Our foundational research informs resistance strategies by focusing on opposition movements and trends, leaders, intersectionality, the long-view, and accountability to social justice movements and communities most directly targeted by these threats.

While PRA is most publicly known for our journalism and publishing, we work behind the scenes to leverage our expertise by engaging directly with movement strategists through informal and formal partnerships. PRA focuses on offering trainings for social justice actors on how to identify and combat threats from the Right, particularly in periods of increased threat, including most recently the months beginning with the summer 2020 racial justice protests through the 2020 election to January 6th, 2021.

Through these interventions, PRA improves the efficacy of social justice strategies by helping groups identify and assess potential threats, actively co-develop strategies to block antidemocratic forces, and create frameworks that support long-term power-building for a more robust democratic movement. PRA consults with community groups directly targeted by Far-Right actors in need of rapid response trainings; movement-facing field builders requesting research to inform strategies that equip communities for security and organizing responses; and media-savvy digital organizers in need of political education to shape their large-scale organizing efforts.

PRA has also created accessible resources for movement leaders beyond in-depth briefings. Notably, PRA quickly created several tools to support the racial justice movement as it caught fire in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd in May of 2020. For example, in partnership with colleagues at other research institutions, PRA documented incidents of far-right and paramilitary interference with racial justice and police accountability protests, verified and debunked rumors, and developed a public-facing interactive map with incident details. Containing hundreds of incidents since May of 2020, this tool has become an important resource for activists. Additionally, we created the Activist Field Guide to the Armed Far-Right, a graphic designed to help organizers learn how to respond to paramilitary presences at their protests.

When approached by movement organizers, PRA treats these engagements as entry points to strengthen relationships with a broad cross-section of social justice actors. PRA staff convenes partners, organizes training sessions, briefs community members, and participates in working groups and informal spaces to learn and share information. As partnerships evolve, we build deeper collaborative working relationships where PRA can leverage and influence strategies based on our credible expertise, and partners can engage in capacity-building shared learning.