Transformative psychology #7: Emotional intelligence and conflict transformation

Conflict transformation is transforming destructive conflict into constructive conflict. The types of destructive conflict are typically associated with forms of violence, including direct, structural, cultural, sexual, and emotional (Rapp, 2006). Emotional intelligence is one element in the process of transformation, but not just as regards emotional violence; emotional intelligence can assist in transforming any destructive conflict, in no small measure because all forms of destructive conflict impact emotional well-being.

Emotional intelligence is both self-oriented and other-oriented, affecting our behaviors and thus the outcomes of what we attempt. Other-oriented emotional intelligence is a positive factor in workplace productivity and sustainability of a positive workplace culture (Marinova, Anand & Park, 2025).

References

Marinova, S., Anand, S., & Park, H. (2025). Other-oriented emotional intelligence, OCBs, and job performance: a relational perspective. Journal of Social Psychology, 1–20. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1080/00224545.2024.2439944

Rapp, H. (2006). The four chambers of the heart of peace: the role of emotional intelligence, counselling skills, and living systems thinking in the transformation of violent conflict: part one. Psychotherapy & Politics International, 4(3), 157–174. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1002/ppi.107

Transformative psychology #6: Neuroscience of empathy

Psychological researchers have found that "work in humans and nonhuman primates converges in describing a close relationship between emotional contagion, mimicry, and social closeness" (Ferrari, 2014, p. 300). While there is no scientific claim or basis in any assertion that mirror neurons guarantee an empathic response in all individuals in all situations--mocking disabilities is an example of the opposite and of course there are many others--neuroscientists are possibly moving toward consensus that without our animal innate ability to mirror others behaviors, including facial expressions and body movements, empathy might not be as possible as it clearly is.

Of course there is a continuum of empaths, all the way from those who almost eagerly put their lives in danger to protect others to those who operate only transactionally and strictly in their own self-interest. Most humans seem to fall some distance from both endpoints of that spectrum or continuum.

When deëscalating someone, the psychological empathic approach is crucial, as is the role of empathy in moderating, facilitating, and mediating. Given our natural range of empathic choices in the heat of conflict, we can instruct ourselves to come down where it will do the most good.

Scenario One: 

Mandy and Jim are escalating in an argument in a dinner party. You choose how to use your empathy. You back Jim, showing him great camaraderie and protective friendship, discounting Mandy's points. Your empathy escalates the conflict, assisting in damaging the long friendship of Mandy and Jim, as well as you and Mandy.

Scenario Two: 

Mandy and Jim, dinner party argument--same start. As they escalate and each start becoming louder and more aggressive and dismissive of the other, you choose to practice your empathy by quietly asking questions, first of one, then the other. Your quiet search for the most rational components of their arguments is your mirroring approach, your empathic approach, connecting possibly less to their physical expressions and more to the variables of their intellectual constructs, constructs that you are asking them in turn to reveal more clearly to you. If your empathic approach works, you (or one of them) may well discover enough common interests to maintain their mutual respect, if not agreement.

Both of your approaches are rooted in empathy.

Does that make empathy categorically good or invariably effective? Hardly. 

Thus, merely asserting to ourselves or to others that "I was trying to protect my friend," or "I acted out of sympathy for him," is not a legitimate claim to either good relational upkeeping or even smart intentions. Empathy expressed in ways that uplift and strengthen social bonds can show social evolutionary adaptiveness. Empathy that seems based in more of a zero-sum analysis can possibly do more harm than good.

References

Ferrari, P. F. (2014). The neuroscience of social relations. A comparative-based approach to empathy and to the capacity of evaluating others’ action value. Behaviour, 151(2/3), 297–313. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1163/1568539X-00003152

Transformative psychology #5: Self-talk as encouragement and protection

"Self-talk" is not a phrase used to my knowledge when I was young. Now, however, psychologists from many perspectives with many motivations have centered it in psychological health and performance enhancement. Even the military sees[1] the value in helping its members understand and learn adaptive practices of self-talk.

They note the difference between more-or-less "automatic" self-talk--spontaneous and sometimes debilitatingly self-deprecating with no helpful measure of appropriate self-confidence--and what they call "strategic" self-talk, which is meant to be conscious, deliberate, motivational and problem-solving.

Researchers also found self-talk can improve anaerobic power, especially when that self-talk is motivational and is accompanied by the physical affirmation of head-nodding (Mateos, Ruiz & Horcajo, 2024).

Self-talk can prep us for stressful situations. We train to engage in it on the Portland Peace Team in order to head into escalated situations with no available triggers, no chink in our emotional armor that can reduce us to debate, argument, or loss of temper. 

Thus, self-talk is shown to be effective in preventing emotional explosions and also in increasing explosive (anaerobic) power, physically.

References

Mateos, R., Ruiz, I. C., & Horcajo, J. (2024). Increasing Anaerobic Power in Cycling By Implementing Embodied Self-Talk. Sport Psychologist, 38(3), 207–216. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1123/tsp.2023-0154 

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[1] https://www.armyresilience.army.mil/ard/r2/The-power-of-Self-talk.html#:~:text=Benefits%20of%20Effective%20Self%2DTalk,%2Desteem%20and%20self%2Dworth.

Transformative psychology #4: The power of positive listening

Some communications experts call it "active listening," some call it "reflective listening," some deem it "elicitive listening," and it might also be "transformative listening" or "positive listening." What are the characteristics of such a practice?

·       genuine listening with all forms of our intelligence (certainly emotional intelligence coupled with intellectual intelligence)

·       listening to formulate questions that draw a person out further

·       patient listening

·       reflective listening that paraphrases with humility, using follow-ups such as, "Correct me if I'm wrong, but what I hear you saying is..."

·       empathic listening for the trauma behind some narratives

·       connective listening that seeks to identify commonalities with the other rather than listening for "gotcha" points to prepare a retort or refutation

The United States Institute of Peace[1] offers many techniques that can be considered part of active listening, as long as care is also given to the sequencing. For example, they include, "Help the speaker see other points of view," which is certainly a valuable technique but likely only helpful after first using many of the other techniques and then gingerly probing to see if such a "help" is welcome or if it would effectively end the conversation. In short, the psychology of positive listening is at least as crucial as the checklist. 

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[1] https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/2017-01/Core%20Principles%20of%20Active%20Listening%20Handout.pdf

Transformative psychology #3: Identity and resilience

What enables some people to manage a post-conflict healing, a peace without much new threat of violent conflict? 

Part of the answer may be in the methods used to wage the conflict. For example, in a 2005 study published by Freedom House, the general tendency to relapse into not conflict following a regime change increased when the insurgency that defeated the old regime was armed and tended to not devolve into war when the insurgency was nonviolent (e.g., Serbia in 2000, Philippines in 1986, fall of communist regimes in Warsaw Pact in the 1989 period, etc.) (Karatnycky & Ackerman, 2005). While the seriousness of the struggles are the same, the lack of atrocities committed by the nonviolent victors might not feed so much into the powerful motive for revenge, which sometimes can go on for years, even generations, when a party lost to violence.

Individuals vary in levels of resilience in context of identity struggle. Psychology researchers found "greater identity resilience is associated with more adaptive reactions, less undesired identity change, and less negative affect after thinking about aversive experiences" (Breakwell, 2021, p. 573). 

Being able to manage those aversive experiences is a challenge to many individuals and to identity groups, e.g., those especially on lower status levels in a particular culture at a particular time. Being gay in a homophobic culture, being BIPOC in a racist culture, being a girl or woman in a sexist culture are all situations where identity and culture work to damage resilience for some, if not most, of the downpressed identity groups. When they suffer from that it is also referred to as internalized oppression.

Some practitioners of social activism who are members of historically marginalized groups assert that being an activist for justice is a way to develop "internalized resilience"[1] that can overcome any internalized oppression. 

Families of origin in communities with shared identities can also help prepare youth to grow into a resilience based on pride in ancestry, identity, and cultural greatness. 

References

Breakwell, G. M. (2021). Identity resilience: its origins in identity processes and its role in coping with threat. Contemporary Social Science, 16(5), 573–588. https://doi.org/10.1080/21582041.2021.1999488

Karatnycky, Adrian & Ackerman, Peter (2005). How freedom is won: From civic resistance to durable democracy. New York, NY: Freedom House.

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[1] https://www.believeoutloud.com/voices/article/internalized-resilience-embracing-thrivingness/

Transformative psychology #2: Trauma-informed structural change

The psychological challenges to bridging the gap between violent conflict containment and conflict transformation at times face major barriers when the structural circumstances that produced the outbreak of violence remain (Gaynor, 2016). Understandably, this presents emotional traps for individuals and collectives, at times devolving back to hot conflict. This can be particularly powerful in cases like wars in Congo, where the mortalities were greater than any war since World War II. The psychology of atrocity accumulation and therefore perduring trauma is a powerful force perennially subject to reignition, most significantly mitigated by transformation of structural injustices, structural violence, structural inequalities (leading to strong resentments of perceptions of relative deprivation).

References

Gaynor, N. (2016). The limits to community-based conflict resolution in North-East Congo. Community Development Journal, 51(2), 268–284. https://doi.org/10.1093/cdj/bsv015

Transformative psychology #1: Former combatants turned transformative conflict workers

What is the psychology of a former combatant turning and learning conflict transformation? Irish researchers into the identity processing of former combatants during the Troubles reveal a tendency of those seeking to become conflict transformation specialists tend to construct a self-image of their new profession not as a negation of their former armed fighter identity but rather as an evolution along a professional continuum (Flack & Ferguson, 2021). This seems to psychologically self-manage the frequent collective and individual aversion to regarding what some would legitimately call a radical shift or pivot and instead justify or self-reassure pride in growth and skill development. 

A potential pitfall, of course, is the emotional need to self-assess the new profession as more expert and more valid than those who started with nonviolent conflict transformation and never went through the role of violent combatant. The tensions can better be managed when mutually understood. The former combatant often has a strong sense of pride in the bravery and total commitment of having been in combat, while the conflict transformer who decided against that in the beginning can descend into moral or ethical judgment of the former combatant. The vulnerabilities of both can be reduced by greater understanding of the other.

References

Flack, P., & Ferguson, N. (2021). Conflict Transformation: Relinquishing or Maintaining Social Identity Among Former Loyalist Combatants in Northern Ireland. Political Psychology, 42(2), 185–200. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12694

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #50: Hundreds more!

Every method of nonviolent action can be a method of participating in democracy. Gene Sharp, in his 1973 opus, listed 198 methods[1]. As a major update, Michael Beer produced a greatly expanded list of essentially double that in his monograph Civil Resistance Tactics in the 21st Century[2]. 

Just a few of those additional tactics since 1973, from the Beer collection (2021, pp. 87-88): 

·       Expressive Tactics Using Medium of Electronic Communication

·       RECORDING & DISTRIBUTING NEWS OF NVA

·       Livestreaming: The live public broadcasting of an event, incident, or protest

·       Short form digital video: A brief video detailing the issue that people are protesting for/against

·       Social media photo campaign: Promoting a particular image through social media platforms (for example, changing profile pictures)

·       Database leaks: Releasing entire digital archives of secret/classified materials in order to educate the public and/or increase awareness

·       CROWDSOURCING INFORMATION

·       Sousveillance: Covert surveillance by citizens, frequently of authorities

·       Maps and maptivism: Using maps, typically digital ones, to crowdsource data or information

·       Digital file sharing applications: Peer-to-peer file-sharing (uTorrent, etc.)

·       CREATING ONLINE DIGITAL CONTENT

·       Blogging/writing/commenting/tweeting: Creating online written content that addresses particular issues, which is especially useful if it is too dangerous to speak out or protest in person

·       Digital video and audio art: Using media forms such as videos, photos, photos of art, digital art, animations, and silent videos to protest/appeal

·       Digital games: Digital games that are used to criticize opponents and their ideas or to model a new behavior or institution

·       FALSE, IMAGINARY INFORMATION

·       Creating faux identities, websites, videos:

·       Creating some kind of hoax or fake information that is intended to mock opponents and/or shock the public

·       Mockumentaries: A documentary that uses humor and parody to mock an opponent or issue

·       Mock documents (government forms): Constructing mock documents or forms for use by the public

·       Deliberately fake money: Creating false currency that can be used to combat corruption, spread awareness about the issue, etc.

·       MASS ACTION

·       SMS/email/social media bombing: Using text messaging, email, or social media functions to send messages en masse to a target

·       Forwarding information, retweeting, re-posting, sharing: Sharing information and raising awareness through social media or other messaging systems

·       Trend a hashtag: Using a social media platform’s hashtag feature to call attention to an issue or event (#)

·       Influencing Internet search engines: Changing the results of a search engine for a specific term/person 

·       “Nonviolently ‘hijacking’ social media”: Hacking, posting on, exposing, and/or disabling the social media accounts of an opponent

·       Social media “challenges”: Using social media to call others to action on a mass scale

·       Solidarity telethon: Mass calls to spread information and solidarity 

·       Product review hijacking: Negatively or positively mass-reviewing a product

One perspective of all these ways to participate in democracy is that if there are hundreds of ways to do so and many more waiting some creative innovative activist to develop, it negates the entire Just War Doctrine because one of the criteria for engaging in war is that it must be the last resort. No war in human history was preceded by 198 different attempts to resolve a conflict or defend a people, let alone more than 300 of them. Peace, nonviolence, and democracy are all woven together much more advantageously than violence and democracy. In effect, creative, strategic nonviolence is the new arsenal of democracy.

References

Beer, Michael A. (2021). Civil resistance tactics in the 21st century. ICNC. 

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[1] https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/resource/198-methods-of-nonviolent-action/

[2] https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/resource/civil-resistance-tactics-in-the-21st-century/

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #49: Be a citizen journalist

 The young woman who is independently streaming video at a public event is a citizen journalist. Is she an effective influencer? Sometimes. The idea that the quality of a citizen journalist's output is 100 percent quantifiable is clearly not true when one photo changes public policy. 

Mid-19th century photos of Yellowstone drove the votes in Congress, for example, to create the first United States National Park in 1871 and all the protections it afforded so Americans could enjoy the park in perpetuity. 

Even earlier, says the Save the Redwoods League[1]:

Photographers and painters began connecting people to redwoods decades earlier, beginning with Carleton Watkins’ giant sequoia photographs from the 1850s. At the height of the Civil War, these photos helped inspire President Lincoln and the U.S. Congress to protect Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove, in part as an antidote to the war’s horrors.

Whatever the social media platform, there are elements that are participatory in democracy, whether it's documentation, opinion, or simply sharing what inspires you to make society a better place. 

Ask Wael Ghonim, an Egyptian who, in 2010, saw a horrific photo of a fellow countryman beaten to death by Egyptian police. He started a FaceBook page and it went massively viral, helping to launch the Egyptian Arab Spring on the heels of the first Arab Spring uprising, in Tunisia. 

Citizen journalism is a challenge to mainstream journalism, though it can helpfully supplement it when both are well done. Like all the tools we have with which to participate in democracy, it can be used to build or to harm.

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[1] https://www.savetheredwoods.org/blog/forest/the-power-of-photography-connection-and-conservation/

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #48: Work for a think tank

Yeah, like most other ways to participate in democracy, this could hurt democracy, and it has. Far rightwing, well-funded think tanks such as the white nationalist, racist, anti-democracy Claremont Institute have been doing that for decades (Stewart, 2023). 

So we need think tanks from the pro-democracy, peace and justice perspective. Indeed, arguably, that needs to happen more broadly more urgently because once a government becomes autocratic, the range of think tank orientation shifts, as it exists, for instance, in Russia, where think tanks either assume a decidedly pro-Russian government stance or they tend to geopoliticize issues rather than acknowledge domestic problems (Axyonova, 2024).

Think tanks generally do not produce much honestly peer-reviewed material since most have a more serious drive toward publishing white papers and monographs exploring the issues in their mission, and the issues that funders prefer explored. This doesn't invalidate their output, but it tends to set a perspective that should inform anyone studying and citing their research findings. 

Most valuable are the innovative ideas created and explained by think tank researchers. For example, the studies funded in total or in part by the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC) have been and continue to be instrumental in disseminating and proliferating usable knowledge on strategic nonviolent methods of effective political action, institutional policy challenges, and corporate accountability. They have translated select resources--documentary films, webinars, monographs, and more into the languages that can benefit democracy and nonviolent change. Their resource library[1], freely available online, is peerless. 

A serious problem about think tanks is that they are frequently funded by wealthy family foundations and those family foundations may tend to be quite right-leaning, politically. The exceptions are wonderful but in the end, the intellectual labor toward peace, democracy, nonviolence, and justice is most frequently done on a pro bono basis or tiny royalty-based supplemental income. Like so many other pro-democracy initiatives, we have to learn to do more and more with less and less until we can achieve almost anything with practically nothing. Freedom is a labor of love.

References

Axyonova, V. (2024). Responding to crises in authoritarian environments: Russian think tanks between policy evaluation and state endorsement. Review of Policy Research, 41(6), 941–960. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1111/ropr.12601

Stewart, K. (2023). The Anti-Democracy Think Tank. New Republic, 254(9), 10–21.

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[1] https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/resource-library/

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #47: Make videos

 Making a video used to be a daunting task indeed. You'd need an expensive camera, special software to edit, and likely some professional help. Back in the actual 70mm or 35mm film day with no SIM card or online options it was even more prohibitive. 

Now you can do a Zoom session, record it, and post it on YouTube. You can create your own YouTube channel, which can even monetize your creative work even as you make videos that participate in democracy.

Yes, you can make it fancier and more appealing with all the above helpers--great editing software, professional assistance, and so forth.

Whatever you produce, consider making very short vids that people will actually watch to the finish. Do a series of three-minute videos rather than one 90-minute blockbuster that few will even start. Even better, do the long form plus break it down into discrete clips. 

In some ways, it's almost like a letter to the editor; make just one primary point, and make it succinctly with explosive intellectual entertainment value. If you do a Zoom, have a Powerpoint ready so you aren't just a talking head. Rip through 15-20 slides, at least, in three minutes. Start and finish with yourself. Do the Zooms until you are happy with the product or learn to edit the Zooms. Either way, post with power, with confidence, with a fast-moving alluring message. You will find your own style, your own voice, and you will be a more effective agent of change.

I will always love the answer given many years ago to an old movie director to a question about how he made films that were so successful: "I grab the viewer by the throat in the first 30 seconds and I never let go."

Your videos may be the trigger to action that saves democracy.

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #46: Build a pro-democracy coalition

Right now we are reeling from the onslaught of Trump's actions. To me, the key is exactly what you envision, getting involved, no matter how few hours we might have, and, whatever we are involved in, we are communicating our dissatisfaction with the harm that Trump is doing. That is step one, to me. 

Step two is getting the group we work with to declare that, as a group. 

Step three is to look for other groups to ally with. 

Step four is for the coalition to declare its opposition. When we have a "group of groups" we have power. We can start to show that power to ourselves and others and make it easier to get change. 

The ultimate step is to simply have such a huge coalition that we can credibly threaten a general strike. It is often helpful to simply do such a thing for a short time, just to prove the concept. If, for instance, the coalition was big enough and prepared enough to go on strike for a symbolic half day, that might show enough power to get Trump to start negotiating. A longer general strike would need serious commitment and preparation. 

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #45: Community radio

According to MyTuner.com[1] there are some 285 community radio stations in the US. As one community radio station in Wisconsin explains it[2]: 

"In 1946, a group of conscientious objectors formed The Pacifica Foundation, a media organization with the goal to build a nationwide network of non-commercial radio stations. They formed the first ‘listener-sponsored’ radio station in the United States, KPFA – Berkeley, in 1949."

Volunteers are trained in by professional employees and can host programs with themes that are in some way serving the public good, whether by political discussion or specialized cultural content or any number of other educational topical programs. 

For several years in the 1980s, I was a professional community organizer with two others in a small organization, Waging Peace, based in Hayward, Wisconsin. We hosted a three-hour peace and justice program on a nearby tribal station, WOJB (Wisconsin OJiBwe), on the Lac Court Oreilles Anishinaabe reservation. We interviewed a wide range of peace and justice activists, either in the station or via telephone (this was pre-Internet, pre-Zoom). The lead producer for the station, who was a paid professional who did pieces for other tribal stations and occasional pieces for NPR, trained us to run a simple radio program. All three of us were volunteers, as were many other hosts at the station. 

We were certainly participating in democracy when we broadcast interviews of a Green party candidate fresh back from Germany, who helped our listeners understand the Euromissile crisis in Germany that was driven by then-president Ronald Reagan's decision to deploy US nuclear weapons with a destabilizing first-strike capacity to US bases in Germany. 

Similarly, we promoted a far deeper understanding of the treaty rights of all the 14 bands of the Lake Superior Ojibwe by interviewing experts from the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission.

We sat with a Christian minister just back from apartheid South Africa to educate us and our listeners about conditions there, even as pressure was building in the US to boycott South Africa. 

In short, we helped broadcast many peace and justice programs to our listeners, virtually all of those programs educating our fellow citizens in matters under consideration in our local, state, and national democracy. 

This is what happens at those 285 stations around the US, and this is a robust element of our citizen-based democracy.

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[1] https://mytuner-radio.com/radio/country/united-states/genre/community-stations

[2] https://www.wdrt.org/community-radio/

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #44: Be a librarian and support your librarians

When, in the aftermath of the terror attacks of 9.11.2001, the US government passed the USA PATRIOT Act and started invading the privacy of those who checked out library books, librarians rebelled and some refused to coöperate, based on the ethical obligation to protect the vast majority of innocent library patrons who shouldn't be swept up in some government investigation (Pace, 2004). It was a rare moment of the shift in image of librarians as quiet, even meek, servants of the people, to that of proud protectors of our civil rights.

And now comes the Christian nationalists, led by one of the least Christian US presidents in history, supporting book bans. Again, librarians are showing their mettle by openly opposing or refusing to do these un-American attacks on freedom of thought (Krutka, 2025).

Indeed, the American Library Association[1] is serious about fighting all forms of invasive censorship and provides resources to local libraries and librarians to support the brave resistance to those who would take away our rights. Supporting librarians who are under assault by book banners is a key participation in democracy.

References

Krutka, K. R. (2025). Counterstories as Resistance to Book Bans. Library Quarterly, 95(1), 58–78. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1086/733173

Pace, A. K. (2004). Toward a More Practical Patriotism. Computers in Libraries, 24(4), 19–21.

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[1] https://www.ala.org/advocacy/fight-censorship 

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #43: Boycott, divest, sanction

As with all methods of participating in democracy, BDS can be done in ways that produce more justice, more peace, and more democracy--or it can do the opposite. Like a hammer, BDS can build or it can be a weapon hurting people.

Boycotting goods or services is an age-old method of participating in democracy--economic democracy and political democracy. Not buying something is an individual freedom in virtually all societies. Certainly there are a few things you must purchase in order to engage in some activities; when I wanted to gather wild rice on public lakes in northern Wisconsin I needed to purchase a ricing permit, and without one the costs and consequences would have been pricey. 

But deciding that I don't want to buy a Nestles candy bar is my choice, with the only consequences being fewer cavities, more money in my pocket, and, as it happened for several years, a chance to impose a tiny cost on a company that was using shady scam practices in some impoverished countries--having people with no medical background dress as nurses and convincing poor people to spend their scant resources on Nestles powdered baby formula, rather than breastfeed their babies. 

Infact, an activist organization now called Corporate Accountability, launched the boycott[1] in 1977 and by 1984 we the people of the world who had been participating in that boycott won--a first on earth of a campaign forcing a globalized corporation to take serious policy reform based on action (or targeted inaction) of masses of consumers. 

Divestment simply means no purchase of any share of ownership in corporations that contribute in any way to harmful practice. Divesting from corporations doing business in apartheid South Africa put a great deal of pressure on the racist regime and contributed to the political decision to create a democracy there. Divestment in mining corporations that were doing great harm to mountains in the Southeastern US helped drive changes[2] in some environmental practices when financial institutions decided to stop loaning to some of the worst environmental actors because people were divesting from those banks to help drive those changes. Barclays, Wells Fargo, and other financial institutions all were financing bad environmental actors and all were targeted effectively and withdrew that financing. 

Sanctions are normally a governmental practice meant to punish bad actors--when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, the Obama administration imposed sanctions, as did the Biden administration when Russia did it again years later. Iran is building nuclear weapons components and they supply Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthis with weapons, so the US has been sanctioning Iran for years. The citizen input can be to engage in pressure on elected officials to sanction bad practices--pressure on the US government to sanction Israel over Palestinian civilian deaths has been less successful, but the success in many cases is proportional to the number of citizens making that demand. 

BDS is often referred to as the trifecta of economic measures available to promote or protect democracy. Anyone can participate at some level in one or more of these practices. 

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[1] https://corporateaccountability.org/blog/nestle-groundbreaking-boycott-saves-millions-of-infant-lives/

[2] https://www.sierraclub.org/articles/2015/04/private-banks-ditching-destructive-coal-investments-international-financial