Sociology 924: Social Movements Seminar Calendar Pamela Oliver

 

Resource Mobilization &Professionalization

The major themes of this week are issues of resource mobilization, external resources, professionalization, and the shifting forms of movement organizations across time.

Link to Social Science Library On-Line Reserves

A. General overview of organizational issues

  1. Social Movements : An Introduction. Donatella Della Porta and Mario Diani. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. 1999. Chapter 6. Social Movements and Organizational Form. Begins with New Left debates about organization, and then discusses models of organization. Discussion of changes in organizational forms, and then issues of organizational form and goals, functionality.
  2. Tarrow, Power in Movement, Chapter 3. General literature review

B. Resource Mobilization Theory: "Classic" articles

  1. *John McCarthy and Mayer Zald. The Trend of Social Movements in America: Professionalization and Resource Mobilization. (1973) This is the original. It is more subtle than you would think from citations to it. Thirty years later, it is an interesting historical retrospective. The "parts" are arbitrarily broken, but there are different themes in each section. It is exploring reasons for the intense movement mobilization of the 1960s. Part 1 reviews and dismisses a variety of explanations focuses on a "participation revolution" and concludes that the key is more students with discretionary time. Part 2 is most linked to issues of organization, with a lot of emphasis on money for movements, professional activists and movement careers. There is also a short section on the increasing use of mass media by movements. Part 3 continues the professionalization theme and asks whether movements will be shaped by the interests of those with money. Link to Social Science Library On-Line Reserves
  2. *John McCarthy and Mayer Zald. "Resource Mobilization and Social Movements." American Journal of Sociology 82 (May, 1977): 1212-1242. (Lots of hypotheses derived from notion that only resources matter; some are clearly wrong, others are quite useful. This is the article that takes all the heat.) Also in Buechler & Cylke reader. Stable URL link to JSTOR: From the introduction: "The resource mobilization perspective adopts as one of its underlying problems Olson's (1965) challenge: since social movements deliver collective goods, few individuals will 'on their own' bear the costs of working to obtain them. Explaining collective behavior requires detailed attention to the selection of incentives, cost-reducing mechanisms or structures, and career benefits that lead to collective behavior (see, especially, Oberschall 1973)."

C. Cooptation

  1. Herbert Haines. "Black Radicalization and the Funding of Civil Rights: 1957-1970" MS 440-449. Social Problems 32: 31-43. 1984. Link to Social Science Library On-Line Reserves Focus is on changes in the capacity of moderate organizations to mobilize monetary resources from extramovement groups during periods in which other movement organizations are becoming increasingly radical.
  2. J. Craig Jenkins and Craig M. Eckert. "Channeling Black Insurgency: Elite Patronage and Professional Social Movement Organizations in the Development of the Black Movement." American Sociological Review 51 (Dec. 1986): 812-829. Takes McAdam's data and extends the series, nailing down the argument: elite money mostly went to moderates, did not fund the "revolution" Stable URL link to JSTOR:

D. Abeyance Structures

  1. Verta Taylor. 1989. "Social Movement Continuity: The Women's Movement in Abeyance." American Sociological Review 54 (Oct): 761-775. Abeyance structures are how the movement survives in downtimes. Reprinted in MS 409-420 or BC 423-440 Stable URL link to JSTOR:

E. Movement Professionalization

  1. Suzanne Staggenborg. 1988. "The Consequences of Professionalization and Formalization in the Pro-Choice Movement." American Sociological Review 53 (Aug): 585-606. Professionals and entrepreneurs are different roles. Entrepreneurs found movement organizations, professionals stabilize them. Comparative study of many organizations. reprinted in MS 421-439 Stable URL in JSTOR:
  2. Kleidman, Robert. Volunteer Activism and Professionalism in Social Movement Organizations. Social Problems 1994, 41, 2, May, 257-276. Professionals have varying effects on volunteer mobilization; need more complex concepts to understand issues. Link to Social Science Library On-Line Reserves
  3. Pamela Oliver. (1983). “The Mobilization of Paid and Volunteer Activists in the Neighborhood Movement.” Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change 5: 133-170. Test theories using survey data, conclusion that activists are mobilized through commitment processes, not job opportunities, but that this mobilization is constrained by the availability of resources. Appendix an inventory of types of paid activists.
  4. Pamela E. Oliver and Gerald Marwell. "Mobilizing Technologies For Collective Action." In Aldon Morris and Carol Mueller, editors, Frontiers of Social Movement Theory. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1992. An analytic piece on fundraising and mobilizing volunteer labor. How the problems of getting money for professionalism or getting volunteers constrain the actions and goals of activists. Closely linked to the empirical articles in this section. Copy of draft version of this paper.
  5. Dana Fisher. Author of Activism, Inc. about canvassing. This is a plain text copy of an article by her in the American Prospect that summarizes her argument, that canvassign has hurt progressive movements. Text file.

F. Organizational Characteristics and Mobilization or Success

  1. John D. McCarthy. "Pro-Life and Pro-Choice Mobilization: Infrastructure Deficits and New Technologies." In Mayer N. Zald and John D. McCarthy, eds., Social Movements in an Organizational Society. Paper written in the early 1980s. Pro-life depends on volunteers has relatively little money, pro-choice depends upon financial contributions from dispersed donors; linked to the different social structure of the two groups (church ties for pro-life, absence of ties for pro-choice). Link to Social Science Library On-Line Reserves
  2. Edwards, B. and S. Marullo (1995). "Organizational Mortality in a Declining Social Movement: The Demise of Peace Movement Organizations in the End of the Cold War Era." American Sociological Review 60(6): 908-927. Factors affecting survival or demise. Stable URL
  3. Robnett, B. (1996). "African-American Women in the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1965: Gender, Leadership, and Micromobilization." American Journal of Sociology 101(6): 1661-1693. Stable URL
  4. McCarthy, John D.; Wolfson, Mark "Resource Mobilization by Local Social Movement Organizations: Agency, Strategy, and Organization in the Movement against Drinking and Driving" American Sociological Review; 1996, 61, 6, Dec, 1070-1088. Stable URL in JSTOR:
  5. Cress, Daniel M.; Snow, David A. "Mobilization at the Margins: Resources, Benefactors, and the Viability of Homeless Social Movement Organizations" American Sociological Review; 1996, 61, 6, Dec, 1089-1109. Stable URL
  6. Pamela Oliver and Mark Furman. 1989. "Contradictions Between National and Local Organizational Strength: The Case of the John Birch Society." International Social Movement Research 2: 155-177. Mobilizing action is local, mobilizing money is national. Different problems. Copy (will be highlighted when available)

 

Sociology 924: Social Movements Calendar Pamela Oliver

Last updated February 8, 2008 © University of Wisconsin.