At the heart of this blog is the concept of people power. It's the capacity of ordinary citizens to achieve political change by transforming their individual resources - such as time, skills, and solidarity - into organised collective action that can challenge established money and institutional authority.
Rather than merely gathering a large crowd for a one-off protest, political theorists Marshall Ganz and Hahrie Han define it as a relational process that combines mobilizing (tapping into existing supporters for immediate tasks like petitions or turnout) with deep organizing (building committed, resilient communities that continuously develop new leaders). Drawing on Ganz’s work, this power is unlocked when organizers weave a shared "public narrative" that connects personal values to urgent collective action and distributes strategic responsibility across a network, while Han emphasizes that true political leverage comes from structuring participation so that taking action transforms passive bystanders into autonomous, skilled agents capable of sustaining long-term pressure on decision-makers.