ABSTRACT
Emerging in reaction to traditional psychological explanations of a social movement, the new resource mobilization theory shifted the focus in the analysis of social movements. Antony Oberschall’s sociological theory of mobilization contrasted the solidarity thesis with the disintegration thesis of mass society theory. This chapter evaluates the literature on union participation in order to develop a union participation model that accounts for the effect of union members’ multiple organizational involvement while considering other union correlates. Applying the interinstitutional competition theory of organizational sociology, multiple organizational involvements will place competing demands on members’ limited resources, thus decreasing the amount of resources individuals can allocate to union participation. Integration into the work group will serve as a micro-mobilization context for promoting movement participation. A movement with a strong ideology would require fewer selective incentives to motivate collective action than would a movement with a weak ideology. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
