Search Results

The New Generation of Political Advocacy Groups

David Karpf

in The MoveOn Effect: The Unexpected Transformation of American Political Advocacy

Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the book’s central argument. It uses the February 2011 labor protests in Wisconsin to examine the role that internet-mediated advocacy groups play in American ... More

Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the book’s central argument. It uses the February 2011 labor protests in Wisconsin to examine the role that internet-mediated advocacy groups play in American politics today. It also discusses the prevailing scholarship on internet politics, arguing that it has fallen into two categories—“organizing without organizations/theory 2.0,” which examines new forms of online participation, and “political normalization,” which highlights the resilience of elite political institutions. The chapter also challenges existing arguments regarding “clicktivism” and suggests that researchers have overlooked the “organizational layer” of politics. Sustained, large-scale collective action such as the Wisconsin protests is mediated through a new generation of advocacy groups that have a substantial impact on the practice of politics. The largest effect of the internet on politics is felt not through organizing without organizations, but through organizing with different organizations. The chapter also introduces core terminology, explains the method of analysis, and provides an overview of the book.Less

The MoveOn Effect: Disruptive Innovation in the Interest Group Ecology of American Politics

David Karpf

in The MoveOn Effect: The Unexpected Transformation of American Political Advocacy

Chapter 2 places the new generation of internet-mediated organizations into historical context, emphasizing the substantive importance of the new communications technologies. Building upon the works ... More

Chapter 2 places the new generation of internet-mediated organizations into historical context, emphasizing the substantive importance of the new communications technologies. Building upon the works of Skocpol (2003), Bimber (2003), Bosso (2005), Berry (1999), and others, the chapter draws parallels between the well-studied “interest group explosion” of the 1970s and the rise of “netroots” political associations today. Both are predicated on changes to the technological environment, enabling changes in membership and fundraising regimes. Shifts in these regimes facilitate opportunities for a new set of political actors to experiment with novel structures for collective action. This transition can be properly understood as a “disruptive innovation,” in which longstanding organizations are displaced as the “market” for political mobilization is fundamentally redefined (Christensen 1997). After introducing the historical analogue, the chapter provides a detailed analysis of MoveOn.org, highlighting the innovations in staff structure, membership, fundraising, and strategy that have made it such an important force in American politics today. The chapter concludes by discussing the disruptive fundraising challenges that the MoveOn Effect poses for legacy advocacy groups. Drawing upon data from the Membership Communications Project dataset and new research by the Monitor Institute, it highlights the generational differences in online fundraising between new groups and old.Less

Political Blogs as Political Associations

David Karpf

in The MoveOn Effect: The Unexpected Transformation of American Political Advocacy

Not all netroots advocacy groups mimic MoveOn’s organizational structure. Chapter 3 turns attention to a set of large-scale community blogs that function as political associations. Previous blog ... More

Not all netroots advocacy groups mimic MoveOn’s organizational structure. Chapter 3 turns attention to a set of large-scale community blogs that function as political associations. Previous blog researchers have chiefly treated bloggers as a single population of “citizen journalists” seeking to transform the media system (Davis 2009, Perlmutter 2008, Pole 2009) or as a new set of political elites, demographically similar to their predecessors (Hindman 2009). This chapter focuses attention on the activity and operation of DailyKos.com to argue that these online advocates are using blogging to act as online organizers rather than online journalists. Using data from the Blogosphere Authority Index (Karpf 2008a, 2008b), this chapter explores the role that community blogs play in the overall ecology of netroots advocacy groups. It also confronts several longstanding mistakes made by blog researchers. Community blogs are the most-hybridized of all the new advocacy organizations, so much so that they are completely ignored by interest group scholars. The chapter emphasizes the participatory volunteer structure built into the DailyKos software platform and also points to key differences in progressive and conservative use of political blogs.Less

Cultural Challenges for Mainline Protestant Political Progressives

Paul Lichterman and Rhys H. Williams

in Religion and Progressive Activism: New Stories About Faith and Politics

Paul Lichterman and Rhys H. Williams’s chapter focuses on theologically liberal Mainline Protestants, who have historically been at the forefront of many progressive religious actions. First, the ... More

Paul Lichterman and Rhys H. Williams’s chapter focuses on theologically liberal Mainline Protestants, who have historically been at the forefront of many progressive religious actions. First, the chapter outlines some of the distinctive cultural challenges Mainliners face when they try to bring a specifically religious voice to progressive political advocacy. It then shows how Mainline Protestant identity and communication style, as well as the larger reputation of vocal conservative Christianity in public, all create cultural gaps that politically progressive Protestants must confront and engage.Less

Action Effects of OCI on Migration and Development

Daniel Naujoks

in Migration, Citizenship, and Development: Diasporic Membership Policies and Overseas Indians in the United States

For the assessment of the effect of a diasporic membership status like Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) has on India’s development, this chapter explores what its consequences are on ... More

For the assessment of the effect of a diasporic membership status like Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) has on India’s development, this chapter explores what its consequences are on development-related behavior and interaction. It assesses the effects of OCI on the ability of overseas Indians and their decision to indulge in development-related activities, as well as the permissibility of such activities, the consequences of the four principal effects discussed in the previous chapters are broken down to concrete actions and transactions. Distinguishing six different groups of individuals that are affected by the principal effects, this chapter elaborates upon several concrete mechanisms concerning the effects of OCI on developmental activities with regard to remittances, investment, political advocacy, diasporic philanthropy, return and re-migration. It concludes with a preliminary exploration of the possibilities of incorporating these findings into a more general framework to assess the development effects of diasporic membership statuses that applies to other diasporic communities.Less

The Conceptual Framework of Migration and Development

Daniel Naujoks

in Migration, Citizenship, and Development: Diasporic Membership Policies and Overseas Indians in the United States

This chapter contains a conceptual framework of migration and development. It elaborates upon the meanings, concepts, and metrics of development, India’s development needs, as well as the diasporic ... More

This chapter contains a conceptual framework of migration and development. It elaborates upon the meanings, concepts, and metrics of development, India’s development needs, as well as the diasporic activities that may affect developmental categories in India. It reflects on the major stages in the migration cycle, emigration, interactions between the migrants and the homeland during the migrants’ stay abroad—so-called diaspora options—return migration, and lastly, re-migration. It also considers and examines a wide range of direct, intermediary, and indirect effects of the Indian diaspora on the social and economic development of India—investment, remittances, trade, philanthropy and social change, the transmission of knowledge and skills, national branding, and political advocacy. The chapter discerns migration-related contributions to major drivers of economic and human development, such as investment, consumption, trade, as well as innovation and entrepreneurship, on the one hand, and disposable income, institutions and facilities and social patterns, on the other.Less

Religious Freedom and the New Evangelical Foreign Policy Lobby

Lauren Frances Turek

in To Bring the Good News to All Nations: Evangelical Influence on Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Relations

This chapter explores how evangelical internationalism developed into a focused vision for U.S. foreign relations that provided the foundation for political advocacy on a wide range of global issues ... More

This chapter explores how evangelical internationalism developed into a focused vision for U.S. foreign relations that provided the foundation for political advocacy on a wide range of global issues by the late 1970s and early 1980s. It argues that a powerful evangelical foreign policy emerged in response to growing anxieties about developments in international relations. It also explains how evangelicals drew on their connections with coreligionists abroad and combined their spiritual beliefs with human rights language in order to build support among policymakers for the cause of international religious liberty. The chapter reflects the layered and multimodal nature of evangelical internationalist development and of the foreign policy challenges that evangelical activists confronted. It also reveals how evangelical leaders, missionaries, and interest groups drew on their political power and the international evangelical network to shape international relations and national policies in the United States, the Soviet Union, Guatemala, and South Africa.Less

Obama Mamas and mixed race: hoping for “a more perfect union”

Wei Ming Dariotis and Grace J. Yoo

in Obama and the Biracial Factor: The Battle for a New American Majority

An examination of the role of race in the voting patterns of mothers seeking better outcomes for their children's future during the 2008 U.S. presidential election.

“To Serve and Bless”: Julia Stephen, Isabel Somerset, and Late-Victorian Women’s Politics

Mary Jean Corbett

in Behind the Times: Virginia Woolf in Late-Victorian Contexts

This chapter reviews epigraphs taken from letters written about a year apart that provide evidence for Virginia Stephen's first foray into political advocacy. It looks at Stephen's short-lived ... More

This chapter reviews epigraphs taken from letters written about a year apart that provide evidence for Virginia Stephen's first foray into political advocacy. It looks at Stephen's short-lived involvement with the People's Suffrage Federation (PSF), which was inaugurated sometime in 1909 and housed at 34 Mecklenburgh Square. It also refers to Virginia Woolf's stance that supports Hermione Lee's claim that she was ambivalent all her life about women philanthropists. The chapter talks about Clara Jones who argues that Woolf remained ambivalent about the value of her own political and social action throughout her career. It demonstrates how Woolf intensified her hostility to what she perceived as the politics of philanthropy among her late-Victorian foremothers.Less

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook and the Mystification of Maimonidean Rationalism

James A. Diamond

in Reinventing Maimonides in Contemporary Jewish Thought

This chapter points out how modern Jewish thinkers looked back and engaged a foundational Jewish canon of scriptural and rabbinic texts when they staked out their own novel ground and advanced Jewish ... More

This chapter points out how modern Jewish thinkers looked back and engaged a foundational Jewish canon of scriptural and rabbinic texts when they staked out their own novel ground and advanced Jewish thought in the twentieth century. It mentions the intellectual and jurisprudential legacy of Maimonides as a major part of the development of Jewish law and thought. It also focuses on Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook, who embodies modern Jewish authenticity in the twentieth century. The chapter discusses Jewish intellectual, literary, and activist currents that intersected Rabbi Kook. It explores Rabbi Kook's passionate spiritual and political advocacy of Zionism, and his rabbinic leadership of pre-state Jaffa. It describes how Rabbi Kook was constantly driven by an irrepressible urge to disclose his most intimate reflections, no matter what the consequences might be.Less

To “Really Do a Little Good”: A Redemptive Conclusion

Ian Kumekawa

in The First Serious Optimist: A. C. Pigou and the Birth of Welfare Economics

This chapter describes the circumstances of Pigou's retirement. Despite all the vitriol Pigou spewed during the late 1940s and 1950s, he was hardly as despairing or as resentful as he had been over ... More

This chapter describes the circumstances of Pigou's retirement. Despite all the vitriol Pigou spewed during the late 1940s and 1950s, he was hardly as despairing or as resentful as he had been over the preceding one and a half decades. Certainly, his softening toward the public and his general change in outlook were naturally concordant with a late-blooming acceptance of his waning position in academic economics. It was not that Pigou retired completely from academic circles. He continued to contribute to organs like The Economic Journal and Economica, and between 1947 and 1954, he published twelve journal articles, several of which were quite technical. But he also began to explore new topics and relaxed his standards on political advocacy in economics journals as he was doing in his submissions to the popular press.Less

The Bishops Speak

Stephen J. Fichter, Thomas P. Gaunt, Catherine Hoegeman, and Paul M. Perl

in Catholic Bishops in the United States: Church Leadership in the Third Millennium

This chapter discusses Catholic bishops speaking out on issues of the day. Catholic Church teaching and tradition yields “conservative” positions on issues such as abortion and physician-assisted ... More

This chapter discusses Catholic bishops speaking out on issues of the day. Catholic Church teaching and tradition yields “conservative” positions on issues such as abortion and physician-assisted suicide and “liberal” positions on issues such as immigration, capital punishment, and assistance to the poor. Survey data finds that bishops tend to write more frequently about the Church’s pro-life teachings than its “liberal” social teachings. Most bishops say they ask Catholics to consider Catholic teachings when voting for candidates. Most bishops agree that the clergy sexual abuse scandal has made it more difficult for them to present or defend Catholic teaching in their diocese. This is especially the case in dioceses where the scandal has received more media coverage. In general, bishops say that criticism in the media is a greater problem for them in more secularized areas of the country.Less