Publication Date

2009

Abstract

This paper is a series of case studies of social movement organizations within the AIDS Awareness Movement of the 1980s. By examining ACT UP, the Names Project, and Gay Men's Health Crisis, we see that resource mobilization theory can help explain varying levels of success among SMOs that worked in the same context and within the same subculture. Internal organization, networking, innovation and the use of violence are all strategies which are found to be insignificant in explaining the success of each SMO. This paper shows the predictive ability of resource mobilization theory. It closes with suggestions for future work, including a new measure of success of SMOs.

Disciplines

Political Science

Share

COinS