Social Problems 58(3)

Social Problems, August 2011: Volume 58, Issue 3

Ecological Threat and the Founding of U.S. National Environmental Movement Organizations, 1962–1998
Erik W. Johnson, Scott Frickel

This study examines the role of "ecological threat" in shaping the U.S. environmental movement. Statistical analysis combines founding data on 772 national environmental movement organizations with ecological data on air pollution levels and amphibian and bird populations. We examine these data longitudinally, from 1962 through 1998. Net of other social, economic, and political factors suggested by social movement theory, we find evidence of segmented effects in the expected directions: Declines in wildlife populations are associated with the foundings of wildlife and wilderness protection organizations while increases in air pollution are associated with the foundings of organizations focused on ecosystem well-being and public health. These findings help refine long-held assumptions about the relationship between ecological degradation and environmental activism, and demonstrate the broader utility of the threat concept for strengthening theories of social movement mobilization.

The Founding of Environmental Justice Organizations Across U.S. Counties during the 1990s and 2000s: Civil Rights and Environmental Cross-Movement Effects
Paul B. Stretesky, Sheila Huss, Michael J. Lynch, Sammy Zahran, Bob Childs

This research expands upon organizational ecology theory to examine variations in founding of organizations in the formalized sector of the environmental justice movement across U.S. counties for two time periods (1990–1999 and 2000–2008). Cross-movement effects are examined to determine if founding is more or less likely to occur in counties where related civil rights and environmental organizations are located. Consistent with the notion of agglomeration effects, we hypothesize that during the 1990s the relationship among civil rights density, environmental density, and environmental justice founding is positive and suggests cooperative efforts. That is, environmental justice organizations should form in counties where civil rights organizations and environmental organizations exist. Because the focus of environmental justice organizations may have expanded over time and created a more competitive atmosphere, cross-movement relationships that were positive across counties during the 1990s are hypothesized to turn negative across counties during the 2000s. Multivariate analysis suggests mixed support for these hypotheses. Specifically, civil rights density is positively associated with environmental justice founding during the 1990s and negatively associated with environmental justice founding during the 2000s—suggesting potential cooperative and then competitive effects across counties over time. However, the correlations between environmental density and environmental justice founding, while positive and statistically significant during the 1990s, are not statistically significant during the 2000s. Thus, in the case of organizations in the formalized sector of the environmental and environmental justice movements it appears that there is a trend toward competitive effects even as those effects have yet to materialize.

From the Lesbian Ghetto to Ambient Community: The Perceived Costs and Benefits of Integration for Community
Japonica Brown-Saracino

Drawing on an ethnography of queer women in Ithaca, New York, this article documents the perceived costs and benefits for a minority group's ties of changing attitudes, identities, and legislation. It reveals that despite the high proportion of queer women in Ithaca most informants report disappointment with "community." However, this disappointment does not correlate with a dearth of affective local ties; queer women detail a wealth of supportive ties to heterosexual and queer neighbors. Informants' simultaneous disappointment with "community" and rich local ties emerge from: (1) a shift from identity politics and networks to emphasis on shared cultural, social, and political tastes and activities; (2) the breadth of the queer female population; and (3) queer women's successful integration into Ithaca's social, cultural, and political spheres. From informants' perspectives these conditions weaken "real" community, which they associate with homogenous place-based networks of marginalized individuals, and promote a strong sense of ambient community: feelings of belonging and connection that arise from informal, voluntary, and affective ties—largely fashioned around shared tastes and activities and predicated on a sense of safety and acceptance—forged among heterogeneous proximate individuals. Contra the prevailing expectation that place-based ties best flourish among marginalized individuals who share a dominant identity and formal institutions, the article demonstrates that when social and cultural conditions change local ties change, too—they do not simply disappear. Social and cultural shifts alter the foundation of local ties and informants' assessment thereof.

No Room for New Families? A Field Experiment Measuring Rental Discrimination against Same-Sex Couples and Single Parents
Nathanael Lauster, Adam Easterbrook

We suggest that new forms of family households, especially same-sex couples and single parents, are likely to face discrimination in their interactions with rental markets. Following the contact hypothesis, we hypothesize that the geographic distribution of discrimination is likely to vary. Specifically, in places with more new family households we are likely to find less discrimination against these households. We investigate these issues in the metropolitan area of Vancouver, Canada, through analysis of 1,669 inquiries made about one- and two-bedroom apartments. Using a field experimental design similar to audit studies, we analyze landlord responses to five different two-person household scenarios, including one heterosexual couple, two same-sex couples, and two single parents. Evidence suggests that male same-sex couples, single mothers, and single fathers all face significant discrimination relative to heterosexual couples. The contact hypothesis was supported for male same-sex couples, but not for single parents. This could indicate that single parents are facing discrimination primarily based upon their economic marginalization rather than other forms of prejudice.

Violent Crime, Mobility Decisions, and Neighborhood Racial/Ethnic Transition
John R. Hipp

Numerous studies have observed a positive cross-sectional relationship between the size of racial/ethnic minority groups and crime and posited that this relationship is entirely due to a causal effect of minorities on crime rates. We posit that at least some of this relationship might be due to the opposite effect: neighborhood crime increases the number of racial/ethnic minorities. This study employs a sample that allows nesting housing units within census tracts in a number of cities to test the effect of violent crime rates on residential mobility. We find that racial/ethnic transformation occurs due to two effects: first, white households are more likely to exit neighborhoods with higher rates of violent crime than are African American households. Second, whites are significantly less likely to move into a housing unit in a tract with more violent crime, particularly if this violent crime rate is increasing. On the other hand, African American and Latino households are more likely to enter neighborhoods with higher levels of violent crime. And Latinos are particularly likely to enter neighborhoods experiencing an increasing level of violent crime over the previous four years.

Legitimacy Management, Preservation of Exchange Relationships, and the Dissolution of the Mobilization for Global Justice Coalition
Patrick F. Gillham, Bob Edwards

Throughout much of 2001 the Mobilization for Global Justice Coalition (MGJC) planned a series of mass demonstrations targeting the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to occur in Washington, DC in late September. The terrorist attacks of September 11 created a crisis for the 117 social movement organizations (SMO) involved in the broad-based coalition and forced protest leaders to reevaluate their coalition strategy. This analysis chronicles the dissolution of the MGJC and explains the decisions made by SMO leaders to abandon or disband the coalition. By leading their organizations in ways they expected to be perceived as legitimate in the eyes of key allies and supporters, leaders sought to preserve their SMO's core exchange relationships through the 9/11 crisis. At a minimum, leaders sought to insulate their organizations from irreparable harm and position them competitively for the uncertainties of the post-crisis environment. Many organizations made decisions commensurate with homophilous or exemplary organizations in a process resembling "social contagion" while others capitalized on the crisis enhancing their influence. This research relies upon participant observations of pre- and post-9/11 organizing meetings, examination of coalition documents, and interviews with key MGJC leaders.

Cultural Modeling in Two Eras of U.S. Food Protest: Grahamites (1830s) and Organic Advocates (1960s–70s)
Jeffrey Haydu

This article extends theories of social movement diffusion to encompass other kinds of cultural modeling. Using a comparison of two cases of food protest in the United States—the health food movement of William Sylvester Graham (1830s) and the early organic movement (1960s-1970s)—I emphasize similarities in underlying grievances and in the general advocacy of natural food alternatives. The two movements differed dramatically, however, in framing and tactics. I focus on contrasts in the religious significance they assigned to diet, in their democratic commitments, in the relationship they constructed between personal transformation and social change, and in their use of state-centered strategies. These frames and tactics transposed to food reform more general scripts associated with cultural institutions and movements of the time, particularly evangelical churches and temperance (Grahamites), and environmentalism, the New Left, and the wider counterculture (organic advocates).