McCarthy & Zald – Resource Mobilization Summary 1
Preliminary Exam Summary; Section: Social Change
By Eileen Bevis
CITATION:
McCarthy, John and Zald, Mayer. “Resource Mobilization and Social Movements: A Partial Theory.” AmericanJournal of Sociology, 1977. Vol. 82, no. 6, pp. 1212-1241.
Note: McCarthy and Zald hereafter referred to as M&Z.
ABSTRACT: (I figure the authors can do it better than I can…)
“This essay presents a set of concepts and related propositions drawn from a resource mobilization (as opposed to grievance) perspective. It emphasizes the variety and sources of resources; the relationship of social movements to the media, authorities, and other parties; and the interaction among movement organizations. Propositions are developed to explain social movement activity at several levels of inclusiveness—the social movement sector, the social movement industry, and social movement organization” (1212).
SUMMARY:
M&Z are contributing to the move in studies of social movements away from a focus on grievances and toward a focus on resource mobilization. This resource mobilization approach “deals in general terms with the dynamics and tactics of social movement growth, decline, and change,” especially emphasizing “both societal support and constraint” (1213).
M&Z make clear that they are presenting a partial theory “because it takes as given, as constants, certain components of a complete theory,” which include their unexamination of the impact of societal differences in development and political structure and in levels and types of mass communication (1213).
M&Z criticize the “Deprivation and Beliefs” school of social movements because recent empirical work has led them “to doubt the assumption of a close link between preexisting discontent and generalized beliefs in the rise of social movement phenomena” (1214). Because of this doubt, M&Z want to move from a strong assumption about the centrality of grievances to a weak one about the secondary importance of grievances. M&Z thus assume, along with Turner and Killian, that “there is always enough discontent in any society to supply the grass-roots support for a movement” (1215). By viewing grievances as secondary, M&Z thus have to look toward mobilization processes to complete their account of social movements.
M&Z see resource mobilization approaches as having to respond to Olson’s free rider dilemma, and thus as needing to address: (1) selection of incentives, (2) cost-reducing mechanisms or structures, and (3) career benefits (1216).
Resource mobilization approaches emphasize (1216):
(1)study of the aggregation of resources (money and labor)
(2)study of organizations, implicitly or explicitly, since resource aggregation requires some minimal form of organization
(3)study of oh-so-important involvement on the part of individuals and organizations from outside the social movement collectivity
(4)application of an admittedly crude supply and demand model to the flow of resources toward and away from specific social movements
(5)sensitivity to the importance of costs and rewards in explaining individual and organizational involvement in social movements (costs and rewards are centrally affected by societal structure and authority activities)
For a nice, concise compare/contrast of the grievance (“traditional”) and mobilization accounts of social movements as regards support base, strategy and tactics, and relation to larger society, please see pages 1216-17.
Some definitions and abbreviations:
Social Movement (SM): “a set of opinions and beliefs in a population which represents preferences for changing some elements of the social structure and/or reward distribution of a society” (1217-18); in short, “preference structures directed toward social change” (1218)
Countermovement: “a set of opinions and beliefs in a population opposed to a social movement” (1218)
Social Movement Organization (SMO): “a complex, or formal, organization which identifies its goals with the preferences of a social movement or a countermovement and attempts to implement these goals” (1218); represent and shape “broadly held preferences and diverse subpreferences of the social movement” (1218)
Social Movement Industry (SMI): the organizational analogue of a social movement (if that means something to you orgs folk), constituted by “all SMOs that have as their goal the attainment of the broadest preferences of a social movement” (1219). Regarding difficulty of grouping SMOs into SMIs, see 1220.
Social Movement Sector (SMS): “consists of all SMIs in a society no matter to which SM they are attached” (1220)
*Note that analytically separating these components (a) emphasizes that SMs are never fully mobilized, (b) focuses explicitly upon the organizational component of activity, (c) recognizes that SMs are typically represented by more than one SMO, and (d) allows for an account of the rise and falloff SMIs that is not wholly dependent on size of SM or strength of preferences within it (1219).
Target goals: a set of preferred changes toward which each SMO claims to be working (1220). *In order to work toward goal achievement, each SMO must possess resources, including legitimacy, money, facilities, and labor, which are controlled by individuals and other organizations (1220). Amount of activity directed toward goal accomplishment is crudely a function of the resources controlled by an organization (1221).
Adherents: individuals and organizations that believe in the goals of the SM (opposed to nonadherents) (1221).
Constituents: individuals and organizations providing resources for a SMO (1221)
Potential beneficiaries: those who would benefit directly from SMO goal accomplishment (not necessarily adherents, could be members of bystander public) (1221). A SMO may expand its target goals in order to enlarge its potential beneficiary group (1222).
Conscience adherents: individuals and groups who are part of the appropriate SM but do not stand to benefit directly from SMO goal accomplishment (1222).
Conscience constituents: direct supporters of a SMO who do not stand to benefit directly from SMO goal accomplishment (1222).
*Resource mobilization includes turning adherents into constituents and maintaining constituent involvement as well as turning nonadherents (including members of bystander publics who are potential beneficiaries) into adherents (1221-22). Other players (my term) include bystander publics, opponents, authorities, and delegated agents of social control (1221-22). Elite players are those who control larger resource pools (opposed to mass players)(1221-22). For lots more nuance about how players, resources, and SMOs interact, see pages 1221-1223.
For lots more nuance about how social structure, the SMS, SMIs, and SMOs interrelate, please see 1223-1236. M&Z’s hypotheses and assumptions follow; please go to text for evidence, qualifications, and clearer explanations.
Hypotheses re: resources, the SMS, and the growth of SMIs
1)“As the amount of discretionary resources of mass and elite publics increases, the absolute and relative amount of resources available to the SMS increases” (1224). SMS growth also affected by structural conduciveness, means of communication, transportation, political freedom, extent of repression by delegated agents of social control, and available technologies (1225).
2)“The greater the absolute amount of resources available to the SMS the greater the likelihood that new SMIs and SMOs will develop to compete for these resources” (1225).
3)“Regardless of the resources available to potential beneficiary adherents, the larger the amount of resources available to conscience adherents the more likely is the development of SMOs and SMIs that respond to preferences for change” (1225).
Assumptions re: organization structure and resource mobilization
1)SMOs operate much like any other organization and consequently, once formed, they operate as though organizational survival were the primary goal (1226)
2)Costs and benefits of involvement can account for individual participation in SMOs and that selective incentives are important since they tend to raise rewards for involvment (1226-27)
3)Constituent involvement can be subdivided. Individuals who are involved in the decision-making processes of the organization make up the cadre; those who get paid and devote full time to the SMO are professional cadre; those who don’t make central decisions but devote full time to the SMO are professional staff; those who give some time are workers; a transitory team is composed of workers for a specific task, short in duration, and is typically led by cadre members (1226).
Statements re: federated and isolated structure
1)“An SMO which desires to pursue its goals in more than a local environment may attempt to mobilize resources directly from adherents or to develop federated chapters in different local areas. Federation serves to organize constituents into small local units.” Other SMOs deal directly with constituents, usually through mails or traveling field staff; constituents participating in such a way are isolated. Federation occurs either through developing chapters out of isolated constituents or out of preexisting nonmovement local groups with heavy concentrations of adherents or isolated constituents. SMOs will combine elements of both organizational forms. (1228)
2)Hypothesis 4: “The more a SMO is dependent upon isolated constituents the less stable will be the flow of resources to the SMO” (1228). SMOs (and SMIs) compete against one another for resources of isolated adherents (1229). “Treating SMO target goals as products, then, and adherence as demand, we can apply a simple economic model to this competitive process. Demand may be elastic, and its elasticity is likely to be heavily dependent upon SMO advertising. Products may be substitutable across SMIs” (1229).
3)Hypothesis 4a: “The more dependent a SMO is upon isolated constituents the greater the share of its resources which will be allocated to advertising” (1230).
4)Hypothesis 4b (results from Hypotheses 1, 2 and 4a): “The more a SMO depends upon isolated constituents to maintain a resource flow the more its shifts in resource flow resemble the patterns of consumer expenditures for expendable and marginal goods” (1230).
5)Hypothesis 5: “A SMO which attempts to link both conscience and beneficiary constituents to the organization through federated chapter structures, and hence solitary incentives, is likely to have high levels of tension and conflict” (1231).
6)Hypothesis 6: “Older, established SMOs are more likely than newer SMOs to persist throughout the cycle of SMI growth and decline” (1233).
7)Hypothesis 7: “The more competitive a SMI (a function of the number and size of the existing SMOs) the more likely it is that new SMOs will offer narrow goals and strategies” (1234).
8)Hypothesis 8: “The larger the income flow to a SMO the more likely that cadre and staff are professional and the larger are these groups” (1234).
9)Hypothesis 9: “The larger the SMS and the larger the specific SMIs the more likely it is that SM careers will develop” (1235). “An SM career is a sequence of professional staff and cadre positions held by adherents in a number of SMOs and/or supportive institutions” (1235).
10) Hypothesis 10: “The more a SMO is funded by isolated constituents the more likely that beneficiary constituent workers are recruited for strategic purposes rather than for organizational work” (1235).
11) Hypothesis 11: “The more a SMO is made up of workers with discretionary time at their disposal the more readily it can develop transitory teams” (1236).
M&Z’s resource mobilization model thus “emphasizes the interaction between resource availability, the preexisting organization of preference structures, and entrepreneurial attempts to meet preference demand” (1236).
RELEVANCE: (Again, authors can do it better than I…)
“Past analysis of social movements and social movement organizations has normally assumed a close link between the frustrations or grievances of a collectivity of actors and the growth and decline of movement activity. Questioning the theoretical centrality of this assumption directs social movement analysis away from its heavy emphasis upon the social psychology of social movement participants; it can then be more easily integrated with structural theories of social process” (1212).
M&Z present a schematic version of resource mobilization theory vis-a-vis social movements [Note: not social change], though M&Z are by no means the originators of this theoretical approach (think Tilly, 10 years earlier, instead). I’m still unclear on whether we should take this article as archetypal of the pure resource mobilization perspective, whether it’s missing important parts (it is “partial”), or whether it lies somewhere slightly different on the Grievance Uber-McAdam continuum.