Event Coalitions in the Pittsburgh G20 Protests

Protests at events such as the 2009 Group of Twenty (G20) Summit in Pittsburgh frequently require activists to engage in some type of coalition work. This article examines two event coalitions created to organize the Pittsburgh G20 protests: the Pittsburgh G20 Resistance Project (PGRP), consisting of local anti‐authoritarians, and a loose alliance of individuals and organizations brought together by the Thomas Merton Center (TMC), a local peace and justice movement center. I show how the organizational structure and early decisions of the PGRP made it more effective than the TMC alliance and how those choices were affected by preexisting network structures, social movement organizations, ideological alignments, and relationships in the local movement community. The experiences of activists in event coalitions, both positive and negative, then affect the shape of the movement community and subsequent coalitions and campaigns.     

Walk the Walk but Don't Talk the Talk: The Strategic Use of Color‐Blind Ideology in an Interracial Social Movement Organization

In this study, I examine the strategies interracial organizations use in the twenty‐first century, where color‐blind ideology dominates. Much theoretical work on racism examines how it has evolved during different historical periods, but this work does not address how these changing forms of racism affect social movement organizations, particularly those on the left. While the literature on color‐blind ideology has examined how it is expressed by African Americans and European Americans separately, my work investigates how color‐blind ideology operates when European Americans and people of color are working together in the same organizational setting. Studies of social movements have examined how organizational culture affects strategies but have neglected how external racist culture and color‐blind ideology impacts organizational strategies. Findings from 3 years of ethnographic data collected on an interracial social movement organization and its corresponding coalition suggest that activists in interracial organizations use racism evasiveness strategically to maintain solidarity. I conceptualize racism evasiveness as the action resulting from color‐blind ideology within a larger system of racism. While activists perceive advantages to these strategies, there are also long‐term negative consequences. Without explicitly naming and addressing racism, progressive organizations may be limited in their ability to challenge systemic racism.     

Community Economic Development Strategies in Rural Washington: Toward a Synthesis of Natural and Social Capital*

Abstract Routes to economic development attract considerable attention in community and rural sociology. Social scientists draw increasingly on studies of social capital and environmental surroundings as they examine the factors that facilitate and inhibit economic development. However, few empirical analyses exist that analyze the impact of the combination of social infrastructure and natural capital on different forms of economic development such as on industrial recruitment and self‐development. Using data collected from six communities in Washington State, the interaction of a community's social infrastructure and natural capital on industrial recruitment and self‐development efforts is examined. Results suggest that while natural capital positively impacts a community's successful recruitment of outside industries, it is not significant for a community's level of self‐development. However, a community's social infrastructure, measured by the existence of active civic organizations, local businesses that support local community projects, community‐wide fund‐raising capacity, and extra‐local linkages to nearby communities, state, and national agencies, positively affects both industrial recruitment and self‐development. These findings illustrate the need for communities and local activists to carefully weigh their advantages and potential shortcomings when deciding on an economic development strategy.     

Collaborations with faith‐based social service coalitions

Based on the first national survey of faith‐based social service coalitions in the United States, this article presents data on the degree to which these nonprofit organizations collaborate with other specific organizational types, as well as the range and intensity of these collaborations. In general, faith‐based coalitions tend to collaborate most frequently with other faith‐based agencies, a pattern especially characteristic of the more religiously expressive ones. However, collaboration with non‐faith‐based organizations is also quite common. Based on seven organizational characteristics, we are able to predict which faith‐based coalitions are most likely to collaborate with different types of organizations: coalitions that have more explicitly religious policies and practices with reference to clients and staffs are less likely to participate in intense collaborations with some types of secular organizations, and consistently less likely to do so with all types of governmental agencies.     

Surviving Mechanisms and Strategies of Gender Equality NGOs in Romania and Poland

What survival strategies, mechanisms and tactics do gender rights activists in Romania and Poland use, in an environment of changing foreign aid? In order to tackle these aspects, the first part of the article analyses the issue of foreign aid and civil society sector in the two countries. In the second part, the analysis focuses on organizational mechanisms and procedures aimed at replacing resources when donors withdraw aid. The last part discusses unintentional positive and negative effects of scarce financial resources on the local and national level and aid reduction from international donors. The article shows that regardless of financial aspects, activists struggle to keep organizations alive, while adopting similar strategies in different cultural and political contexts.     

WWW.FAITH.ORG (Re)structuring communication and the social capital of religious organizations

This paper examines the relationships between Internet and social capital building within religious organizations, which are relatively understudied foci. Building upon theoretical insights provided by new institutionalism and recent research on the Internet, social capital and religion, this article explores the ways in which religious organizations have (re)structured their norms, values, and practices of religious community in light of the incorporation of the Internet into their congregational life. Drawing from interviews conducted with Christian and Buddhist religious leaders in Toronto, this article discusses three major relationships in which the effects of the Internet on social capital may be understood, that is, complementary, transformative, and perverse relationships. Religious organizations are traditionally associated with relatively high stocks of social capital, yet findings here suggest that their communicative norms, values, and practices are changing to a varying extent. The results also indicate that the relationship between the Internet and social capital building is largely complementary; however, the Internet is perceived by some to be a 'mixed blessing', facilitating the potential transformation of organizational practices that affect community norms while leading to the dispersion of religious ties that could undermine community solidarity. Thus, contrary to earlier studies that have documented no evidence of innovations involving the reconfiguration of organizational practices and the adjustment of mission or services, findings here illustrate how some religious organizations have expanded the scope of their calling and restructured their communicative practices to spur administrative and operational effectiveness. Like other organizations, religious organizations are not insulated from technological changes including those associated with the Internet. This study clarifies and identifies key ways in which the distinct spirituality, cultural values, and institutional practices and norms of religious organizations influence communication processes that constitute bridging and bonding forms of social capital in this dot.org era of faith.     

Community Activism in the USA: Catholic Hospital Mergers and Reproductive Access

This article analyzes how grassroots organizing diminishes the potential loss of reproductive services in communities affected by Catholic hospital mergers. The empirical contribution of this study is to highlight changing patterns of pro-choice social movement mobilization and approaches to conflict resolution in the reproductive rights arena. To discover how Catholic hospital mergers threaten access to reproductive services, five case studies based in diverse regional and demographic areas throughout the USA are developed. From the case studies, we analyze which organizational factors most strongly influence the preservation of services. Among the variables which may affect outcomes are: characteristics of the acquiring institution, the type of coalition created to terminate the merger, the failure of pro-life activists to counter-mobilize, incentives for compromise on both sides, and regulatory intervention by government or state action. The study concludes that this new phase of the abortion struggle represents renewed vigor among local pro-choice activists and demonstrates that grassroots coalitions who oppose the curtailment of services often preserve reproductive healthcare options in their communities by creating alliances with professionals and other coalition partners.     

Resilience for gender inclusion: Developing a model for women in male-dominated occupations

What is resilience in the context of work environments where women face barriers as significant as career discrimination and harassment? In such a context, is resilience an individual responsibility? How can organizations contribute to and support employee resilience? And where is gender in this equation? This conceptual paper explores these questions using aviation, the skilled trades (i.e., carpentry, welding, plumbing) and the military as case studies to understand how gender inclusion could be better supported by resilient organizations. The barriers for women in male-dominated industries include social exclusion, marginalization, discrimination, harassment, and other forms of social closure. How these barriers can be overcome is not well understood. We argue that individual resilience plays a part in women thriving and developing enduring careers but can only occur in combination with support from gender inclusion strategies and organizational resilience. We have developed the Resilience for Gender Inclusion (RGI) model combining gender inclusion strategies with organizational resilience strategies. The RGI model demonstrates how employee and organizational resilience intersect and may lead to the transformative potential of inclusive cultures of diversity. This will improve employee wellbeing and self-efficacy and create a much needed sense of belonging and social inclusion for women in male-dominated occupations.     

COALITION FORM AND MOBILIZATION EFFECTIVENESS IN LOCAL SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Little has been written on the form that coalitions take in social movements. Three months of fieldwork by a five-person team documented the population of social movement events (SMEs) across seven movements in a Southwestern city. We investigated the process and form that led to these events at the interorganizational level. Three different coalition forms, as well as single social movement organizations (SMOs) acting alone, organized the SMEs. The network invocation form a single SMO making strategic and framing decisions while encouraging other SMOs in its network to mobilize participants was significantly more effective than other forms at mobilizing attendance at events.     

Sticks, bricks, and social capital: the challenge of community development corporations in the American Deep South

Community development corporations (CDCs) have emerged as majorplayers in community development. Scholars have conducted casestudies of CDCs and compared CDCs with each other, but theyhave not evaluated outcome measures in similar CDC and non-CDCneighbourhoods. I compare two measures of neighbourhood revitalization,construction (sticks and bricks) and social capital, in CDCand non-CDC Atlanta, Georgia, neighbourhoods. The findings indicatethat the presence of a CDC has a positive and significant effecton construction, but activists in CDC neighbourhoods do notperceive higher levels of social capital than do activists incomparable non-CDC neighbourhoods. Based on examples from Atlanta,I highlight ways to overcome the tensions between physical developmentand community building and discuss my findings for future CDCdevelopment.     

Opportunity,Context, and Action: Understanding the Divergent Strategies of Two Mexican Social Movement Coalitions in a Time of Tremendous Change

Evidence suggests collective action success is aided by organizations working in conjunction. Recent scholarship has refocused attention on what factors foster or impede coalition work. This article builds on the literature to show how the context in which coalitions emerge and act may be multiple and contradictory. Using data from extended field research, we examine two Mexican NGO coalitions to analyze how the intersection of national and local opportunity structures influenced their emergence and strategic action. We find that the impact of such influences may be contradictory. Democratization posed both threats and opportunities for the coalitions, providing impetus for their emergence, but limiting strategic choices as co-optation and neoliberalism undermined the opportunities created by democratization. We argue that the coalition members' interpretation of the local political context explains the divergent paths the two coalitions took over time.     

Contingent Hybridity: The Cultural Politics of Tepoztl‡n's Anti-Golf Movement

In order to maintain some level of local control over both ideological and material resources, local social activists construct hybrid cultures that reflect their simultaneous insertion into local, national, and global cultural discourses. Theirs is a contingent hybridity in that it reflects the specificities of their experience as well as the conscious attempts to resist the homogenizing tendencies of global discourses while not isolating themselves from those discourses. This article analyzes the conflict in the town of Tepoztl?n, Morelos, Mexico, over the construction of a golf course and the ensuing movement against the project. While emphasizing local practices and making use of local communicative networks, movement leaders were also quite adept at moving between the cultural realities of Tepoztl?n and their own experiences outside of the town in order to forge alliances with transnational organizations. As a result, many Tepoztecos now make use of such labels as "environmentalist," but do so within the embedded social and cultural structures of their community.     

“There Ain’t No Bond in Town Like There Used to Be”: The Destruction of Social Capital in the West Virginia Coalfields1

There is a paucity of research focusing on the circumstances that cause or contribute to a decline in social capital within communities. Furthermore, relatively few researchers employ qualitative methods in their studies of social capital, despite the multidimensional and many‐layered nature of this concept, characteristics that make social capital well suited for qualitative analysis. To address these two gaps in social capital research, I explore the mechanisms that have led to a depletion of social capital in the southern coal‐producing region of West Virginia. I examine whether the coal industry, which has caused bitter conflicts among residents over environmental degradation and union loyalties, has also undermined social capital in the region. My principal data include 40 semi‐structured, face‐to‐face interviews with randomly selected individuals in a coal‐mining town and a demographically similar non‐coal‐mining town in West Virginia. I analyze the experiences of residents in each town, assessing the qualitative differences in community and personal life associated with social capital. I find that the loss of social capital in the coal‐mining community has arisen through a combination of depopulation and the community‐wide conflict that arose when an anti‐union coal company bought out the union coal mine at which many in the community worked, challenging the union identity so engrained in this region.     

Southern African social movements at the 2007 Nairobi World Social Forum

How relevant is the anti‐globalization movement to the ideas and activities of social movements seeking to achieve economic justice and greater democratic accountability in southern Africa? Case study research in four southern African countries (Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi and Swaziland) indicates that, while aspects of the anti‐globalization approach resonate with civil society and social movement actors (for example, an emphasis on mass participation and the internationalization of campaigning), the global social justice movement frequently displays the characteristics of globalization. These include: unaccountable decision‐making; profound (yet largely unacknowledged) inequality of access to resources; and an imposed and uniform organizational form that fails to consider local conditions. The World Social Forum (WSF) held in Nairobi in January 2007 provided many southern African social movement actors with their first opportunity to participate in the global manifestation of the anti‐globalization movement. The authors interviewed social movement activists across southern Africa before and during the Nairobi WSF about their experiences of the anti‐globalization movement and the Social Forum. An assessment of the effectiveness of this participation leads to the conclusion that the WSF is severely limited in its capacity to provide an effective forum for these actors to express their grievances and aspirations. However, hosting national social forums, their precise form adapted to reflect widely varied conditions in southern African states that are affected by globalization in diverse ways, appears to provide an important new form of mobilization that draws on particular elements of anti‐globalization praxis.     

ENTREPRENEURIAL SOCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE AND LOCALLY INITIATED ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN THE NONMETROPOLITAN UNITED STATES

A community embeddedness perspective hypothesizes that nonmetropolitan localities high on entrepreneurial social infrastructure (ESI) are more successful at implementing economic development projects than those lacking ESI. ESI is a format for converting social capital into organizational forms that facilitate collective action. Logistic regression revealed that localities with projects were more likely to have an unbiased newspaper, multiple contributions by financial institutions to community projects, and more external linkages, Project communities place more emphasis on citizen involvement through civic organizations than through local government. Community-based patterns of interactions and organization are associated with successful collective economic development action.     

Is Sex Work Sex or Work? Forming Collective Identity in Bangalore

While sex worker activism grows increasingly vibrant around the world, the forms and practices of sex work vary widely, and are often secret. How do sex workers come to see themselves as sex worker activists? What tensions emerge in the formation of collective identity within sex worker activist organizations, especially when the term “sex work” has often traveled linked to transnational organizations and funding? To answer these questions, this article analyzes in-depth interviews and participant observation on sex worker activism in Bangalore, India. Focusing on an organization I call the Union, I argue that it was first within the “shop floor” of transnationally funded HIV prevention organizations, and then within the activist work of the Union, that sex workers came to identify collectively as activists at a large scale. However, distinct configurations of practice among gendered groups of sex workers in Bangalore meant each group related differently to the formation of a sex worker activist collective identity. Two aspects of sex workers’ practice emerged as particularly central: varying experiences of sex work as “sex” or as “work,” and varying levels of anonymity and visibility in public spaces. Organizing through transnationally funded HIV prevention programs helped solidify these categories of differentiation even as it provided opportunities to develop shared self-hood.     

The elements of social capital in the context of six high schools

Purpose: The study described in this paper is part of a larger research project entitled, “Social Capital and Its Effects on the Academic Development of Adolescents At Risk of Educational Failure.” We drew the data for this study from in-depth case studies of six United States public and private secondary schools. We selected the schools based on two criteria: (1) they enrolled substantial proportions of students who would be considered to be at risk of educational failure due to their academic status, social background, or geographical location; and (2) they had qualities that led us to believe that the probability of finding school-based forms of social capital would be high. In selecting schools, we sought variation among settings, selecting case-study sites that allowed us to learn about how schools create and sustain social capital supportive of the academic development of students, particularly students characterized as at risk of failure.Background: In the first part of the larger research project, we used quantitative methods and a large, nationally representative sample of U.S. secondary schools and students. In that study, we documented the existence of a relationship between school-based social capital and such student outcomes as positive academic behaviors, achievement growth over the secondary years, and the probability of dropping out of high school. We operationalized the construct of social capital with two measures of the quality of students’ relationships with their teachers—the extent to which students saw their teachers as supportive and whether students sought guidance from their teachers outside of class. We believed, however, that school-based forms of social capital are more varied and complex than this. Moreover, we thought that it was important to examine in greater detail how social capital itself varies with the organizational and structural characteristics of high schools. Therefore, we embarked on a second phase of our study in which we relied on qualitative methods: specifically, the in-depth investigation of a small set of high schools thought to have social capital but exhibiting important variation on organizational and structural characteristics. Within these schools, we used field-based methods to examine social capital and students’ access to it.Methods: In general, we asked, “What does social capital look like in the six high schools that we studied?” “Do the quality or characteristic of social capital depend on a school’s student body composition, its programs and policies, or the ideologies and traditions that underlie its operation?” “If so, how do these factors influence the quality of school-based social capital that students have access to in a school?” “Are characteristics or elements of social capital especially prevalent or dominant in certain types of schools?” “Which types of schools, given our case-study sites?” “What do the results of these investigations tell us about the nature of social capital—its creation, maintenance, and usefulness to students and teachers in high schools?”Results: Our analyses of interview data and field notes suggest that school-based forms of social capital may be viewed from six different perspectives. These perspectives, which we refer to as elements of social capital in our paper, are:

• 1. Volition and perceived interest in membership. What are the opportunities that individuals have, both in terms of choices between schools and choice of programs within schools, to affiliate with others based on their interests? These choices may strengthen social capital within groups but weaken social capital between groups that comprise a school and its adjacent community.
• 2. Location and integration of social capital across social relationship networks. Where is social capital located in a school? Although we see the primary location for social capital to be between students and teachers, other networks of relationships also influence the extent to which students can gain access to social capital through teachers (e.g., teacher-to-teacher relationships or teacher-to-parent relationships). Integration across these relationships facilitates the formation of new relationships, trust building, and flows of information.
• 3. Impetus for social capital. What are the reasons that people seek to form supportive, collaborative relationships within schools? Such reasons may be individual or organizational, we argue. Nonetheless, social capital is most powerful when the impetus for its creation and maintenance coincide—that is, when organizational factors reinforce personal inclinations, perceived interest, and a sense of community.
• 4. Formation and stock of social capital. How much effort is required to create social capital? Social capital may occur naturally, as in small, rural schools, or it may require substantial effort and purposeful actions, as in large, urban schools. Natural forms of social capital may have negative consequences if they restrict exchanges with external groups to an extent that academic development is curtailed. Purposeful forms may also have negative consequences, if too much effort is required to create and sustain social capital, drawing deeply on already scarce resources.
• 5. Focus and quality of social capital. How is social capital used in a school? Social capital may be used for many different purposes, not all of which promote academic development. Social capital may be used to primarily promote social goals or ends, or even to undermine students’ development and a school’s academic mission. Differences in interest between school members diminish the focus of social capital, weaken its utility for academic purposes, and can create conflicts over its use and function.
• 6. Norms and social control. Do school norms and sanctions promote positive expectations and interactions between members of a school? Behavioral expectations and official actions are an important element of school-based forms of social capital. Over reliance on sanctions can undermine trust, just as does failure to sanction significant violation of rules. The consequences, norms, and sanctions for social capital depends on how much socialization is required to comply with norms, the perceived fairness of norms and sanctions, and the costs and benefits associated with compliance.
• 7. Conclusion: Using these conceptual lenses, we examine how social capital takes shape and is used in six different high schools. We provide examples of how each of the above six elements helps to understand the quality of interactions between students and teachers, as well as the educational environment in which students’ academic development takes place. In concluding the paper, we argue that social capital is a complex yet useful construct for examining the operation of high schools and the academic development of the students who attend them. Moreover, our examination of six high schools suggests that there can be too much social capital in schools and that social capital is most difficult to nurture in places that need it most. Using our field data, we give examples and provide further explanation for why this is so.

%Rather than provide an in-depth treatment of each element, we have instead attempted to lay the groundwork for deeper study and conceptual development of the notion of social capital in this paper. Each of the elements deserves more careful scrutiny, we believe, especially if we are to weave together in a meaningful fashion the conceptual threads that make social capital such an appealing construct. This initial study reveals some of the richness and complexity of social capital as a construct, as well as the utility of examining it through the six conceptual lenses that we use in this paper.     

“Organizing Creativity: Enabling Creative Output,Process, and Organizing Practices”

How individuals can exercise creativity in collectivities is unclear. We thus need to more thoroughly investigate the ‘black box’ of organizational creativity. Future research should consider creativity in a variety of organizations, rather than just those that are known for creative outputs or practices. In addition, we need to examine what I call everyday, relational, and proto‐institutional forms of organizational creativity. Intra‐ and inter‐organizational aspects can enhance or depress such organizational creativity: (1) within the organization’s boundary: internal interactions among organizational members and (2) outside the organization’s boundary: the surrounding organizational environment or field, which include competing or supporting organizations, other organizational actors, and the state. These two aspects pose dilemmas about how to organize that can constrain or enhance organizational creativity. In addressing these dilemmas, organizations must mediate between under‐ and over‐organizing extremes. Organizations can enable creativity by incorporating changing interests and conditions. Organizations can eschew convention, increase rank‐and‐file involvement with corresponding authority, tolerate ambiguity and deviance, encourage improvisation, and support members’ diverse experiences and perspectives.     

Social movement coalitions: Formation,longevity, and success

Social movements rely on coalitions to help mobilize the mass numbers of people necessary for success. In this article, we review the literature on social movement coalition formation, longevity, and success. We identify five factors critical to coalition formation: (a) social ties; (b) conducive organizational structures; (c) ideology, culture, and identity; (d) the institutional environment; and (e) resources. Next, we explore the extent to which coalition survival is influenced by these same factors and argue that emergent properties of the coalition, such as commitment and trust, also facilitate longevity. Our review of the literature reveals that two factors specific to coalitions influence their success: coalition form and the nature of institutional targets. Interaction, communication technology, and the availability of physical and virtual spaces that facilitate communication are themes that run throughout our discussion, as they undergird many of the elements that shape coalition formation and survival. We conclude by evaluating the state of the research area and suggesting directions for further research.     

The Community Action Framework in Practice: An Illustration Based on the Ready by 21 Coalition of Austin/Travis County

The field of positive youth development has expanded focus from articulating and measuring desired manifestations of positive well-being to assembling the environmental conditions known to promote these desired outcomes. Evidence of the effectiveness of community-level efforts promoting positive youth development is still emerging, in particular theory-driven examples of community-driven youth development. This study examined the Community Action Framework, one theory-based community youth development model, through the experiences of the Ready by 21 Austin/Travis County coalition (RB21). The coalition connects youth-serving organizations and also regional coalitions, while promoting the positive development of area youth. Participant observation, interviewing, and archival strategies were integrated to capture information related to the complex and dynamic coalition. Results indicated that RB21 represents a practical and meaningful application of the Community Action Framework. Specific examples and recommendations are provided as guidance for other community level youth development efforts.