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Bending or Breaking? Change and Stability among Leftist Social Movement Organizations

Sun, August 17, 12:30 to 1:30pm, TBA

Abstract

Social movement scholarship has long projected an image of social movement organizations (SMOs) as highly adaptable vehicles ably responding to changing environments. Though SMOs unquestionably change, how common change is has been largely overlooked in the literature. Organizational theories (e.g., structural inertia theory), as well as some empirical evidence of SMO change, suggest that organizations in fact display more stability than change. Studies of organizational change point to obstacles and opportunities, both internal to organizations and externally in their environments, that inhibit or promote organizational change. This study takes up these two questions: (1) How common is change among SMOs? (2) What shapes an SMO’s ability to change? The analysis draws evidence from a study of forty left-wing SMOs active in Seattle, Washington between 1999 and 2005. It examines their changing issues, tactics, and targets across an eventful period of expanding and contracting political opportunities. The results support an insight from structural inertia theory that organizations more readily change those aspects that are peripheral to their resource mobilization function. Specifically, SMOs in Seattle are more than twice as likely to change their targets and tactics than their issues. Issues lie at the core of an SMO’s identity and ability to mobilize support. The analysis also shows that these organizations are more likely to adapt if they have experience with change, are older, and have broad goals. Changes in the political context have the unexpected effect of discouraging SMO change as political opportunities contract.

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