ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a new synthetic theory of association political economy and describes the necessary elements of a scientific theory. Associations range from small hobby clubs without external connections to national “peak” business associations and labor unions that maintain complex webs of interaction with hundreds of constituent and authoritative organizations. A collective action organization’s political economy is not a unitary structure or process, but the intersection of several components, each operating according to its own set of social forces. The political economy theory of collective action organizations explains certain aspects of national mass membership associations in the late twentieth century United States. The theoretical propositions connect external environments and constituents to internal structures and members’ orientations toward the organizational economy and polity. The internal economy of a collective action organization is concerned with the acquisition and allocation of resources. An important function of the internal polity is stimulating member involvements in collective actions.
