Administrative Activists: The Role of State Actors in Organizational Change

Abstract

An important barrier to organizational change is that, even when social movements influence the state to change policies, these new policies are often implemented in ways that do not facilitate the achievement of movement goals. In this twenty- month field study of organizational change in education systems in five states within the United States, we observed social movement actors in all of the states influence policy in line with movement goals. However, two states accomplished greater organizational change among schools involved in the education initiative than did the other four states. We demonstrate that administrative activists– state administrators who work in partnership with social movement actors and use administrative practices to specify and direct action within ambiguous implementation regimes– are critical to the change process. These findings have implications for social movement theorists’ understanding of organizational change.