Programme advocacy is also used to describe the everyday work or organizations carrying out their charitable missions or providing services.

Society-related advocacy suggests that non-profits have an important role to play outside government in shaping public opinion, setting priorities for the public agenda, and mobilizing civic voice and action. Society-centered advocacy most often describes advocacy as social action, social change, or social movements. Non-profits are vehicles for developing common visions and social missions, and advancing common interests and values collectively. They analyze, interpret, and convey information in society and thus create the context for government policy.

State, Regional and local advocacy is often distinguished from national advocacy because organizational resources, opportunities, and practices differ. Most grassroots advocacy takes place at the state, regional and local level, yet national organizations are often the focus of research and media exposure. Organizational networks and practices are less formal at the local level. Advocacy may still be contentious or competitive, but the intimacy of the local setting means that activists and government officials may have more access to one another and may share social networks and contacts that mediate conflict. National-level advocacy or European-level advocacy by comparison, involves  larger, more formal organizations, structures and practices. The links between national and local organizations may influence whether local voice has an organizational route to  national decision-making.

Non-profit advocacy advances the interests or values of a group that stands to benefit from action in the policy process or elsewhere. One measure of advocacy effectiveness is the extent to which a group succeeds in shaping new policy that directly benefits its constituency. Public interest advocacy makes broad public claims in the policy process on behalf of consumers and citizens. Organizations advocating for the disabled, the elderly, or women, for example, may be more narrowly defined by their constituencies. Beneficiaries of advocacy, or those who stand to gain from policy change may be the organizations themselves (through contracts) or groups of citizens (through public programmes), or the public (through widely applicable policy). Self-defense advocacy is lobbying on issues necessary to an organization's survival.

Conclusion

None of the above decisions are much help in understanding the wide range of non-profit behaviour that make groups weak or powerful in policymaking. They do, however, help us locate where advocacy is occuring and think how advocacy used in one arena might affect outcomes in another. The above definitions say little about how groups acquire access or influence decisions in any one arena, but they lead us to think about the process of decision-making in each arena that may affect opportunities for access or make one kind of activity more influential than another.

No one definition of advocacy suffices to help us understand how groups influence policy-making or how regulations can best be designed to protect against political abuses yet not inhibit public engagement in the political life of a nation. Yet the term can be used broadly as an umbrella for cross-cutting discussion from different perspectives and expertise to help inform regulation and practice. If discussions about non-profit advocacy practice and regulations are to bridge discourse across academic disciplines, organizational expertise, and regulatory perspectives, participants will have to be precise about the meaning of advocacy.