Recruitment to High-Risk Activism: The Case of Freedom Summer
From AcaWiki
Citation: Doug McAdam (1986) Recruitment to High-Risk Activism: The Case of Freedom Summer. The American Journal of Sociology (RSS)
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Summary:
Doug McAdam's study presents a quantitative analysis of recruitment applications to 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer project. Theoretically, it introduces and argues for a distinction between "low-risk" and "high-risk" activism in the literature on social movements and resource mobiliation. It uses data on applications to freedom summer to present models that show which applications were accepted to but did not engage in Freedom Summer and showed that participants (i.e., non-withdrawals) tended to belong to more organizations, have prior levels of civil rights activity, and have stronger and more extensive ties to other participants in Freedom Summer.
First, Adams argues that the resource mobilization perspective on social movements is largely focused on simple affiliation with organizations or what he would describe as low-risk/cost activism. He argues that high-risk/cost activism should be treated separately in analysis of structural effects on recruitment since the cost of recruitment is likely to affect the processes and effect of social structure.
Most of the paper builds up to and focuses on a logistic regression model that looks at the likelihood of an accepted applicant to Freedom Summer actual participating. Using the archives of applications, McAdam shows that out of 1068, 720 participated, 239 withdrew, 55 were rejected, and 54 have an unclear status. By considering applications, he is able to consider what effected participation in advance of the campaign.
The paper shows that there were not major difference between participants and withdrawals in terms of attitudinal differences. Applications were essentially all interested in supporting the civil rights movement. Strong feelings or "attitudinal affinity" were necessary, but not sufficient. "Biographical ability" (or the ability to go) was seen as similar. What he does find that participants belonged to more organizations and more politically-focused organizations than the withdrawals. He also saw that strong ties with other participants had a strong effect.
Theoretical and practical relevance:
The paper is reasonable well-known and has been cited hundreds of times, largely in the sociological literature on social movements. The work in the paper was expanded upon in Doug Adam's book, Freedom Summer.
