Moral Witness and Political Pragmatism in U.S. Peace Movements

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Peace movements have relied on two strategic approaches to achieve their goals. These include political pragmatism —whereby movement activities are a complement to institutional politics—and moral witness , in which movements use symbolic tactics to highlight moral issues. While we have knowledge of the conditions that enhance political pragmatism, we know little about what makes moral witness effective. In this article, I use case study methods to analyze the factors that strengthen moral witness campaigns and to assess the consequences of relying predominantly on one strategy. I examine two cases: (1) the strategic choices of Bayard Rustin, an influential leader in the U.S. civil rights and peace movements; and (2) the Catholic Left, which mobilized against the Vietnam War and the nuclear arms race. In these cases, movement leaders initially employed both strategies. Eventually, however, Rustin shifted toward political pragmatism, while the Catholic Left shifted toward exclusive moral witness. Deriving lessons from these cases, I find that moral witness is most effective when movements use provocative tactics and understandable symbolism that is visible to a wide audience. I also find that abandoning moral witness for institutional politics can lead to a loss of moral credibility, making it difficult to mobilize people, while abandoning political pragmatism can lead movements to become largely theatrical, which will have limited impact if their audience is small.