Section 1 - Introduction

This guide provides a narrative strategy and messaging that elicits a positive and constructive response on the role and contribution of NGOs among harder to reach movable middle segments in Germany and thus, serves to immunise these target groups against extremist conspiracy theories. It is the result of ICPA’s Proactive Protection project (2023-2024) that aimed to support NGOs in the diversity sector and allies to respond more effectively to attacks resulting from conspiracy thinking and narratives that limit NGOs ability to fulfil their democracy promotion role and undermine trust in the sector and democracy, more broadly. 
 


1.1 Background, challenges & responses

As populism and authoritarian tendencies rise in Europe, trust in democracy and civil society is falling, and as a result, conspiracy narratives that vilify the civil society sector are spread more widely1 . A prevalent conspiracy theory of the far right – The Great Replacement theory – is having a damning and chilling effect on NGOs who are accused of being ‘traitors’ and ‘enemies of the state’ for supporting migrants and refugees and are alleged to be conspiring with globalists to drive the replacement of ‘European’ populations2 . NGOs are struggling to respond effectively to such attacks, and as a result go into defensive mode and are often less willing to be so public about their work. Recent studies by DeZIM3 and Maecenata Stiftung4 illustrate the damaging impact of these attacks on NGOs in Germany and serve as a strong call to action. The potential direct threat of the spread of this ‘traitor’ motif has had direct legal consequences in criminalising NGO workers who assist refugees in, for example, France, Greece, UK and Italy5 .
 
The Proactive Protection project focused on preventing the further mainstreaming of these damaging narratives about NGOs. More specifically, applying ICPA’s empirically-tested and value-based narrative change approach, we found that narrative change is a useful proactive instrument to help immunise the movable middle in Germany from taking on and spreading the set of harmful narratives about NGOs that are pathways to the ‘traitor’ motif at the heart of the Great Replacement. Put simply, in a narrative immunisation approach, if we can reframe the public debate around NGOs and shift the needle for our target group so that more trust (or even just less strong doubt) about NGOs is achieved, we build a barrier or obstacle for them taking on more extreme views about NGOs, i.e. we block the pathways to any further so-called “infection”6 from the extreme ‘traitor’ narratives.


 
1.2 Project approach & Key Results

Building on the attitude segmentation of the population based on a broad range of issues by More in Common7 , we focused on two segments of the population which are at the ‘hard end’ of the movable middle and who are more susceptible to conspiracy thinking, i.e. The Detached (16%) and The Disillusioned (14%). 

**

Figure 1: The Movable Middle in Germany & our target audience (Adapted from More in Common 20198 )
 

As mentioned above, the project was focused on primarily developing a narrative strategy that immunises these harder segments away from extreme conspiracy thinking on NGOs. It involved 3 main phases:
1.     a mapping period to understand the current debate on NGOs and the relevant opinions and attitudes of the target segments;
2.     and second a narrative development phase to put together a messaging response to immunise; 
3.     and third, a message testing phase to finalise the strategy. 
 
The key elements of the work involved significant research and testing through the first and third phases as follows:

**

Figure 2: The research and testing stages of the project
 

It is worth noting that we chose to use the term “narrative immunisation”, in contrast to the often-used term of inoculation in deradicalisation approaches9 . Simply put inoculation is an approach that exposes audiences to an example of a specific conspiracy theory and the tactics used to deliver it before they see it and so, is a kind of “pre-bunking”. The immunisation we are focused on assumes that our target segments have already been exposed to many of the anti-NGO pathway narratives that can lead to embracing conspiracy thinking, and so by reframing the NGO debate to rebuild trust in the sector along the key pathways, we immunise them from taking the next leap to a more extreme conspiracy like the ‘traitor’ element of The Great Replacement.
 


1.3 Key results

  • We developed a narrative strategy based on a community well-being message that we have shown moves the attitudes of The Detached on key areas of doubt about NGOs and their general level of trust in the sector, from a mean ‘tend to disagree’ or ‘unsure’ response to a ‘tend to agree’ response, i.e. immunising them against more angry or extreme thinking [See Sections 5 and 6].
  • The 3 pathway narratives that are key to shifting the attitude of the Detached on NGOs and hence immunise them from the more extreme ‘traitor’ narrative are: that NGOs are 1. Too political; 2. Too extreme and 3. Wasteful & Incompetent [See Section 5]. Indeed, the method of pathway identification and using this approach to immunise is also something new we developed and experimented with in this project.
  • In the end, we decided to focus on the Detached, rather than the Disillusioned for this immunisation strategy. Through two national surveys and three focus groups in two years with the Disillusioned, we have significant doubts about the potential efficacy of a positively-focused, value-driven narrative approach with this group. Put simply, while they may react well initially to a positive NGO message, it doesn’t last and quickly fall into deconstructing the messaging using a conspiracy mindset [See Section 5]. 

 
For this work, we drew on a decade of work in Germany on narrative change in the field of migration and six years’ experience working on civic space narratives in Kazakhstan, as we’re seeing the narrative tactics from authoritarian contexts being replicated in Europe and following quite a predictable playbook.


 
1.4 What does the guide cover?

In addition to detailing the immunising messaging approach, we also include key insights and resources from the mapping stage of the project, as follows:
 

  Section Description
1. Introduction Background, Aim, Overview & Key Results 
2. Why people adopt conspiracy thinking Definition, Psychological factors & Levels of adoption
3. Key narrative pathways to Great Replacement Frame map of pathway narratives to ‘traitor’ 
4. Profiles of the Target Audience/Segments Detached & Disillusioned views on NGOs, Democracy & Conspiracy mentality.
5. Reframing to immunise – approach & results Conspiracy theory responses & project immunisation results
6. Community well-being reframe of the NGO sector Tested messaging to immunise the middle
7. About the guide & project Authors, Partners, Citation & Licencing


 
 
1.5 Who is it for?

The guide is designed to support any actor interested in protecting and sustaining a vibrant civil society sector in Germany. More specifically and practically, the target is NGOs, their supporters and allies who work in the area of narrative change/strategic communications and wish to develop publicly targeted messaging and projects that rebuild trust in the sector. 

 

 <-- Guide index | Section 2 - Conspiracy Thinking -->