Post-wristband blues: The mixed fortunes of UK development campaigning under austerity and the Conservatives
| Author | Graham Harrison |
| DOI | 10.1177/1369148118761018 |
| Date | 01 May 2018 |
| Published date | 01 May 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148118761018
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2018, Vol. 20(2) 409 –424
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/1369148118761018
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Post-wristband blues: The
mixed fortunes of UK
development campaigning
under austerity and the
Conservatives
Graham Harrison
Abstract
This article explores the construction of an international development campaign coalition in
difficult circumstances. The Enough Food If campaign ‘which involved over 200 NGOs’ was the first
campaign coalition since the highly prominent Make Poverty History. But the circumstances within
which the campaign took place were considerably changed. Furthermore, the internal dynamics
of coalition building were complex and hardly auspicious. The article argues that, fundamentally,
the purpose of the coalition was therapeutic, that is, its main aim was to generate the possibility
of future campaigns through a new success narrative amid the uncertainty within the sector. This
was done by framing the issue of hunger in a generalised, inclusive, and amenable way that made it
difficult to fail. However, this success strategy brought with it its own equivocations.
Keywords
aid, campaign, food politics, G8, international development, philanthropy
Introduction
The year 2005 witnessed the rolling out of the Make Poverty History (MPH) development
campaign coalition. The general, but not unanimous, view at the time was that MPH made
tangible headway on many of its demands. But, seen in retrospect, this moment of success
seems rather bathetic, the last great hurrah of a campaign logic that subsequently fell into
abeyance. From 2006 onwards, individual campaign organisations each made a quieter
and less celebratory post-mortem of the 2005 moment before returning to organisation-
specific campaigning. There was a general understanding that large collaborative cam-
paigns were unlikely to happen again and that some damage to its prospects had been
wrought by the MPH campaign. As a result of economic recession from 2008, the meta-
narrative of British politics shifted to crisis and austerity. In 2010, New Labour was
Department of Politics, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
Corresponding author:
Graham Harrison, Department of Politics, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TU, UK.
Email: g.harrison@sheffield.ac.uk
761018BPI0010.1177/1369148118761018The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsHarrison
research-article2018
Original Article
410 The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 20(2)
replaced by a coalition government of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, in which the
former were dominant. This election outcome removed a key institutional relationship
that development campaigners had come to rely on: a ruling party that shared many of the
development norms of the campaign organisations themselves. Nevertheless, in 2013, a
major national development campaign coalition was once again devised: the Enough
Food If campaign (EFIF). This article explores the motivations and strategies that under-
pinned the construction of a campaign coalition in such adverse circumstances. The first
section sets out the difficult legacy left by MPH before proceeding in the second section
to consider the changed environment within which EFIF emerged. The third section looks
at EFIF in some detail, paying particular attention to the ways in which it faced both the
MPH legacy and the new political environment. The fourth section sets out an argument
that the major logic of the campaign was to lock in a success narrative from beginning to
end, over and above other strategic campaign aims, and in this sense to shake off the post-
wristband blues of its time.
The road to 2015
The MPH effect
MPH was, in a sense, the best of times and the worst of times for development campaign-
ing. Its most convincing success was its ability to mobilise some level of awareness and
engagement from large numbers of people. Reportedly, as many as 8 million white wrist-
bands were worn. The support base of the coalition expanded massively, a base that was
also designed to give supporters an opportunity to ‘migrate’ into a specific campaign
organisation. The demonstrations around the Gleneagles G8 Summit and media impact of
the Live 8 concerts generated moments of media saturation in which it was difficult for
anyone to avoid the campaign. The level of cultural endorsement from celebrities, media,
and politicians was exceptional.
These features might be considered as intrinsic victories, ones that relate to the aims of
campaigning itself: public mobilisation, the growth of campaign organisations, and the
legitimation of their purposes. One can also argue that the campaign’s extrinsic purposes
were achieved to a considerable degree. That is, the policy objectives of the campaign
were largely met. Within the campaign, people had different expectations of what ‘suc-
cess’ might mean, but many—especially from the larger organisations—considered the
outcomes to be positive, at least in regard to aid and debt.
However, the G8 would not make poverty history in any tangible sense. The campaign
logic was that this was a ‘now or never’ moment. The fact that, especially after July, the
campaign presented to the public a victory that would not make poverty history but rather
offer a significant step forward over the next few years generated significant anxiety
within the coalition.
Furthermore, for some coalition members, the commitments were not worth celebrat-
ing—a ‘whisper’ rather than a ‘roar’ (Abugre, 2005). The commitments of the G8 were
seen as not equal to the task of mass poverty reduction, and the commitments that were
made did not modify prevailing neoliberal development practices and ideologies. As the
campaign progressed towards the G8, some coalition members had become so concerned
about the closeness of the campaign to New Labour that they left the coalition, judging
that both the politics of the campaign and the ability of New Labour to use it to boost their
own legitimacy made it effectively morally and politically bankrupt (Hodkinson, 2005).
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