Introduction to the Topol Peace Data Initiative

The substance of this toolkit is drawn from interviews conducted with social movement activists and grassroots civil society practitioners in Israel, Northern Ireland, and in the United States. Between June 2017 and December 2018, interviews were carried out as part of four case studies in scaling up peacebuilding and nonviolent social change movements (a full list of interviewees/organizations can be found in Appendix 1):

• We conducted interviews with grassroots leaders of local Black Lives Matter groups in the United States and Europe, with a focus on understanding how these groups use social media to build coalitions and broaden their impact.

• In Israel, we conducted interviews with the board and staff members of Sadaka Reut, a Jewish-Palestinian social movement organization focused on education and sociopolitical engagement.  These interviews were primarily focused on understanding how the organization promotes binational Jewish-Palestinian partnership internally and how it builds partnerships that enable it to work with mainstream NGOs and with educational institutions in Israeli society.

• For a case study on the role of women and women’s organizations in scaling up, we conducted interviews with civil society leaders and grassroots practitioners in Northern Ireland and with both Jewish and Palestinian activists in Israel. These interviews addressed the role of gender as a civil society issue in need of further attention as well as the way that a gender lens shapes possibilities for scaling civil society and grassroots social change initiatives.

• Finally, we conducted interviews with grassroots practitioners and civil society leaders in Northern Ireland in order to explore the scaling of support for peacebuilding and reconciliation prior to and in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement. 

In addition to the different areas of focus in each of these case studies, they differ in their methodological approach.  The first two case studies focus on a specific movement/network (Black Lives Matter) and organization (Sadaka Reut), respectively.  Each provides deep insights into different aspects of scaling up nonviolent social change as applicable to these specific groups. The third and fourth case studies, on the other hand, focus on broad civil society issues. Because of this, they include practitioners and activists from a wide range of movement organizations and civil society initiatives in Israel and in Northern Ireland.  

The range of actors and issues addressed in these case studies are the foundation for the tools presented here. Our team carefully reviewed transcripts of each interview and compiled a set of key themes that emerged in terms of actions taken or suggestions made for scaling social change work. These themes are presented as tools that illustrate how different groups and actors have negotiated aspects of scaling their work.