Party Politics for Animal Advocacy Part 1 - Animal-focused minor political parties (Animal Ask)

Key Points

• Animal parties are minor (niche) political parties with a single-issue focus on animals.
• Animal parties can win seats in elections that use proportional representation. The most important strategic decision is to choose to contest elections where seats can be won with just a couple of percent of the vote. Animal parties have won seats in five countries (Australia, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Portugal).
• When an animal party wins even one seat or a couple of seats, the impact for animals is typically positive and moderate. Occasionally, the impact can be enormous.
• We recommend a handful of countries where we think small grants are likely to help animal parties win at least one seat. Providing initial funding for animal parties in these countries appears to be low-hanging fruit, and this small level of funding is likely to have a disproportionately high level of impact.

Executive Summary

This approach involves establishing political parties with an explicit, and typically single-issue, focus on animal advocacy. These parties are minor (niche) parties. Animal parties can usually only win seats in elections that use proportional representation.

There are a few ways that animal parties can influence the lives of animals. The main way is by winning seats in legislatures and exercising power over legislation, government budgets, and so on. Animal parties can also influence policy in ways that do not necessarily require winning elections, such as obtaining policy concessions from other parties and setting the political agenda.

Currently, animal parties have won seats in national and sub-national legislatures in five countries (Australia, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and Portugal). The track record of the animal parties in these countries shows that the impact is positive and moderate, though massive wins do happen sometimes. The impact falls into four main categories:

• Large policy wins, which seem rare but enormous (i.e., hits-based). These crop up on the rare occasions when the policy agenda and the specific makeup of the legislature provide a window for an animal party to secure large policy concessions from other parties. Examples include major policy changes (e.g. inclusion of fish in animal welfare laws or bans on widespread farming practices like beak trimming) or allocating millions of dollars for animal welfare in national budgets.
• Small policy wins, which seem quite common. Examples include policies that benefit small numbers of animals (e.g. bans on particular types of hunting, restrictions on animal experimentation).
• Shifting the political agenda and influencing the policies of other parties. This effect is notoriously difficult to measure, though it does seem to be positive and meaningful.
• Capitalising on the non-legislative benefits of being an MP. This can include joining parliamentary committees, using the public stature of an MP to gain media attention for animal issues, and using allocated budgets to conduct campaigns outside of parliament.

In elections, animal parties typically attract just a few percent of the vote (e.g. 0 - 3%). There are numerous jurisdictions around the world where parties can win seats with modest votes like this. We believe that these jurisdictions are low-hanging fruit. Forming parties and contesting elections in these jurisdictions would result in animals gaining representation in a number of additional legislatures. There is less evidence that animal parties can readily expand their vote through advertising - instead, it appears that animal parties are mainly supported by a small core of passionate voters, and that the vote will therefore remain somewhat steady at around 0 - 3% over time. So, we think that the most important consideration is not necessarily advertising or crafting a perfect campaign strategy, but rather picking the right elections to contest, i.e. running in elections where parties can win seats with just a couple of percent of the vote.

We ask whether there are any legislatures around the world where a) animal parties are not currently contesting elections, and b) an animal party would probably win at least one seat if such a party were formed and contested an election. In some of these jurisdictions, an animal party does exist but it is not contesting all available elections.

We think that the most promising jurisdictions, along with the number of seats we would expect to win, are as follows:

• Switzerland (Swiss Animal Party / Tierpartei Schweiz): ~8-9 seats (across regional + national legislatures)
• Brazil (Animal Party of Brazil / Partido Animalista): ~2-5 seats (across regional + national legislatures)
• South Africa (new party): ~4 seats (across regional + national legislatures)
• Chile (Animal Party of Chile / Partido Animalista de Chile): ~1 seat (national legislature)
• Israel (Justice for All Party): ~1 seat (national legislature)
• Argentina (new party): ~1 seat (national legislature)

We also identified a few jurisdictions where the expected number of seats is more modest. Nevertheless, we think that these jurisdictions are still worth considering:

• Norway (new party): ~0-1 seats (national legislature)
• Albania (new party): ~0-1 seats (national legislature)
• Colombia (new party): ~0-1 seats (national legislature)
• Sri Lanka (new party): ~0-1 seats (national legislature)
• Dominican Republic (new party): ~0-1 seats (national legislature)

We would also recommend for all existing animal parties to ensure that they contest all elections available to them, including elections for state or regional parliaments.

The next step would be to reach out to local animal advocacy communities (or animal parties, where applicable) in the countries listed above. We have not considered the local contexts of these countries when forecasting the expected number of seats, so our forecasts may need to be adjusted up or down based on local considerations. For Switzerland, Brazil, Chile, and Israel, it would also be important to check whether the existing animal parties are indeed limited by funding.

We emphasise that all animal parties are great and should be supported, but these are the countries where an initial seed grant from a foundation is likely to generate a disproportionately high impact.

The costs to funders would be relatively small. These new parties may need financial support to contest the first election in each country. Most of this cost would pay for advertising, an online presence, and enabling a small team to work full-time on an election campaign in the few weeks immediately before the election. We suspect that around ~$30,000 USD would be the upper limit on how much a party would need for the first election. After the first election, the party would usually not require ongoing support from foundations - any elected legislators would receive a salary, the party may be eligible for government funding, and the party may build a base of paying members.

We also conduct a cost-effectiveness analysis to illustrate the impacts that animal parties can have. Basically, the lessons from this analysis are that: costs are low; most elected animal parties can successfully pass small policies (benefiting thousands of wild or companion animals); and some elected animal parties can successfully pass enormous policies (benefiting millions of farmed animals). This approach is difficult to scale as it is limited by the availability of legislatures where seats can be won with just a few percent of the vote. However, given the low costs, the positive impact, and the opportunity for occasional big wins, we think that helping animal parties contest additional elections would be a great part of the movement's portfolio.