Exploring Multi-Issue Activism

Abstract

Multi-issue activists are sorely understudied, despite their acknowledged importance as bridges between social movements and issue domains. In this article we explore multi-issue activism, beginning with a large sample of AIDS activists and charting the degree and nature of overlapping issue involvement, the key role of “initiator” issues, and individual characteristics that promote multi-issue activism. We demonstrate that the great majority of these AIDS activists had sizable prior and ongoing participation histories in other issues, suggesting that movement across issue areas may be the norm rather than the exception. We also show that involvement in specific past issues served as gateways to later involvement in AIDS, that psychological engagement in politics prompted cross-issue activism even among these already activated individuals, and that unique personal characteristics (in this case gender and sexual orientation) led to more issue interconnectedness.