BUILDING POLITICAL WILL

Abstract

This article explores the value of effective brand messaging to achieve public policy goals. Policy makers and advocacy organizations working toward a nuclear-free world need to become more effective communicators with the general public if they wish to build broad-based political support. Effective communication includes: a specific long-range goal, an urgent time schedule, a plan to marshal time and resources, and the ability to communicate the goal in simple language. With a unique brand name and tagline for a specific nuclear-free-world proposal, policy makers and advocacy groups can better facilitate communication between citizens and their elected representatives. Well-executed branding also serves to: simplify a complex issue, influence public opinion, be memorable and emotionally appealing, and help unify diverse groups around a common platform. By developing a common language between policy makers, politicians, and the general public, a complex and seemingly insurmountable issue can be transformed into a coherent and achievable platform.

Keywords:

• Nuclear weapons
• nuclear disarmament
• arms control
• public opinion
• Reykjavik summit
• United States
• Russia

Notes

1. John F. Kennedy, Special Session of the U.S. Congress, “Man on the Moon Speech,” Washington, DC, May 25, 1961, <www.nasa.gov/vision/space/features/jfk_speech_text.html>.

2. John F. Kennedy, Special Session of the U.S. Congress, “Man on the Moon Speech,” Washington, DC, May 25, 1961, <www.nasa.gov/vision/space/features/jfk_speech_text.html>.

3. For brevity, in this essay the phrase ‘Nuclear-Free-World Movement” refers to leaders, policy makers, and/or advocacy groups who have called for the global elimination of nuclear weapons.

4. Steven Kull, John Steinbruner, Nancy Gallagher, Clay Ramsey, Evan Lewis, “American and Russians on Nuclear Weapons and the Future of Disarmament: A Joint Study of WorldPublicOpinion.org and the Advanced Methods of Cooperative Security Program, Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland,” Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, November 9, 2007, p. 9.

5. Web search conducted March 30, 2008: <google.com/Top/Society/Issues/Warfare_and_Conflict/Weapons/Nuclear/Disarmament_Activism/Organizations/> and <dir.yahoo.com/Government/Military/Weapons_and_Equipment/Weapons_of_Mass_Destruction/Nuclear_Weapons/Nuclear_Disarmament_and_Nonproliferation/Organizations/>.

6. Sergio Duarte, “Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime: Debilitation and Risk of Collapse,” speech and paper at Nuclear Weapons—The Greatest Peril to Civilization: A Conference to Imagine our World Without Them, Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, New Haven, CT, February 21, 2008.

7. Lorelei Kelly and Elizabeth Turpen, Policy Matters: Educating Congress on Peace and Security (Washington, DC: Henry L. Stimson Center, 2004), pp. 68–70.

8. Kelly and Turpen, Policy Matters.

9. Kelly and Turpen, Policy Matters, p. 23.

10. Frank Luntz, Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear (New York: Hyperion Books, 2007); Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die (New York: Random House, 2007); and Drew Westen, The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation (New York: Public Affairs, 2007).

11. Luntz, Words That Work. p. 282.

12. Luntz, Words That Work, pp. 78–80.

13. Joseph Cirincione, “Republicans Do It Better,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, September/October 2000, pp. 17–19.

14. In Paul Lettow's 2005 book on Ronald Reagan, the author gives a fascinating account of the lifelong interest Reagan had in nuclear weapons and the importance to the world's future of their eventual elimination. Paul Lettow, Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (New York: Random House, 2005).

15. Aaron Scherb and Scott Stedjan, “Still in the Shadow of Nuclear Weapons,” Friends Committee on National Legislation, 2006, <www.fcnl.org/pdfs/shadow_nucs_bklt.pdf>.

16. Heath and Heath, Made to Stick.

17. Ronald Reagan and D. Erik Felton, A Shining City: The Legacy of Ronald Reagan (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998).

18. Luntz, Words That Work, p. 61.

19. The organization of a much broader coalition of churches has already begun. In 2005, Reverend William Sloane Coffin organized a meeting of multidenominational churches to address the concerns of nuclear weapons. Out of this initial meeting, Faithful Security: The National Religious Partnership on the Nuclear Weapons Danger, was formed. See <faithfulsecurity.org/>.

20. Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” April 16, 1963, Courtesy the King Center, Atlanta, GA, Michigan State University web site, <coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/∼hst306/documents/letter.html>.

21. Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” April 16, 1963, Courtesy the King Center, Atlanta, GA, Michigan State University web site, <coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/∼hst306/documents/letter.html>.

22. Kull et al., “American and Russians on Nuclear Weapons and the Future of Disarmament,” pp. 17–18.

23. Lettow, Ronald Reagan and His Quest, p. 223. For a detailed description of the events of the summit, see Richard Rhodes, Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007), pp. 236–270.

24. Luntz, Words That Work, pp. 125–126.

25. Heath and Heath, Made to Stick, pp. 25–26.

26. Kull et. al, “American and Russians on Nuclear Weapons and the Future of Disarmament.”

27. Kull et al., “American and Russians on Nuclear Weapons and the Future of Disarmament.”

28. George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons,” Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2007, p. A15.

29. Kull et al. “American and Russians on Nuclear Weapons and the Future of Disarmament,” pp. 17–18.

30. Kull et al. “American and Russians on Nuclear Weapons and the Future of Disarmament,” pp. 17–18.

31. Margaret Beckett, “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons?” Keynote address of the Carnegie International Nonproliferation Conference, Washington, DC, June 25, 2007, <www.carnegieendowment.org/events/index.cfm?fa=eventDetail&id=1004&&prog=zgp&proj=znpp>.

32. John F. Kennedy, “Address at Rice University on the Nation's Space Effort,” Rice University, Houston Texas, September 12, 1962,<jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/003POF03SpaceEffort09121962.htm>.