Mobilization and Participation: Social-Psychological Expansisons of Resource Mobilization Theory

TLDR

Resource mobilization theorists have largely abandoned social‑psychological analysis, yet participation is still viewed as a function of perceived costs and benefits. This paper argues for integrating social psychology with resource mobilization theory to overcome weaknesses of traditional social‑psychological approaches to social movements. The authors apply expectancy‑value theory, expanded to include expectations about others, to labor‑movement mobilization campaigns and test it in a longitudinal study of 1979 Dutch collective negotiations. The study finds that collective and selective incentives explain participation, outcomes support the theory, and it offers theoretical and practical implications.

Abstract

Resource mobilization theorists have nearly abandoned social-psychological analysis of social movements. In this paper a fresh case is made for social psychology. New insights in psychology are combined with resource mobilization theory in an attempt to overcome the weaknesses of traditional social-psychological approaches to social movements. Expectancy-value theory is applied to movement participation and mobilization. It is assumed that the willingness to participate in a social movement is a function of the perceived costs and benefits of participation. Collective and selective incentives are discussed. Expectations about the behavior of others are introduced as an important expansion of expectancy-value theory to make this framework applicable to movement participation. The theory is applied to mobilization campaigns of the labor movement, and empirically tested in a longitudinal study of a campaign during the 1979 collective negotiations in the Netherlands. Outcomes support the theory. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.