Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Social movements have long been an important basis of political participation in democracies and have achieved major political, social, and cultural changes. Although the influence of social movements depends largely on their ability to recruit members, it is by no means obvious why people choose to participate in them. This question has been termed “the free-rider problem.” As Mancur Olson's (1965) analysis indicates, people have limited time and energy and must choose to spend these resources in ways that most benefit themselves. Individuals join social movements because they believe that the movement's goals, if implemented, would yield significant benefits to themselves and/or to the attainment of values they cherish. Although these benefits motivate participation, there is an additional problem. If a movement has few participants, people desiring these benefits might believe that the movement could not succeed unless they joined the movement. Thus, joining the movement might represent a rational investment of their time, energy, and, often, money. However, if a movement already has a large number of participants, then it is unlikely that one more person's joining the movement would increase its chances of success. In that case, why would additional people join? If the movement is successful, they, along with the participants, would enjoy the fruits of this success; they would ... log in or subscribe to read full text