Reports

Estimates, Literature Reviews, Surveys, and Experiments

Social Movement Case Studies

Jamie Harris • July 6, 2022
The History of AI Rights Research
This report documents the history of research on AI rights and other moral consideration of artificial entities. It highlights key intellectual influences on this literature as well as research and academic discussion addressing the topic more directly. We find that researchers addressing AI rights have often seemed to be unaware of the work of colleagues whose interests overlap with their own. Academic interest in this topic has grown substantially in recent years; this reflects wider trends in academic research, but it seems that certain influential publications, the gradual, accumulating ubiquity of AI and robotic technology, and relevant news events may all have encouraged increased academic interest in this specific topic. We suggest four levers that, if pulled on in the future, might increase interest further: the adoption of publication strategies similar to those of the most successful previous contributors; increased engagement with adjacent academic fields and debates; the creation of specialized journals, conferences, and research institutions; and more exploration of legal rights for artificial entities.
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Jamie Harris • April 1, 2021
Social Movement Lessons from the Fair Trade Movement
This report aims to assess (1) the extent to which the international Fair Trade movement, especially from 1964 to the present, can be said to have successfully achieved its goals, (2) what factors caused the various successes and failures of this movement, and (3) what these findings suggest about how modern social movements should strategize.
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Jamie Harris • July 21, 2020
Social Movement Lessons from the US Prisoners' Rights Movement
This report aims to assess (1) the extent to which the prisoners’ rights movement in the United States from the 1950s onwards can be said to have successfully achieved its goals, (2) what factors caused the various successes and failures of this movement, and (3) what these findings suggest about how modern social movements should strategize. The analysis highlights the farmed animal movement as an illustrative example of the strategic implications for a variety of movements. Key findings of this report include that incremental successes of modest improvements in welfare may distract advocates’ attention from more fundamental political and systemic issues and that social movements based heavily on a strategy of litigation (or perhaps any single strategy) seem to be fragile.
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Jamie Harris • May 22, 2020
Social Movement Lessons from the US Anti-Death Penalty Movement
This report aims to assess (1) the extent to which the anti-death penalty movement in the United States, especially from 1966-2015, can be said to have successfully achieved its goals, (2) what factors caused the various successes and failures of this movement, and (3) what these findings suggest about how modern social movements should strategize. The analysis highlights the farmed animal movement as an illustrative example of the strategic implications for a variety of movements. Key findings of this report include that a narrow focus on legal strategies can discourage the growth of a grassroots movement that may be more effective in the longer term and that legislative change is possible without public support.
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Jamie Harris • November 26, 2019
Social Movement Lessons From the US Anti-Abortion Movement
This report aims to assess (1) the extent to which the modern (1966-2019) anti-abortion movement in the United States can be said to have successfully achieved its goals, (2) what factors caused the various successes and failures of this movement, and (3) what these findings suggest about how modern social movements should strategize. The analysis highlights the farmed animal movement as an illustrative example of the strategic implications for a variety of movements. Key findings of this report include that encouraging legal change without popular support can provide momentum for a social movement’s opponents; legislation and direct action may be effective at reducing supply through disruption and burdensome regulation, but direct effects on demand are smaller; and close alignment with political or religious groups may be tractable but risks longer-term stagnation.
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Kelly Anthis and Jacy Reese Anthis • December 1, 2017
Social Movement Lessons From the British Antislavery Movement: Focused on Applications to the Movement Against Animal Farming
Studying past social movements can provide invaluable insights for modern movement strategy. This report aims to assess (1) what factors led the British government to abolish the transatlantic Slave trade in 1807 and then human chattel slavery in 1833, and (2) what those findings suggest about how modern social movements should strategize. While many of the implications are generalizable to a variety of movements, the analysis will focus on applications to the movement against animal farming. Key implications include the need to focus on institutional change, the circumstances under which strategic reforms can facilitate the eventual elimination of the institution, and what messaging can best generate support.
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Technology Adoption Case Studies

J. Mohorčich • August 21, 2019
What Can Biofuel Commercialization Teach us about Scale, Failure, and Success in Biotechnology?
This paper examines the history of four biofuel firms (KiOR, Amyris, REG, and Novozymes) to draw lessons for the development and commercialization of cell-cultured meat. Findings include the strategic advantage of pursuing high-margin, low-volume products before low-margin, high-volume products, the pitfalls of overpromising with respect to timelines and product, the trap of technological inflexibility, and the way that many different firms pursuing parallel vertical integration strategies can spread fragility within an industry.
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J. Mohorčich • June 20, 2018
What Can the Adoption of GM Foods Teach us about the Adoption of Other Food Technologies?
This report seeks to understand the choices and strategies that can hasten or hurt the adoption of novel food technologies by examining how genetically modified (GM) food became an object of controversy in the United States and Europe. Among other conclusions, this report finds that perceptions of food companies as secretive and aggressive damaged GM food adoption, that GM firms understood their work to be humanitarian, innovative, and environmentally-friendly and so were largely caught unawares by popular backlash, that technology adoption is more readily affected by advocacy when buyers in a supply chain exert relatively more pressure on sellers than the reverse, and that focusing on the positive aspects of a technology has been more successful for encouraging its adoption than focusing on responding to negative perceptions.
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J. Mohorčich • November 28, 2017
What Can Nuclear Power Teach us about the Institutional Adoption of Clean meat?
Studies on clean meat adoption have mostly focused on consumer acceptance, but institutional choices by governments, industries, and news media can also delay or accelerate the adoption of new technologies. This report examines the factors that contributed to nuclear power’s widespread adoption in France and applies those findings to the question of how to advance the adoption of clean meat. Among other conclusions, this report finds that supply constraints on a competing good can accelerate the adoption of a new technology, that technical explanations about why a new product is safe are likely to backfire, that safety incidents that appear to confirm preexisting concerns are especially damaging to a new technology, and that states reliant on imports to meet their needs for a good or service are more promising targets for the early adoption of substitute technologies than states that are more self-reliant.
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