Episode Details

This is a link post.

Hi, I’m Thorbjørn “Toby” Schiønning, co-founder of Anima International. I was encouraged by my colleague Jakub Stencel to share our new blog post on negotiating and campaigning for animal welfare here (this is my first post here).

Summary

• Over the past two decades, a small group of advocates has secured major corporate commitments on animal welfare – from cage-free eggs to fur-free policies – but securing a commitment means nothing if companies don’t follow through.
• The animal advocacy movement relies on two traditional approaches: the “good cop” (dialogue and collaboration) and the “bad cop” (public pressure and campaigns) – each with real strengths, but also significant blind spots.
• The bad cop approach is straightforward and visible, but often fails due to limited budgets, lack of mass public mobilization, and companies increasingly willing to wait campaigns out.
• The good cop approach frees up resources and builds trust, but its leverage is limited – and companies can exploit it by treating NGOs as free bodyguards while making minimal progress.
• A third approach – "fair cop” – combines the flexibility of both: starting from genuine good faith and collaboration, but escalating assertively when warranted, without being locked [...]

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Outline:

(00:27) Summary

(01:37) How animal advocates (not always) win

(02:36) The story so far

(06:09) Playing poker with multinational corporations

(08:01) A quick example of what I mean by fair cop

(09:58) Fair cop in practice

(12:06) The bad cop - the stick

(13:38) When does the bad cop approach succeed?

(14:05) When does the bad cop approach fail?

(15:46) The good cop - the carrot

(16:41) When does the good cop approach succeed?

(18:40) When does the good cop approach fail?

(20:12) So what to make of all of this?

(20:56) Combining their strengths

(23:43) Why fair?

(25:22) When public campaigning is needed

(26:46) Fair cops weakest points

(27:52) Fair cop in action

(30:43) Summing it up

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First published:
March 31st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/23BjNccCdG9a3v8PD/the-good-the-bad-and-the-fair-cop

Linkpost URL:
https://animainternational.org/blog/fair-cop

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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