ORGANIZATIONS AND MOVEMENTS [chapter]

Doug McAdam, W. Richard Scott, Gerald F. Davis, Doug McAdam, W. Richard Scott, Mayer N. Zald
Social Movements and Organization Theory  
This version should not be cited or quoted without permission of the authors. 5 which tensions between value commitments and survival concerns shaped the development of an organization (e.g., Zald and Denton, 1963) . SM scholars reframed the view of protest and reform activities from one of irrational behavior-a flailing out against an unjust universe-to one involving instrumental action. Rather than stressing common grievances, SM theorists focussed attention on mechanisms of mobilization and
more » ... pportunities to seek redress. While sharing broad similarities, two somewhat divergent approaches gradually emerged. Zald and colleagues, in crafting their resource mobilization perspective, privileged organizational structures and processes (Zald and McCarthy 1987) . Drawing on developments in OS, these theorists stressed that movements, if they are to be sustained for any length of time, require some form of organization: leadership, administrative structure, incentives for participation, and a means for acquiring resources and support. Embracing an open systems perspective, the importance of the organization's relation to its environment-social, economic, political-was underscored. Following the early lead of Michels (1949 trans.), analysts were sensitive to the contradictory and complex relation between organizing and bureaucratizing processes and retaining ideological commitments . More so than in mainstream OS, this work stressed the central role of power and politics, both within the organization and in its relation to the environment (Gamson 1975; Zald and Berger 1978) . A complementary political process perspective was pursued by Tilly and his associates. Though probably best known for its stress on shifting "political opportunities," (and constraints), this "external" focus on the political environment was always joined with an "internal" analysis of the "critical role of various grassroots settings-work and neighborhood, in particular-in facilitating and structuring collective action" (McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996, p. 4). In many situations, the seedbed of 6 collective action is to be found in preexisting social arrangements that provide social capital critical to the success of early mobilizing processes when warmed by the sunlight of environmental opportunities that allow members to exploit their capital (Tilly 1978; Tilly, Tilly, and Tilly 1975) . Organizational Studies Foundational work by Simon (1945) and March and Simon (1958) provided important building blocks in identifying the structures and processes that undergird "rational" decision-making, supporting the systematic collective pursuit of specified goals. The differences between organizations and other, "nonrational" collectivities was stressed. This seminal micro administrative behavior approach was soon joined by a number of more macro perspectives emphasizing the relation of the organization to its environment. An early and still widely employed modern, macro perspective on organizations, contingency theory, emerged in the mid-1960s as a guide for research on the adaptation of organizations to their environments (Lawrence and Lorsch 1967; Thompson 1967) . Organizations that were better able to match their structural features to the distinctive demands of their environments were expected to be more successful. Contingency theory continued to focus on those organizational features and processes that were thought to be most distinctive to organizations, allowing them to serve as rationally-constructed collective instruments for goal attainment. Within a decade, however, a number of alternative theoretical perspectives were developed-we focus on developments at the macro level-that shifted attention to less rational, more "natural" political and cultural conceptions of organizations. The organizational ecology perspective, applied primarily at the population level of analysis, resembled contingency theory in its focus on the material-resource environment. However, emphasis shifted to organizational survival, rather than efficiency or
doi:10.1017/cbo9780511791000.003 fatcat:j7hq26gdpvgirgfwsiigcpxuva