ABSTRACT
Traditional measures of interest group influence frequently fail to capture the impact social movements have on legislation. During the 1960s and 1970s, many of the legislative breakthroughs in Congress occurred in areas of intense concern to politically active social movements. The environmental, consumer, civil rights, and women's movements, as well as other movements of the period, publicized and pressed for major changes in existing public policies and succeeded in transforming the national political agenda as a result. In general Americans now have cleaner air and water, greater social equality, and more laws protecting consumers, but it remains unclear how these interests achieved such sweeping victories. The apparent degree of influence exercised by social movements is particularly surprising in light of traditional interest group theory. Because resource mobilization theory arid conventional measures of interest group effectiveness are largely complementary in identifying which variables are most important in determining the legislative access of social movements, it is possible to test them together.
