Inverted Mobilizations: Pro- and Anti-Immigrant Activism in Orange County

• In Event: 40420 - Section on Political Sociology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 15: The Politics of Immigration 2

Abstract

Based on your request, here's a 300-word abstract for the academic paper "Inverted Mobilizations: Pro- and Anti-Immigrant Activism in Orange County":

# Abstract

This study examines the puzzling dynamics of anti- and pro-immigrant rights mobilizations in Orange County, California from 2010-2018. Anti-immigrant activists achieved superior policy outcomes despite having fewer organizational resources than their pro-immigrant counterparts and a seemingly more difficult political environment. . We develop the concept of "movement inversion" to explain how seemingly disadvantaged movements can offset resource asymmetries through strategic political alliances. Drawing on newspaper archives, IRS reports, and city council meeting data, we analyze the financial resources, mobilization capabilities, and policy outcomes of opposing movements. Our findings reveal that while pro-immigrant organizations possessed greater financial resources, organizational infrastructure, and public legitimacy, anti-immigrant forces secured stronger support from elected officials across federal, county, and municipal levels. This support proved decisive in policy battles, as officials deployed their institutional resources to compensate for the anti-immigrant side's organizational weaknesses. We attribute this pattern to the asymmetric structures of America's political parties: Republican officials in increasingly diverse jurisdictions strongly supported anti-immigrant policies to secure primary victories in an ideologically homogeneous party, while Democratic officials hesitated to support substantive pro-immigrant policies that might alienate moderate voters in their ideologically diverse coalition. The case of Orange County demonstrates that resource advantages alone do not determine policy outcomes in movement-countermovement dynamics; political context and party structures significantly shape how officials calculate their involvement with social movements. Our findings contribute to theories on social movement resources, political mediation, and asymmetric polarization by revealing how partisan dynamics can place opposing movements onto self-reinforcing pathways of resource and political advantage inversion.

Authors

• Walter Julio Nicholls, University of California, Irvine

• Marieke de Wilde, University of Amsterdam