Social Movement Organizations Beyond The Beltway: Understanding The Diversity Of One Social Movement Industry

Abstract

This article utilizes a unique data set on a nationally representative sample of one social movement industry (groups working for peace) operating in the U.S. during the late 1980s. The data include the full spectrum of SMOs, which we divide into organizational domains that roughly parallel prior research and currently available secondary data sources: (1) numerous, but generally quite small groups that operate without tax-exempt status; (2) small, non-national, tax-exempt groups; (3) large, non-national, tax-exempt groups; (4) national organizations that have been the focus of most research in the field. First, the population parameters of the peace movement industry is estimated and groups typical of each domain profiled. We then undertake a series of analyses to examine how the groups in each of these four domains differ from each other on a variety of organizational attributes, including organizational form, co-sponsoring events, tactics and activities, membership type, participation in formal democracy, organizational governance, and issues. We pay particular attention to how the groups without a tax exemption and the non-national groups differ from the national SMOs, which have been the subject of so much prior research. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for understanding social movement organizations.