Growth and Decay of Organizational Fields: Gun Control and Gun Rights Organizations from 1945 to 2012

• In Event: 277 - Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 08. Movement Organizations and Fields

Abstract

While the political opportunity literature predicts symmetry in movement-countermovement pairs, this assertion requires empirical examination. We analyze the expansion and contraction of the gun control and gun rights organizational sectors with original data collected on 56 organizations and four major national newspaper from 1945 to 2012. We find that gun control and gun rights organizations are both founded in response to political openings created by critical events. Both sectors grew in the year or two following high-profile shootings, the introduction of new gun legislation, and major legislative gains or losses, as well as in response to growth in the opposing movement sector. However, important asymmetries exist in the number, stability, composition, and visibility of organizations on each side of the gun debate. Gun rights organizations survive longer after the openings created by the critical events close. As a result, the gun rights sector has become larger, more stable, and more diverse than the gun control sector. Additionally, while visibility in the gun control sector has always been both shared and temporary, the NRA always and completely dominants visibility in the gun rights sector. These asymmetries point to serious shortcomings in the existing literature for understanding movement-countermovement dynamics.

Authors

• Eulalie Jean Laschever, University of California-Irvine

• David S. Meyer, University of California-Irvine