Assignment 4

The Mainstream-Grassroots Divide in the Environmental Movement: Environmental Groups in Washington State Author(s): Debra J. Salazar Source: Social Science Quarterly, Vol. 77, No. 3 (September 1996), pp. 626-643 Published by: University of Texas Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/42863506 Accessed: 04-06-2019 00:09 UTC

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The Mainstream-Grassroots Divide in the Environmental Movement: Environmental

Groups in Washington State*

Debra J. Salazar, Western Washington University

Objective. Observers of environmental politics have noted a division between mainstream national and grassroots environmental groups. This study attempts to determine whether a similar split in the movement can be observed at the state level. Methods . Data from a 1989 survey of 73 environmental groups in Washington State are analyzed. A distinction is made between institutionalized groups that regularly testify at the state legislature and grassroots groups that do not. Analysis focuses on environmental groups' structural characteristics, use of political resources, and choice of political activities. Results. Difference of means tests indicate that there are systematic differences between institu- tionalized and grassroots groups. The former have more members and larger paid staffs, derive more of their funding from other organizations, and are more bureaucratized. Second, principal components factor analysis reveals three kinds of political resources: mobilization resources, expertise, and organiza- tional assets. Environmental groups rely on the first two more than on the last; grassroots groups are especially reliant on mobilization resources. Finally, logit analyses indicate that mobilization resources are positively related to the use of public outreach activities while expertise and organizational assets tend to be positively related to conventional political activities. Conclusions. These findings suggest that the division within the environmental movement exists within Washington State and structures the course of environmental politics within the state.

During the last three decades, environmental concerns have become institutionalized in public policy making in the United States. This in- stitutionalization is evident in the passage of numerous statutes related to the environment, the creation of environmental regulatory agencies

* Direct correspondence to Debra J. Salazar, Department of Political Science, West- ern Washington University, Bellingham, WA 98225-9082 (or via e-mail: [email protected]). The author acknowledges financial support from the Na- tional Science Foundation (SES-8910937), the University of Washington Graduate School Research Fund, and the Western Washington University Bureau for Faculty Re- search. Kristen Cotant, Patricia Garcia-Gonzalez, and Douglas Steinberg provided re- search assistance. The reviewers for the journal provided helpful comments. The author will be happy to make data available to other scholars for replication one year after the publication date. Editor's note: Reviewers were Jack N. Barkenbus, Helen Ingram, and Nicholas P. Lovrich.

SOCIAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY , Volume 77, Number 3, September 1996 © 1996 by the University of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819

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Mainstream-Grassroots Divide in Environmental Movement 627

at both national and state levels of government, and the organization of thousands of environmental interest groups across the country. These groups have become key players in environmental politics at all levels of government.

But as the environmental movement has secured access to policy- making processes, observers have noted divisions within the movement (Dunlap and Mertig, 1992; Dowie, 1992; Gottlieb and Ingram, 1988). While there is disagreement regarding the nature and sources of these divisions, typically analysts distinguish between mainstream organi- zations headquartered in Washington, D.C., and grassroots groups throughout the country. Grassroots groups are distinguished by class diversity among members, local focus, unconventional political style, the prominence of volunteers, and efforts to democratize environmen- tal science and politics (Gottlieb, 1993). These characteristics contrast with those of mainstream environmental organizations, which are said to be dominated by middle- and upper-class staff and leaders, focused on national and increasingly global problems, reliant on conventional political tactics such as lobbying and litigation, and staffed by profes- sionally trained experts (Dowie, 1992; Gottlieb, 1993).

This division within the movement is claimed as both a source of

strength and weakness (Dunlap and Mertig, 1992). Diversity of or- ganizational styles and practices is seen as an asset, with particular elements of the movement positioned to take advantage of particular opportunities. In contrast, environmental activists on each side often criticize those on the other side of the cleavage as ineffective or lacking a fundamental understanding of environmental problems. While there is likely some truth in both claims, clearly the differences among en- vironmental groups have implications for the nature of environmental politics. Professional and bureaucratic organizations with access to fi- nancial resources and technical expertise will conduct themselves dif- ferently than organizations run by lay volunteers who must educate themselves about the technical aspects of environmental problems. These groups will approach politics with different values and different orientations to authority and compromise. Thus the existence of a cen- tral cleavage among environmental groups may explain much about contemporary environmental politics.

Given current trends in federalism in this country, such an expla- nation ought to take account of subnational organizations. As regu- latory authority moves to the state and local levels, states are becoming increasingly important arenas for environmental conflict.1 Moreover,

1See Lester (1995) for a discussion of the increasingly important role of states in en- vironmental policy making.

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628 Social Science Quarterly

the outcomes of environmental battles will, in part, reflect the political resources and tactics of state and local environmental groups. Thus this article explores the mainstream-grassroots divide among

environmental groups at the state level. The geographic focus is the state of Washington. The analytic foci are structural characteristics, political resources, and political activities. Structural characteristics, such as extent of member participation and level of bureaucratization, affect the way environmental groups interact with other political ac- tors. Similarly, political resources circumscribe the political activities in which interest groups engage. Reliance on particular resources and participation in particular types of activities are important because of their effect on the quality of political interactions and the magnitude of political influence that groups exercise. This paper addresses four questions. First, do environmental groups

in Washington State differ with respect to key organizational and po- litical attributes? That is, can we discern systematic variation among these groups similar to that observed between national and grassroots groups? Second, what kinds of political resources do environmental groups find important to their efforts to influence public policy? Third, can we discern patterns in the use of political resources? Finally, how are political resources related to political activities? These questions are examined within the context of a sample of environmental groups in Washington State.

The Sample

The data are derived from a survey of environmental groups in the state of Washington conducted during 1989. The survey focuses on the period 1987-88. The sampling frame for environmental groups was constructed from three sources: (1) a list of Washington environ- mental groups compiled by Draffan (1987); (2) the directory of the Washington Environmental Council (an umbrella organization of en- vironmental groups in the state); and (3) rosters from legislative com- mittee hearings regarding environmental bills and issues during 1987 and 1988. The complete list consisted of over three hundred environ- mental groups. The population was stratified into two categories. One consisted of the 24 groups most active in the state legislature during the 1987-88 session. The second category consisted of the remaining groups in the population. I refer to the first set as institutionalized groups and the second as grassroots groups.2 A random sample of 100

2 Four of the institutionalized groups in the study are state or regional offices of major national or international environmental organizations (Audubon Society, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, and Sierra Club). Most of the institutionalized groups are state-level organizations such as the Washington Citizens for Recycling and Washington Environ- mental Council. The grassroots groups are roughly evenly divided among organizations with regional, state, and local foci. A few, such as Admiralty Audubon, are local chapters of national organizations.

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Mainstream-Grassroots Divide in Environmental Movement 629

of the grassroots groups was selected for study, as well as all of the institutionalized groups.

Representatives of each organization were contacted by phone and asked to participate in the study. Representatives of 22 of the 24 in- stitutionalized groups were interviewed personally (92 percent re- sponse rate). Obtaining a sample of grassroots groups was more dif- ficult. The sampling frame included groups with duplicate names, groups formed after the period defined for study, groups that no longer existed, and groups that were not citizen-based environmental groups. Some of these were professional associations or resource development associations. After eliminating these groups from the sample list, 73 groups remained. Completed, usable questionnaires were received from 51 grassroots groups (response rate of 70 percent) for a total sample of 73 organizations.3

Structural Attributes of Environmental Groups

The first question posed in this study is: are there structural differ- ences between environmental groups that appear regularly at the state legislature and those that do not? The literature indicates that differ- ences should exist with respect to size, the level of bureaucratization and professionalization, the degree of internal democracy, and sources of funding (Gottlieb, 1993; Dowie, 1992, 1994; Dunlap and Mertig, 1992). Eight variables were used to capture these dimensions (Table 1). The groups differ significantly in size, as measured by number of members, with the institutionalized groups having nearly ten times as many members, on average, as the grassroots groups. The number of full-time employees is an indicator of both size and professionalization, and the two sets of groups also differ significantly with respect to this variable. A chi-square test indicated a p value of .001 for the distri- butions of values for the ordinal variable, number of full-time employ- ees.4 Of course number of employees also is an indicator of financial resources, and, as expected, the institutionalized groups clearly have more access to these.

The bureaucratization variable is an additive index that ranges from

3 An additional problem I encountered was refusal to participate. Informants from several groups that declined to complete questionnaires were interviewed. In all cases, these were groups from less conventional segments of the environmental movement; their philosophies ranged from deep ecology to bioregionalism (see Gottlieb [1993] for dis- cussion of these positions). These informants believed that questionnaires were inappro- priate for eliciting information about their groups. Though some representatives of radi- cal environmental groups did participate in the study, the findings probably do not adequately reflect characteristics of this segment of the environmental movement.

4 This variable was scaled 1 to 5 according to the following categories: zero employees, 1 to 5, 6 to 10, 11 to 15, greater than 15.

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630 Social Science Quarterly

TABLE 1

Structural Characteristics of Two Types of Environmental Groups

Institutionalized Grassroots

All Groups3 Groups Groups Characteristics (n = 73) (n = 22) (n = 51) t p

Age (years) 21.6 25.1 20.4 0.85 .400 Number of members 3,147 8,308 921 2.40 .025 Bureaucratization0 3.62 4.00 3.45 2.02 .047

Member participation0 1.04 1.19 0.98 1.30 .197 Percent of budget from members 72.4 70.6 73.2 -0.36 .717

Percent of budget from other organizations 9.6 15.2 7.1 1.91 .060

Number of full-time

employees0 1-5 0 Number of volunteersd

aEntries are sample means.

bVariable is scaled from 0 to 5.

cVariable is scaled from 0 to 4.

dEntries are median categories.

zero to five. Informants were asked to indicate whether or not their

organizations had written rules, a system of files, a board of directors, division of labor among individuals, and division of labor among de- partments. Scores for this variable are the sum of yes responses. Com- parison of means indicates the institutionalized groups score signifi- cantly higher on this variable.

An index of member participation in organizational decision making was created to measure the extent of internal democracy for the groups. Informants were asked to assess the extent of member partici- pation through a series of channels (member polls, elections, task forces, meetings). Each item was coded 0 to 4 (no members participate to 76-100 percent participation). The index was created by summing scores and dividing by the number of items. Participation is generally low by this measure, and there is no significant difference between the two types of groups. Thus, for our samples, members of less institu- tionalized groups do not appear to participate in organizational deci- sion making any more than their counterparts in more established groups. The generally low levels of participation in decision making are consistent with other studies of citizens' groups (Rothenberg, 1992).

Finally, sources of organizational funding were elicited. On average, environmental groups in Washington draw nearly three-fourths of

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Mainstream-Grassroots Divide in Environmental Movement 631

their revenue from members and approximately 10 percent through grants from other organizations (e.g., foundations). The institutional- ized groups draw nearly twice as much of their revenue from the latter source as do the grassroots groups. This could serve to constrain the former groups' choice of political activities.5

The results indicate there are structural differences between the two

types of groups. These structural differences may be reflected in groups' decisions about the use of political resources.

The Nature of Political Resources

Political resources are the tools organizations use to influence public policy. They are assets that groups can expend on particular endeavors. A group's success depends, in part, on both the quality and quantity of political resources at its disposal. Aldrich (1979) identified four types of resources: money, personnel, information, and products and services. Benson (1975) argued that the most important resources are money and authority. Ingram and Mann (1989) identified ideological appeals, having effective leadership, and forming coalitions as the ba- ses for the success of environmental groups in influencing policymak- ing. The literature is rich in discussions of how groups have used par- ticular resources in support of particular policy ends. Very few studies, however, have developed systematic analyses of the different kinds of political resources that organizations use to influence the making of public policy.

Empirical Studies of Political Resources. Schlozman and Tierney (1986) constructed a list of eight political resources and asked organi- zational representatives to identify the two most important and the two least important. They interviewed individuals from 175 organi- zations that were represented in Washington, D.C. Schlozman and Tierney's list includes a reputation for being credible and trustworthy, a wide circle of contacts, well-known and respected leaders, control over technical information, an appealing cause, strategically placed allies, a large membership, and a large budget. By far, respondents believed a reputation for credibility to be among the most important resources and a large budget to be among the least so. This was true for all four types of organizations (corporations, trade associations, unions, citizens' groups) that Schlozman and Tierney studied.

5 See Gottlieb (1993) for a discussion of the role of foundations in shaping the agendas of national environmental groups.

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632 Social Science Quarterly

Laumann and Knoke (1987) compiled a list of eight political re- sources for their study of the health and energy national policy do- mains: technical expertise, funds to mobilize support for a policy pro- posal, staff or facilities useful for mobilizing support, formal authority, connections to influential organizations, reputation as an impartial me- diator, ability to mobilize public opinion, and ability to mobilize mem- bers or employees. They asked organizational informants to name other groups with which they were familiar and to identify the re- sources these groups used to influence policymaking. Laumann and Knoke (1987) went beyond ascertaining which re-

sources were most valued by attempting to discover a structure under- lying the use of political resources. They used a typology, developed by Laumann and Pappi (1976), to construct their list of resources and then factor analyzed their data to discover empirical groupings. The typology has two dimensions, locus of influence base and scope of convertibility. The first dimension distinguishes between resources that reflect or inhere in an organization's standing in the policy community and those that are more idiosyncratic and reflect characteristics of an organization's leaders or staff. The second dimension distinguishes among resources by the range of contexts (general or specific) in which a resource will be effective. Laumann and Knoke (1987) referred to the poles of this dimension as institutional (or positional) and personal. Their factor analysis generated three factors and did not indicate

groupings consistent with the typology. The first factor included one resource, formal authority. The second, reputation as an impartial mediator, also was a single-variable factor. The third factor, which Laumann and Knoke (1987) termed mobilizable resources, accounted for 74 percent of the common variance in the health domain. This factor includes variables of all four types defined by the Laumann and Pappi (1976) typology. In fact, the results of the factor analysis are unrelated to the typology, and the mobilizable resource factor seems best interpreted as a residual category. Pross (1992) used organizational resources as one element of his

typology of pressure groups. Pross focused on resources, such as mem- bership (size and quality), budget, staff, volunteers, and reputation. He argued that the possession of such resources as well as of policy ca- pacity distinguished between institutionalized and nascent groups. Pierce et al. (1992), drew on Pross's work in their study of environ- mental groups in Ontario and Michigan. Their principal component factor analysis revealed three factors underlying a set of 11 resources. The first factor, financial resources, included the size of an organiza- tion's annual budget, the extent of external financial support, whether or not an organization employs paid staff, and whether or not it enjoys tax exempt status. The second factor, human resources, comprised: a

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Mainstream-Grassroots Divide in Environmental Movement 633

chapter-based organizational structure, the number of volunteers available to the organization, the number of individual members, and the percentage of revenue raised from dues. Finally, three resources, presence of organizational members, affiliations with provincial or state organizations, and affiliations with national organizations, loaded highly on the third factor, networking resources. Pierce and his coauthors contended that the differential access of groups in their sam- ple to financial, human, and networking resources would be reflected in the nature of their interactions with public officials.

Assessing the Importance of Political Resources . Two considerations guided my study of political resources. First, resources are defined strictly, as things (tangible or intangible) that are available for use. There is ambiguity in the literature with respect to the difference be- tween a resource and an action. The list of political resources used for this study does not include the uses to which things are put. For ex- ample, mobilization of members is not a resource but a process. Re- sources such as a charismatic leader, a mailing list, and the occurrence of a disaster can be used to mobilize members. But mobilization is not a resource.

Second is Schattschneider's (1960) insight about the importance of the issue in defining politics. Schattschneider's analysis of conflict ex- pansion suggests that the pressure group system, a small and closed network, responds to particular kinds of political resources. If an actor is not endowed with these resources, she has an incentive to attempt to expand an issue or conflict beyond the pressure group system to the broader electorate, where, presumably, different kinds of resources hold value. Thus an appealing cause may be a key political resource for environmental groups lacking in material resources. To construct a list of resources, I drew heavily upon Schlozman and

Tierney's (1986) indicators, Laumann and Knoke's (1987) mobilizable resource factor, and interviews conducted with staff of environmental groups in several states. A total of ten indicators was used: a large budget, a large membership, computer equipment and databases, pro- fessional lobbyists, staff expertise on environmental politics, staff ex- pertise on the technical elements of environmental problems, a wide circle of contacts, a reputation for being credible and trustworthy, an appealing cause, and volunteer staff. Each of the respondents was asked to select two issues on which the

organization had concentrated most during 1987 and 1988. For each issue, respondents were presented with the list of ten resources and asked to indicate how important (on a scale of 1 to 5) each resource was for their organization's efforts to influence policy. Examination of

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634 Social Science Quarterly

the responses to this question (Table 2) indicates variation among en- vironmental groups with respect to the importance of each resource as well as consistency in the most and least valued resources. Money- driven resources such as budget, computer equipment,6 and lobbyists are of no more than moderate importance for three-fourths of the groups. On the other hand, 88 percent of the groups consider a repu- tation for being credible as of much or very much importance. Also, resources such as contacts, an appealing cause, volunteers, and tech- nical expertise are considered relatively important for most of the groups. However, there is considerable variation in the importance environmental groups attributed to a large membership and political expertise. These results are consistent with Schlozman and Tierney's (1986)

findings regarding citizens' groups. They found reputation most fre- quently mentioned as a key resource, followed by an appealing cause, a large membership, and technical expertise (volunteers were not in- cluded in their study). The one resource where these findings diverge from theirs is a wide circle of contacts, generally regarded by my respondents as important but not so regarded by respondents in Schlozman and Tierney's study. This difference may be an artifact of

TABLE 2

Political Resources of Environmental Groups in Washington State (n = 73)

Percentage of Organizations Finding Each Resource of

Very No Slight Moderate Much Much

Political Resource Importance Importance Importance Importance Importance

Budget 42.5 26.0 19.2 5.5 6.8 Membership 20.5 13.7 15.1 28.8 21.9 Computers and databases 48.0 16.4 23.3 8.2 4.1

Professional

lobbyists 53.4 15.1 13.7 13.7 4.1 Political expertise 21.9 13.7 16.4 31.5 16.4 Technical expertise 12.3 11.0 13.7 38.4 24.7 Contacts 6.8 5.5 19.2 46.6 21.9 Reputation for credibility 1.4 2.7 8.2 32.9 54.8

Appealing cause 6.8 15.1 5.5 34.2 38.4 Volunteers

6 The distribution of responses on this variable indicates that the computers and da- tabases item was presented to respondents slightly ahead of its time. It is likely that had the question been asked several years later, many more groups would have found this resource important.

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Mainstream-Grassroots Divide in Environmental Movement 635

the way the questions were posed. Schlozman and Tierney asked re- spondents to choose the two most important resources. I asked that respondents assess the importance of each resource.

Comparison of the importance attributed to political resources by the two samples of groups reveals patterns of difference and similarity. Difference of means tests indicate significant differences with respect to the importance of a large membership, computer resources, profes- sional lobbyists, political expertise, and a wide circle of contacts (Table 3). The institutionalized groups found these resources to be of more importance than did the grassroots groups. The only resource that the grassroots groups rated more highly was volunteers, but this difference was not statistically significant. In general, both sets of groups tend to find the same resources of value. The primary difference between the two sets is that the grassroots groups concentrate on a smaller number of resources, and the institutionalized groups use a greater variety of political resources.

Patterns in the Use of Political Resources. Principal components fac- tor analysis was used to discern underlying relationships among the ten political resources. Principal components analysis is a data reduc- tion technique used to construct linear combinations of variables that explain the total variation in a set of variables (Dillon and Goldstein, 1984). 7 Each principal component is a linear combination of the larger

TABLE 3

Importance of Political Resources for Two Types of Environmental Groups

Institutionalized Grassroots

Groups3 Groups3 Political Resources (n = 22) (n = 51) t p

Budget 2.45 1.92 1.75 .084 Membership 3.86 2.88 2.76 .007 Computers and databases 2.46 1 .86 1 .98 ,052 Professional lobbyists 2.82 1.65 3.97 .000 Political expertise 3.68 2.80 2.52 .014 Technical expertise 3.86 3.37 1.48 .144 Contacts 4.23 3.49 2.78 .007 Reputation for credibility 4.54 4.29 1.15 .254 Appealing cause 3.96 3.76 0.58 .566 Volunteers

aEntries are sample means.

7 Principal components differs from common factor analysis in that the latter is used to discover unobserved factors that explain the common variance or correlation among a set of observed variables while the former is used to explain total variation (Kim and Mueller, 1978).

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636 Social Science Quarterly

set of variables. The goal is to get the smallest number of components that will explain the largest amount of total variance. The first step in the analysis presented here is to discover if political resources are in- terrelated in a manner that is consistent with the Laumann and Pappi (1976) typology. In a subsequent section the results of the principal components analysis will be used to assess relations among political resources and political activities. Because of concern about differences between the two types of

groups, I analyzed just the grassroots groups and the total sample of both types of groups separately. Analyses of the 10x10 correlation matrices produced the same three-factor model for both data sets. The results were sufficiently similar that I report only the results of the full sample.

I expected to find two factors, one corresponding to positional re- sources and the other to idiosyncratic or personal resources (Laumann and Pappi, 1976), but a three-factor model best accounts for variation among the observed variables in this sample. Kim and Mueller (1978) suggested that factors with eigenvalues of at least one be included in the model.8 The third factor generated by these data had an eigenvalue of 1.25 (versus 1.60 for the second factor and 0.72 for the fourth). Further a plot of eigenvalues against the number of factors indicated a marked discontinuity at three factors.

Varimax rotation was used to obtain the orthogonal set of factors displayed in Table 4. Component loadings reflect the relations between the original variables and the components or factors. Eight of the vari- ables load unambiguously on only one factor. For two of the variables interpretation of loadings is more problematic. Though the loadings do not perfectly reflect expectations, there is a good deal of correspon- dence, indicating that resources are allocated among groups in a man- ner that is consistent with the typology.

Factor 1 reflects idiosyncratic attributes of groups, those useful in mobilizing other resources. An appealing cause, volunteers, a reputa- tion for credibility, and a wide circle of contacts load most highly on this factor. The inclusion of the issue variable in this factor indicates

that the manner in which groups use issues as political resources is related to personalized rather than institutionalized attributes of groups. Thus if one were interested in predicting the circumstances under which conflicts would be expanded, examination of the types of people who lead and staff the relevant organizations should prove more useful than focusing on organizational variables.

8 This criterion suggests that if a factor is to be included, it ought to account for more variance than a single variable (Dillon and Goldstein, 1984).

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Mainstream-Grassroots Divide in Environmental Movement 637

TABLE 4

Principal Components Analysis of Environmental Groups' Political Resources (Varimax Rotation; n = 73)

Component Loadings

Factor 2

Factor 1 (Organizational Factor 3 Political Resources (Mobilization) Assets) (Expertise)

Appealing cause .814 .129 .086 Volunteers 767 .113 .031 Reputation for credibility .686 .061 .418 Contacts J>01 .329 .327 Budget .210 ,870 -.030 Membership .247 .814 .008 Computers and databases .104 .682 .347 Professional lobbyists -.123 .628 .533 Technical expertise .289 -.049 .882 Political expertise .201 .287 .812

Eigenvalue 4.132 1.595 1.250 Percentage of total variance explained 23.4 25.1 21.3

Cumulative explained variance = 69.8%

Factor 2 comprises organizational assets, including budget, mem- bership, computer resources, and professional lobbyists. These are the resources for which there were the greatest differences between the institutionalized and grassroots groups (Table 3). Thus the institutional/idiosyncratic dimension discriminates between the two sets of environmental groups sampled. Organizational resources are much more important for the institutionalized groups.

Factor 3 includes both technical and political expertise. Professional lobbyists, which loads most highly on the organizational factor (factor 2), also loads moderately on factor 3. This loading may reflect the role of lobbyists in state and local environmental groups. These groups cannot afford to pay high-powered lobbying firms, and thus their lob- byists are generally semiprofessionals who work for the group part- time and/or for a small salary. For many groups their value may reflect the attributes of the person who happens to hold the position rather than institutional attributes of the organization. Because of the nature of many of the groups (low budgets, low levels of specialization and division of labor), expertise inheres in individuals rather than in or- ganizational positions. A reputation for credibility also loads moder- ately highly on factor 3 giving weight to an interpretation of this factor as having a base in both expertise and personal attributes. Thus the

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638 Social Science Quarterly

idiosyncratic or personal attributes of an organization contribute to its expertise or knowledge base. In sum, the principal components analysis indicates that political

resources are allocated according to institutional and personal attri- butes of groups. Further, expertise emerges as a separate locus of in- fluence, closely linked to the personal attributes of staff and leaders.

Political Resources and Political Activities

Political resources are important because of their effects on what groups do and on their effectiveness. There are numerous kinds of activities in which interest groups engage. Walker (1991) factor ana- lyzed interest group involvement in eight kinds of activities. He derived two factors, each comprising four activities. Inside strategies include legislative lobbying, administrative lobbying, litigation, and election- eering. Outside strategies comprise use of the mass media, protests, providing speakers at public forums, and sponsoring conferences. Walker tested the effects of four independent variables on the impor- tance of each strategy for groups. For citizens' groups, the existence of local chapters was positively related to the use of outside strategies. Chapter organization was used as an indicator of decentralization (Walker, 1991). The size of paid staff was positively related to inside strategies, while the extent of external financial support was negatively related to use of inside tactics. Walker argued that heavy reliance on patronage moderated citizens' groups political activities while a large staff encouraged the use of inside strategies.

Respondents for this study were given a list of political activities and asked which they engaged in during 1987-88. The activities were grouped into categories and coded 1 if an organization engaged in any activity in the category and 0 if it did not. The seven categories of activities were testifying in public hearings, involvement in election campaigns, litigation, public outreach (e.g., managing an environmen- tal information center), conservation (e.g., building or maintaining trails in natural areas), demonstrations or protests, and working with the business community.

The likelihood of engaging in each kind of activity was compared for the two types of groups in the sample (Table 5). Institutionalized groups are more likely than grassroots groups to engage in every ac- tivity but conservation. The differences are statistically significant with respect to working with business, elections, and testimony at public hearings. For each of these activities, institutionalized groups are at least one and one-half times as likely to engage in it as are grassroots groups. This pattern is consistent with the advantages the institution- alized groups have in access to political resources (Table 3).

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Mainstream-Grassroots Divide in Environmental Movement 639

TABLE 5

Political Activities of Two Types of Environmental Groups

Percentage of Groups Engaging in Each Activity

Institutionalized Grassroots

Political Activity Groups Groups Chi-Square p Yule's Q

Testify 100.0 66.7 9.560 .002 1.00 Elections 50.0 23.5 4.991 .025 .53

Litigation 31.8 21.6 0.869 .351 .26 Public outreach 72.7 54.9 2.040 .153 .37 Conservation 50.0 66.7 1.806 .179 .33 Demonstrations 50.0 37.2 1.031 .310 .26 Work with business 77.3 51.0 4.389 .036 .53

(n)

To assess more directly the effect of resources on political activities, a series of logit regressions was estimated. For each type of political activity, the effects of the three types of political resources, two sources of funding, and the levels of bureaucratization and member partici- pation in organizational decision making were assessed (Table 6). 9 Litigation, testifying, and electoral activity are part of Walker's (1991) inside strategy category. Expertise is positively related to the first two activities, and organizational assets are positively related to all three (though the relation to testifying is not significant). Mobili- zation resources are not significantly related to any of the inside tactics. These results suggest that access to resources influences decisions about engagement in political activities. Grants, which is an indicator of patronage, has a negative effect on testifying and electoral activity. In contrast, member contributions ap- pear to encourage the use of litigation as a tactic. These results are consistent with Walker's (1991) finding that patronage discourages political activities of citizens' groups. While bureaucratization does not appear to have much effect on use of any of the inside tactics, participa- tion is strongly related to electoral activity. Perhaps groups that ac- tively engage their members are best able to use that activism in election campaigns. Alternatively, activist members may find electoral politics important.

Public outreach and conservation are outside strategies. While con- servation is not a conventional political activity, it is an important one

9 Results for five of the seven activities are presented here; the other two models did not generate significant coefficients.

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640 Social Science Quarterly

TABLE 6

Effects of Political Resources on Activities of Environmental Groups

Electoral Public

Testify Activity Litigation Outreach Conservation

Constant 2.593+ -2.146+ -3.750* -3.050* 2.005+

(1.669) (1.498) (2.247) (1.593) (1.485) Organizational assets 0.200 0.543* 0.523+ 0.315 -0.118

(0.340) (0.297) (0.347) (0.308) (0.281) Expertise 0.931** 0.060 0.953** 0.378+ -0.142

(0.348) (0.293) (0.407) (0.301) (0.290) Mobilization resources 0.297 0.059 0.077 0.767* -0.242

(0.301) (0.287) (0.405) (0.349) (0.308) Grants -0.050* -0.033+ 0.017 0.019 -0.040*

(0.025) (0.025) (0.026) (0.020) (0.021) Member contributions -0.015 0.004 0.033+ -0.001 -0.013

(0.015) (0.011) (0.021) (0.012) (0.012) Bureaucracy -0.053 0.102 -0.103 0.549* -0.268

(0.275) (0.294) (0.295) (0.311) (0.265) Participation 0.401 0.928* -0.088 1.470** 0.752*

(0.490) (0.457) (-0.478) (0.600) (0.435) n = 69, 7 df Likelihood ratio statistic 13.090+ 9.836 13.321+ 22.830** 11.853

McFadden's

R2

Note: The dependent variable is coded 1 if organization engaged in an activity, 0 if not. The top entry in each cell is the logit coefficient. Entries in parentheses are standard errors.

< .10 (one-tailed).

*p < .05 (one-tailed).

**p < .01 (one-tailed).

for environmental groups. Organizational assets do not have a statis- tically significant effect on either activity but the coefficient for out- reach is positive. Expertise and bureaucratization have significant ef- fects on outreach. Clearly organizational capacity is important for groups engaged in this type of activity. Member participation and mo- bilization resources also promote outreach activities. Thus both insti- tutionalized and personalized resources contribute to the initiation and maintenance of public outreach programs. Consistent with the fact that conservation is not an overtly political activity, political resources appear to have no effect on it. Dependence on grants for revenue is negatively related to conservation, member

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Mainstream-Grassroots Divide in Environmental Movement 641

participation positively so. Intriguingly, in all three models where the grants variable is significant, its effect is negative. Thus financial reli- ance on patronage appears to discourage electoral and legislative as well as conservation actions. These results give no clues about the kinds of activities that patronage may support. In contrast, member partici- pation may promote outreach, conservation, and electoral activity, tac- tics for which an active membership may provide the human resources that are essential to success.

Conclusions

In this article, I have attempted to discern whether the division within the environmental movement between national and grassroots groups can be observed between institutionalized and grassroots groups in Washington State. I have found that these groups do indeed differ with respect to key structural attributes, political resources, and political activities. The grassroots groups have fewer members and smaller staffs, are less bureaucratized, and derive less of their revenue from external sources than the institutionalized groups. The grassroots groups also use a smaller array of political resources and tend to engage in a smaller set of political activities than the institutionalized groups. While this article has not examined environmental groups' issue agen- das or positions, it is reasonable to infer that the two types of groups also will differ in these regards. Thus environmental politics will reflect these differences within the environmental movement. If the patterns I have observed in Washington exist in other states, then environmental battles, whether fought on the regional, state, or national levels, will exhibit similar patterns of intramovement conflict.

A second goal of this paper was to examine patterns in the use of political resources. I found that resources fall into three groupings: organizational assets, mobilization resources, and expertise. Environ- mental groups in Washington tend to rely more on expertise and mo- bilization resources than on organizational assets. Grassroots groups are especially reliant on mobilization resources. Thus for state and local environmental groups in Washington, politics is about defining issues and mobilizing volunteers through networks of contacts more than about raising large sums of money and hiring professional lob- byists. While these generalizations hold for both types of groups in the sample, they are especially true of grassroots groups.

Technical expertise is a key resource for all groups because environ- mental problems have important technical elements. But the manner of building such expertise probably differs between the two types of groups. Institutionalized groups, with larger paid staffs and more bu- reaucratized structures, are more likely to hire their experts. Further,

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642 Social Science Quarterly

institutionalized groups find political expertise more important for their efforts than do grassroots groups. This is consistent with the for- mer groups' greater involvement in electoral and legislative politics and in working directly with business interests. Finally, environmental groups' political resources are related to their

political activities. Expertise and organizational assets tend to be posi- tively related to inside political tactics. Mobilization resources appear to support public outreach activities. The trend toward devolution of governmental authority and respon-

sibility to the state level means that state-level policymaking will have increasing importance for how we live our lives (Boles, 1994). More- over, interest groups active at the state level will face a broader array of issues. The results presented here suggest that grassroots and insti- tutionalized environmental groups will confront these issues differ- ently. SSQ

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