Manipulating Membership: Supply-Side Influences on Group Size

British Journal of Political Science

Volumn 28, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 389-409

  Jordan, Grant ^a   Maloney, William A ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0032393868     PISSN: 00071234     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (86)

1. M. Olson, The Logic of Collective Action, 2nd edn (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971, first published 1965), p. 126.
2. R. K. Godwin and R. C. Mitchell, 'Rational Models, Collective Goods and Non-Electoral Political Behaviour', Western Political Quarterly, 35 (1982), 161-92, p. 162. Supporters of Olson might argue that the model is valid because it accounts for those who do not join (the overwhelming number). But it may be that they do not join for reasons other than those asserted by Olson.
3. A. O. Hirschman, Shifting Involvements: Private Interest and Public Action (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1982), p. 78.
4. K-D. Opp, 'Soft Incentives and Collective Action', British Journal of Political Science 16, (1986), 87-112. There is a methodological problem that almost anything can be regarded as a soft incentive and hence the approach become nonfalsifiable. In effect if membership exists then 'soft incentives' are assumed as existing as the 'explanation'.
5. Lars Udehn, The Limits of Public Choice (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 280, assembles a remarkably thorough discussion of the problem of collective action. He argues that the notion that the group theory interpretation depended on self-interest is based on a misreading of the main texts.
6. Here we use the notions of membership and supportership as interchangeable. In other discussions these terms need to be disentangled.
7. D. Marsh, 'On Joining Interest Groups: An Empirical Consideration of the Works of Mancur Olson', British Journal of Political Science, 6 (1976), 257-71, p. 270.
8. It has been persuasively pointed out to us by an anonymous reviewer that this point is a confirmation of Olson's approach: groups have deliberately designed themselves that way.
9. This point made by an anonymous referee. We are grateful for this and other remarks.
10. P. Dunleavy, Democracy, Bureaucracy and Public Choice (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991), pp. 54-5.
11. P. A. Mundo, Interest Groups: Cases and Characteristics (Chicago: Nelson Hall, 1992), p. 18.
12. J. M. Berry, The Interest Group Society (Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman/Little, Brown, 1984), p. 56.
13. P. E. Johnson, 'How Environmental Groups Recruit Members: Does the Logic Still Hold Up?' (paper delivered to the American Political Science Association, Chicago, 1995), p. 15.
14. M. T. Hayes, 'The New Group Universe', in A. J. Cigler and B. A. Loomis, eds, Interest Group Politics, 2nd edn (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1986), pp. 133-45, at p. 134.
15. C. J. Bosso, 'The Color of Money: Environmental Groups and the Pathologies of Fund Raising', in A. J. Cigler and B. A. Loomis, eds, Interest Group Politics, 4th edn (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1995), p. 106.
16. R. Koopmans, 'New Social Movements and Changes in Political Participation in Western Europe', West European Politics, 19 (1996), 28-50, p. 35.
17. The characteristics of protest businesses include: supporters rather than members are important as a source of income; policy is made centrally and supporters can influence policy primarily by their potential for exit; political action is normally by the professional staff rather than the individual supporter or member; supporters are unknown to each other and do not interact; groups actively shape perceptions of problems by providing supporters with partial information; supporters are interested in narrow issue areas. Particularity rather than ideological breadth is the agency of recruitment (see G. Jordan and W. A. Maloney, The Protest Business? Mobilizing Campaign Groups (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997)).
18. H. Toch, The Social Psychology of Social Movements (London: Methuen, 1965), p. 16 (emphasis added).
19. R. R. Roha, 'Giving Back', Changing Times (November 1990).
20. Johnson, 'How Environmental Groups Recruit Members', p. 19.
21. Johnson, 'How Environmental Groups Recruit Members', p. 28.
22. Berry, The Interest Group Society, p. 82.
23. D. Imig, 'Advocacy by Proxy: The Children's Lobby in American Politics' (paper prepared for the panel on 'Interest Representation, Issue Networks, and Policymaking in the US', the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, New York, 1994), p. 19.
24. See R. Christie, G. Oliver and J. Penn, 'Relationship Marketing in Organizational Markets: When is it Appropriate', Journal of Marketing Management, 12 (1996), pp. 175-87.
25. S. Cohen, Denial and Acknowledgement: The Impact of Information About Human Rights Violations (Jerusalem: University of Jerusalem, 1995).
26. Cohen, Denial and Acknowledgement, p. 121.
27. Toch, The Social Psychology of Social Movements, p. 87.
28. R. K. Godwin, One Billion Dollars of Influence (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1988), p. 54.
29. R. K. Godwin, 'Money, Technology, and Political Interests: The Direct Marketing of Politics', in M. Petracca, ed., The Politics of Interests (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1992), pp. 308-25, at p. 314.
30. Berry, The Interest Group Society, p. 83.
31. Cohen, Denial and Acknowledgement, p. 170.
32. Bosso, 'The Color of Money', p. 117.
33. Dunleavy, Democracy, Bureaucracy and Public Choice.
34. The membership profiles reported in this article are derived from postal surveys of the Amnesty International British Section (AIBS) and FoE conducted in 1993 (funded by an ESRC grant, R 000 23 3025). Amnesty and FoE were selected for three main reasons: first, public interest groups attracting large-scale membership (more than 100,000) challenge the Olson assumption about the importance of material selective incentives in accounting for membership; secondly, involvement in such groups is itself a form of democratic participation; and, thirdly, both are seen as relevant policy participants in the policy-making process. We surveyed 500 AIBS members, and 1,000 FoE supporters. The surveys were carried out between March and July 1993; the analysed response rates were: AIBS = 72.4 per cent (n = 362) and FoE = 68.1 per cent (n = 681).
35. Cohen, Denial and Acknowledgement, p. 200.
36. Our data showed that 17 per cent of Amnesty members are members of FoE, 13 per cent of FoE members are Amnesty members, and 32 per cent of FoE members and 34 per cent of Amnesty members are members of Greenpeace.
37. R. C. Mitchell, 'National Environmental Lobbies and the Apparent Illogic of Collective Action', in C. Russell, ed., Collective Decision-Making (Baltimore, Md: John Hopkins University Press, 1979).
38. D. Wring, 'The Political Marketing Mix: A Framework for Election Campaign Analysis' (paper presented at the International Conference on Political Marketing, Judge Institute for Management Studies, University of Cambridge, 1996).
39. Cohen, Denial and Acknowledgement, p. 119.
40. Some groups who cannot afford the high costs of advertising have recruited support from 'high-profile' individuals who are able to attract attention to the group cause (Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) recruited Joanna Lumley). Joyce D'Silva, Director of CIWF, said that their campaign against the exportation of calves from Britain in 1994 'really began a year ago with Joanna Lumley crying at a press conference when we showed a film of calves in veal crates ... The photographers kept clicking away and the pictures appeared everywhere ... membership soared' (Daily Telegraph, 19 January 1995, emphasis added).
41. Spiegel Special, November 1995. We are grateful to Dr Klaus Schubert for drawing our attention to the parallels between our argument and the current debate in Germany.
42. Cohen, Denial and Acknowledgement.
43. Johnson, 'How Environmental Groups Recruit Members', p. 15.
44. R. Hardin, 'Comments', in C. Russell, ed., Collective Decision-Making (Baltimore, Md: John Hopkins University Press, 1979), pp. 122-9.
45. R. H. Salisbury, 'An Exchange Theory of Interest Groups', Midwest Journal of Political Science, 13 (1969), 1-32.
46. Dunleavy, Democracy, Bureaucracy and Public Choice, p. 249.
47. H. Margolis, Selfishness, Altruism and Rationality (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 103.
48. Cohen, Denial and Acknowledgement. See also R. Inglehart, The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles among Western Publics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977);
49. Cohen, Denial and Acknowledgement. See also R. Inglehart, The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles among Western Publics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977);
50. and A. H. Maslow. 'A Theory of Human Motivation', in J. M. Shafritz and A. C. Hyde, eds, Classics of Public Administration, 3rd edn (Pacific Grove, Calif.: Brooks/Cole), pp. 129-37.
51. Hirschman, Shifting Involvements, pp. 85-6.
52. Hirschman, Shifting Involvements, pp. 86-7.
53. Koopmans, 'New Social Movements and Changes in Political Participation in Western Europe', p. 37.
54. L. S. Rothenberg, Linking Citizens to Government (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
55. D. Lowery and V. Gray, 'The Population Ecology of Gucci Gulch, or the Natural Regulation of Interest Group Numbers in the American States', American Journal of Political Science, 39 (1995), 1-29, p. 9.
56. R. Kimber, 'Collective Action and the Fallacy of the Liberal Fallacy', World Politics, 33 (1981), 178-96, p. 193.
57. M. A. Crenson, 'The Private Stake in Public Goods: Overcoming the Illogic of Collective Action', Policy Sciences, 20 (1987), 259-76, p. 265.
58. Mitchell, 'National Environmental Lobbies and the Apparent Illogic of Collective Action', p. 120.
59. Mitchell, 'National Environmental Lobbies and the Apparent Illogic of Collective Action', p. 121.
60. Bosso, 'The Color of Money', p. 114.
61. Spiegel Special, November 1995.
62. Dunleavy, Democracy, Bureaucracy and Public Choice, p. 62.
63. See G. Marwell and R. E. Ames, 'Economists Free-ride, Does Anyone Else?' Journal of Public Economics, 15 (1981), 295-310.
64. Cohen, Denial and Acknowledgement, p. 124.
65. For example, a Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) official we interviewed claimed that the group was previously subsidising its membership via its income from other sources.
66. J. L. Walker, Mobilizing Interest Groups in America (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991), p. 33.
67. Walker, Mobilizing Interest Groups in America, p. 48.
68. Walker, Mobilizing Interest Groups in America, p. 49.
69. Imig, 'Advocacy by Proxy', p. 14.
70. R. Garner, Animals, Politics and Morality (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993), cited in W. P. Grant, Pressure Groups, Politics and Democracy in Britain, 2nd edn (Hemel Hempstead, Herts: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1995), p. 32.
71. R. Garner, Animals, Politics and Morality (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993), cited in W. P. Grant, Pressure Groups, Politics and Democracy in Britain, 2nd edn (Hemel Hempstead, Herts: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1995), p. 32.
72. In fact, not only is patronage important/crucial for group maintenance, it is also very important in the early stages of group formation. According to A. J. Nownes and G. Neeley, 'Public Interest Group Entrepreneurship and Theories of Group Mobilization', Political Research Quarterly, 49 (1996), 119-46, patronage allows many public interest groups not to 'overcome the "free-rider" problem as much as by-pass it' (p. 124).
73. Hirschman, Shifting Involvements, p. 75.
74. This discussion is based on pp. 82-91 of Shifting Involvements.
75. Hirschman, Shifting Involvements, p. 75.
76. Cohen, Denial and Acknowledgement, p. 177.
77. Cited in Bosso, 'The Color of Money', p. 114.
78. Godwin, One Billion Dollars of Influence, p. 66. Indeed, even though Godwin's direct-marketing recruits thought a group was successful (this may be explained by their reliance on group leaders for information), their membership was still likely to be less permanent. Godwin, pp. 65-6, observed these patterns may have serious implications for citizen action groups dependent on direct marketing for members and income. These groups may suffer substantially greater losses than social network associations when an issue loses its position in the political limelight.
79. Young single women's rejoining rate is particularly low in the first year.
80. Cohen, Denial and Acknowledgement, p. 235.
81. Rothenberg, Linking Citizens to Government, p. 22.
82. See also Dunleavy, Democracy, Bureaucracy and Public Choice, p. 54.
83. Rothenberg, Linking Citizens to Government.
84. This is why groups encourage members to pay their annual subscription via direct debit. This method of payment removes the membership renewal decision from an individual's immediate agenda.
85. Bosso, 'The Color of Money'.
86. Godwin, One Billion Dollars of Influence.