Income Rights, Mothers' Rights, or Workers' Rights? Collective Action Frames, Organizational Ideologies, and the American Welfare Rights Movement

Abstract

Previous research highlights how social movement organizations (SMOs) strategically construct collective action frames in light of their political and cultural environments in order to maximize community support. We argue that activists' organizational ideologies, in interaction with their political and cultural environments, shape their framing processes. SMOs form collective action frames that are consistent with their organization's core norms, values, and beliefs. SMOs are more or less instrumental in their framing decisions, depending on the qualities of their organizational ideology, a characteristic which helps to determine organizational success and survival. We use this perspective to explain the framing choices of three kinds of welfare rights groups and their consequences.