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Conclusion: Affirmative Advocacy

in Affirmative Advocacy: Race, Class, and Gender in Interest Group Politics

This chapter presents a discussion of the “best practices” associated with high levels of activity on behalf of disadvantaged subgroups and uses these practices to make the case for the principle of ... More

This chapter presents a discussion of the “best practices” associated with high levels of activity on behalf of disadvantaged subgroups and uses these practices to make the case for the principle of affirmative advocacy. The small proportion of social and economic justice organizations within the overall interest group system and the biases within these organizations themselves powerfully show the tremendous hurdles and disadvantages faced by groups such as women, racial minorities, and low-income people in their quest for representation in national politics. Despite this, the data also reveal that advocacy organizations play a crucial role in combating a broader mobilization of bias in politics and public opinion. The rich potential of coalitions to represent intersectionally disadvantaged subgroups can be maximized. Affirmative advocacy can help maximize the strengths of advocacy organizations and the possibilities of civil society, engaging both of them in efforts to fulfill the promises of democratic representation.Less

Organizations Advocating for Youth

in Between Movement and Establishment: Organizations Advocating for Youth

Organizations advocating for youth share features of advocacy organizations generally, but they also face particular challenges as they work on behalf of youth. This chapter describes the ... More

Organizations advocating for youth share features of advocacy organizations generally, but they also face particular challenges as they work on behalf of youth. This chapter describes the opportunities and obstacles such organizations face as they strive to improve conditions for youth in urban areas. Advocacy organizations acting in the interests of youth play an especially vital role in America's urban centers. Because youth are nonvoters and must rely on others to speak on their behalf, advocacy organizations are critical representatives for them. This is the case when it comes to America's poorest youth, who have little representation or effective voice.Less

Tyranny of the Minority? Institutional Targets and Advocacy Strategies

in Affirmative Advocacy: Race, Class, and Gender in Interest Group Politics

This chapter explores the use of the courts by advocacy organizations and evaluates whether the political institutions that are targeted by these organizations vary by issue type. It then assesses ... More

This chapter explores the use of the courts by advocacy organizations and evaluates whether the political institutions that are targeted by these organizations vary by issue type. It then assesses the consequences of this variation for the resulting quality of representation afforded to intersectionally disadvantaged groups as well as for concerns about the use of the courts to bring about social change. Organizations representing weak and politically marginalized groups use a wide range of tactics to advocate on behalf of their constituents. Each branch of government presents advocacy organizations. Variations in organizations' institutional targeting are strongly linked to the relationship between the majoritarianism of each branch and the issue type under consideration. In general, the advocacy organizations representing marginalized groups do not rely heavily on the courts to advocate for social change or to protect minority rights.Less

Intersectionality and Representation

in Affirmative Advocacy: Race, Class, and Gender in Interest Group Politics

This chapter introduces the contemporary universe of organizations representing women, racial minorities, and low-income people in national politics. Organizations representing marginalized groups ... More

This chapter introduces the contemporary universe of organizations representing women, racial minorities, and low-income people in national politics. Organizations representing marginalized groups claim a distinctive mandate when it comes to advocating for their constituents in politics and policy making. Advocacy organizations help compensate for inadequate levels of formal political representation for marginalized groups in all of the aforementioned ways, and vary widely in how accountable they are to their constituencies. Evidence from the survey and interviews shows that organization officers feel a responsibility to speak on behalf of many subgroups within their constituencies and also recognize and embrace their roles as mediators in a variety of different and important ways. Advocacy organizations advance a conceptualization of representation that embodies the pursuit of social justice as a central goal.Less

Community Organizations: Three Cases

in Between Movement and Establishment: Organizations Advocating for Youth

This chapter looks at three focal organizations to examine in greater detail the dynamics of effective advocacy organizations and the role they play in improving support systems for urban youth. It ... More

This chapter looks at three focal organizations to examine in greater detail the dynamics of effective advocacy organizations and the role they play in improving support systems for urban youth. It considers the Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth in San Francisco, the San Francisco Organizing Project, and the Oakland Community Organizations in Oakland. The chapter provides a brief social and administrative history of the people, processes, and events that led to each organization's “character structure,” understood as a distinctive stance and value system, particular staffing patterns and modes of work, and arrangements with other community actors.Less

Youth Advocacy on the Ground

in Between Movement and Establishment: Organizations Advocating for Youth

This chapter examines the local level to underscore the distinctive niche that advocates for youth occupy there. It reviews the successes of the Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth, the San ... More

This chapter examines the local level to underscore the distinctive niche that advocates for youth occupy there. It reviews the successes of the Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth, the San Francisco Organizing Project, and the Oakland Community Organizations to emphasize how these organizations have effectively countered obstacles with rhetoric and strategies tailored to advance the concrete needs of local youth. Although the contextualized analysis necessarily highlights how these organizations managed the specific challenges they faced as politically, historically, and organizationally situated actors, their strategies have broader lessons by illuminating how advocates must align their reform goals and tactics with local norms and conditions.Less

Coalition and Collaboration among Advocacy Organizations

in Affirmative Advocacy: Race, Class, and Gender in Interest Group Politics

This chapter examines the coalitions among advocacy organizations, asking whether such alliances are an alternative vehicle for activity on issues affecting disadvantaged subgroups. Alliances with ... More

This chapter examines the coalitions among advocacy organizations, asking whether such alliances are an alternative vehicle for activity on issues affecting disadvantaged subgroups. Alliances with other organizations represent one of the most promising avenues for meaningful attention to and energetic advocacy on intersectional issues. Coalitions bring into sharper resolution interorganizationally the intraorganizational challenges of intersectionality. They capture and advance the moral as well as the numerical strengths of social justice work for organizations that advocate on behalf of marginalized populations. Advocacy organizations rely heavily on their credibility with and access to policy makers in order to effectively press their agendas. The evidence presented in the chapter reinforces the contention that coalition politics are about intersectional politics. Many organizations do exploit the opportunities presented by coalitions to more effectively advocate on behalf of intersectionally disadvantaged groups.Less

Introduction

in Affirmative Advocacy: Race, Class, and Gender in Interest Group Politics

This book investigates the conflicts and contradictions in the practices of advocacy organizations as they fight for social and economic justice in the new millennium, when waning legal exclusions ... More

This book investigates the conflicts and contradictions in the practices of advocacy organizations as they fight for social and economic justice in the new millennium, when waning legal exclusions coincide with heightened social, political, and economic inequalities within the populations they represent. It also systematically examines the issues and strategies of advocacy organizations that speak for marginalized populations in American politics. The book brings together normative political theory and empirical social science research methods to explore representation in American interest group and social movement politics. Advocacy organizations are much more active on policy issues affecting a majority of their constituents than they are on issues that affect subgroups within their constituencies. Finally, an overview of the chapters included in the book is given.Less

Closer to a Pluralist Heaven?

in Affirmative Advocacy: Race, Class, and Gender in Interest Group Politics

This chapter, which describes the role of advocacy organizations as representatives for marginalized groups, elaborates the policy typology and study design, and explores some of the limitations of ... More

This chapter, which describes the role of advocacy organizations as representatives for marginalized groups, elaborates the policy typology and study design, and explores some of the limitations of the data and analytic framework. Although not primarily concerned with representation for disadvantaged subgroups, evidence from other areas of scholarship about interest groups and social movements indicates a set of strategic reasons to be concerned that organizations will not be active when it comes to issues affecting disadvantaged subgroups. It is suspected that the single-axis interest groups that predominate at the national level are ill equipped to represent intersectionally marginalized subgroups of their constituents. The policy typology and, more broadly, the intersectional framework within which it is based implicitly resist essentialist notions which hold that the individuals falling into the categories share inevitable and naturally occurring common identities and interests.Less

The Work of Saving Babies’ Lives and Souls

Laury Oaks

in Giving Up Baby: Safe Haven Laws, Motherhood, and Reproductive Justice

This chapter examines how and why infant abandonment has led to individual, regional, and national initiatives to save babies' lives. It considers several narratives of social responsibility that are ... More

This chapter examines how and why infant abandonment has led to individual, regional, and national initiatives to save babies' lives. It considers several narratives of social responsibility that are embedded within infant abandonment prevention discourses and used by some activists in their campaign to urge women to safely relinquish unwanted newborns so that they could be placed in loving adoptive families, and why some activists gather together to honor dead abandoned infants and use the religious notion of saving their souls. It also discusses infant abandonment prevention in relation to antiabortion philosophies and aims, and the view that pregnant women who may unsafely abandon their babies represent a threat to individual infants as well as to the meaning of motherhood. Finally, it describes similarities in the language, strategies, and philosophies used by safe haven advocacy organizations and crisis pregnancy centers to reach individual pregnant women, including teenagers.Less

Evolution or Devolution: The Future of the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure

Cary Nelson

in No University Is an Island: Saving Academic Freedom

This concluding chapter provides an account of how the staff of the American Association of University Professors' (AAUP) Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure operates and provides suggestions ... More

This concluding chapter provides an account of how the staff of the American Association of University Professors' (AAUP) Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure operates and provides suggestions about how its departmental practices might be revised to better serve the profession. Its focus is on the culture of the office and of the department to help faculty members become better informed about how Committee A makes decisions and to initiate wide discussion of how that process might be updated and adapted to a changing world. The chapter draws from two incidents: the author's arrest at New York University as part of a demonstration on behalf of the university's graduate-student employees and the closure of Antioch College. These examples raise a more general concern about how the AAUP can balance its dual identities as both a quasi-judicial body and an advocacy organization.Less

Caring for Our Own

Sandra R. Levitsky

in Caring for Our Own: Why There is No Political Demand for New American Social Welfare Rights

This chapter explains why American families don’t translate their unmet social welfare needs into demands for social policy reform. First, existing social policies and services are a powerful source ... More

This chapter explains why American families don’t translate their unmet social welfare needs into demands for social policy reform. First, existing social policies and services are a powerful source of cultural models for state intervention. But many families lack access to these social services, and relative to other advanced democracies, the United States has very few social policies in place to offer material resources for families providing chronic care. Second, discursive integration—the process of integrating new models or political logics with existing values, beliefs, and practices—produces understandings of social welfare provision that typically reinforce traditional norms about family responsibility. And finally, to effectively communicate collective grievances, individuals need advocacy organizations to provide information about how and when and where to get involved. But individuals who experience unmet long-term care needs today often lack the necessary links to advocacy organizations to express their grievances as political demands.Less

What can patients and patient groups do to promote shared decision making?

Kristin L. Carman, Thomas A. Workman, and Marla L. Clayman

in Shared Decision Making in Health Care: Achieving evidence-based patient choice

At a time when patient and family engagement in health care is rapidly expanding, patients and patient advocacy groups have increasing opportunities to advance shared decision making (SDM). We ... More

At a time when patient and family engagement in health care is rapidly expanding, patients and patient advocacy groups have increasing opportunities to advance shared decision making (SDM). We suggest that patients and patient groups play a critical role in building capacity for SDM in two main ways. Firstly, patients and patient advocacy organizations can prepare patients and families for realizing their roles in the SDM process by utilizing patient and family networks to educate them about SDM. They can help patients become more informed for the trade-off process by clarifying key values and preferences related to specific conditions. Secondly, patients and patient advocacy organizations can serve as partners to health care organizations, researchers, and decision tool developers as they create SDM processes and tools that are patient-centered and likely to be adopted by patients and families. Integrating SDM into health care is necessary to achieve person-centered, high quality care.Less

Paul Rock and the Criminology of Law-Making: Contingency, Emotions, and a Defiance Theory of Victims’ Rights

Lawrence Sherman and Heather Strang

in The Eternal Recurrence of Crime and Control: Essays in Honour of Paul Rock

This chapter is concerned with Paul Rock's work on the criminology of law-making. It highlights the role of the organizational weapon of victim advocacy organizations, asking whether they are central ... More

This chapter is concerned with Paul Rock's work on the criminology of law-making. It highlights the role of the organizational weapon of victim advocacy organizations, asking whether they are central to the making of laws about victims and whether advocacy or lobbying groups are generally a necessary condition for law-making about crime. It also applies the specific emotional propositions of defiance theory to Rock's work, seeking indications and examples of falsification, modification, or confirmation.Less