Strength in Diversity? Group Heterogeneity in the Mobilization of Grassroots Organizations

Sociology Compass 8/7 (2014): 959–975, 10.1111/soc4.12191

Strength in Diversity? Group Heterogeneity in theMobilization of Grassroots Organizations

Edward T. Walker* and Lina M. StepickUniversity of California

AbstractGrassroots groups often find that they need to manage issues of diversity along racial/ethnic, class, gender,religious, and/or citizenship lines, among several other axes of difference. There are strong reasons toexpect that diversity is a benefit to such groups, especially in terms of coalition breadth and the widelyheld expectation that internal heterogeneity helps organizations to resolve collective action dilemmas.Nonetheless, a long traditionwithin sociological research sets out the expectation that group heterogeneitythwarts the formation of collective identities and group solidarity, and therefore limits the potential foreffective organizing. With a particular emphasis on groups active in local community-based organizingsince the 1970s, we review studies on a variety of features of group diversity and their effects onmobilizing processes. We find that although researchers remain somewhat divided on these criticalissues, the preponderance of evidence suggests that managing diversity poses significant challenges forgrassroots organizing efforts. While these challenges may not easily be overcome, we point to a varietyof cases in which group differences offered a significant asset to social change efforts.

Introduction

A long-standing debate in the study of collective action for social change regards whether socialgroup diversity improves the potential of popular mobilization by capitalizing upon heteroge-neous sources of talent, information, and social networks to obtain synergistic outcomes (Hardin,1982; Kocak & Carroll, 2008; Page, 2008) or whether diversity instead thwarts mobilizationpotential because it may impede the formation of collective identities necessary for activists to takeaction and maintain commitment (Miguel & Gugerty, 2005; Rao et al., 2010). These questionsare important not only on an intellectual level but also because organizers regularly face criticalquestions about how to manage issues of socio-demographic diversity within their organizations,as well as whether to diversify their coalitions through outreach efforts to marginalized groups.This review highlights the role of group diversity within the advocacy efforts of grassroots

organizers, focusing in particular on the organizing strategies of community-based organizations(CBOs) active in low-income regions and neighborhoods throughout the United States in theera since the “backyard revolution” (Boyte, 1980) of the 1970s. We review research on howfive types of group diversity shape organizing: racial/ethnic, class, gender, religious, and citizen-ship status. We emphasize these five areas of difference given that each has generated significantdebates within both the field of grassroots organizing as well as within the scholarly literature.Although other axes of difference are consequential for organizing efforts, space limitationsdo not allow us to explore them in depth here.1

Grassroots organizations – advocacy groups active at the local level to improve the quality oflife and life chances of local residents – are, in many ways, a laboratory for understanding howthe tensions of diversity versus homogeneity affect groups’ organizing processes. Indeed, ques-tions of how best to manage and benefit from diversity are at the core of the organizing work ofthe hundreds of CBOs active in low-income neighborhoods and regions across the United

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960 Diversity in Organizing

States, and their efforts have drawn the attention of urban, political, and organizational sociol-ogists (Marwell, 2009; Swarts, 2008; Walker, 2013a, 2013b; Warren, 2001; Wood, 2002).Because popular representation in the United States is systematically biased against the disadvan-taged (Gilens, 2012; Schlozman et al., 2012), low-income residents often find that they need tobring together diverse sources of social support and creative pressure tactics in order to gainrecognition. Accordingly, community organizing traditions in the United States, going backat least to the work of (in)famous Chicago organizer Saul Alinsky, have long emphasized theneed of low-income residents to work together across boundaries of race/ethnicity, religion,occupation, national origin, and more (Horwitt, 1992; Reitzes & Reitzes, 1987).2 Today, thesegroups struggle especially to build voice for African-American residents and undocumentedimmigrants (Walker & McCarthy, 2012) in a context of mass incarceration (e.g. Patillo et al.,2004; Pettit, 2012) and contentious immigration policies such as the rise in deportations(e.g. MacDonald & Sampson, 2012).This review synthesizes the various strands of research on how diversity affects community

organizing mobilization processes in their efforts to effect change in societal institutions. Toanticipate our conclusions, we find that in most cases, diversity represents a significant challengeto effective organizing due to the way that ascriptive identities restrict the formation of newcollective identities that might transcend those differences. And especially when unrecognized,diversity may represent a latent fault line within an organization, to be activated by an internalconflict or exogenous event at a later point (e.g. Lau and Murnighan, 1998). However, wealso find that in certain cases, group differences can be transcended through efforts thatwork in an explicit and ongoing fashion to bridge differences. This is especially the case inorganizing around religious and citizenship differences, althoughwe find evidence in other areasas well.We begin by describing theoretical work conceptualizing social group heterogeneity and its

effects on collective identity, group cohesion, and efficacy. We then describe how theseprocesses play out by focusing on a number of specific axes of difference found in grassrootsorganizations: race/ethnicity, social class, gender, religious, and citizenship status diversity. Wealso, where applicable, review research that discusses the overlap of these forms of diversity. Weconclude by discussing why scholars of social movements, political processes, and organizationsshould redirect their attention toward unpacking the role of social group diversity in shapingthe dynamics of grassroots advocacy.

Diversity in organizing processes

Unity in social groups is a delicate, contingent social outcome, as Simmel (1955) pointed outlong ago. And the history of research on organizing processes – whether in social movements,interest groups, political parties, or unions – is rich with examples in which groups eithersucceeded or failed to achieve unity (and, of course, their ultimate goals) on the basis of internalgroup divisions among various constituencies: consider the strengths of the United FarmWorkers through its joint organizing of Chicano and Filipino laborers in its famed Californiaorganizing campaigns (e.g. Ganz, 2009); the struggles of women’s movement activists whenworking in multiracial coalitions (Breines, 2006); and the controversial argument by Gitlin(1996) that the divisive politics of identity after the decline of the New Left were partially toblame for a variety of political defeats during 1980s and 1990s. Often, group diversity is aprimary “fault line” within grassroots organizations seeking to generate social and/or politicalchange, leading to internal splits or factionalism (Kretschmer, 2013). Yet, alternatively, manyhold out hope that there is strength in diversity (e.g. Foley, McCarthy, and Chaves, 2001;Warren, 2001; Wood, 2002; Wood and Warren, 2002).

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Sociology Compass 8/7 (2014): 959–975, 10.1111/soc4.12191

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On a conceptual level, the idea that diversity is either a limitation or a benefit is rooted in twodistinct schools of thought: scholarship on collective action dilemmas tends to highlight thebenefits of diversity, whereas much research on collective identity going back at least to Tilly(1973) notes the constraints imposed by diversity. We discuss each of these traditions in turn.Research – linked toOliver andMarwell’s (1985, 1988) influential work on group size in the

resolution of collective action dilemmas – has noted that internally heterogeneous groups gen-erally are more effective in the achievement of public goods. Of course, the focus of this researchwas on the heterogeneity of resources and interest found within activist groups, but its insightshave been extended in research on group diversity more broadly (e.g. Chiang, 2007; Page,2008). A general theme in such work is that internally differentiated groups tend to feature par-ticipants with varying degrees of willingness to contribute their time and effort to the achieve-ment of public goods, thus requiring fewer overall participants to be involved than when agroup involves a large group of homogeneous activists. Of course, while diversity of this typeis different than the socio-demographic diversity we describe here, there are reasons to expectthat similar processes are at work (Page, 2008), especially when such group diversity brings withit enhanced problem-solving capacities and a greater potential for “wise crowd” phenomena.Still, we know that principles of homophily tend to structure nearly all arenas of social

life, and many studies suggest that homophily is crucial to processes of group mobilization(e.g. Centola, 2011; McPherson et al., 2001), especially in the earliest stages of organizing(Centola, 2013). Tilly (1973), of course, once argued that homogeneous groups can be activatedin protest at a lower cost than more differentiated groups. Others have noted that diversecoalitions risk engaging on many issues that can gain broad consensus, which may be issuesthat are agreeable to many but exciting to few (McCarthy and Walker, 2004). And, morerecently, Putnam (2007) has advanced the “hunkering down” thesis, in which diversity isassociated with distrust and lower rates of civic engagement and the social cohesion that tendsto accompany it. Many worry that this is especially problematic given rising racial/ethnicdiversity in many advanced democracies (e.g. Sturgis et al., 2011). A variety of studies havetaken up this hypothesis and have found largely conflicting results (Portes & Vickstrom,2011: 469–73); there is ongoing debate about whether contextual diversity primarily affectsthe disengagement of whites (and not other racial/ethnic groups), the scope of social venuesin which “hunkering”might be taking place, and which particular features of social trust maysuffer from associated preferences (Portes & Vickstrom, 2011: 470). Overall, this body ofresearch offers “qualified support” for Putnam’s hypothesis (Portes & Vickstrom, 2011: 471).3

Combined, these conceptual models leave us with a hybrid set of expectations: that groupdiversity within grassroots associations should benefit those groups who can learn to coordinatethe heterogeneous contributions of their differentiated members, but that their doing so isinherently constrained by tendencies toward “hunkering” and socialized preferences towardhomophily. As we will argue, these tendencies blend in unique ways in studies of how groupdiversity affects the organizing processes of grassroots organizations.

Racial/ethnic diversity

Shared racial and ethnic identities can help build solidarity due to shared experiences of oppres-sion and resistance (Bystydzienski and Schacht, 2001, Swarts, 2008; Wood, 2002), and the ex-clusion of particular racial/ethnic groups from the institutional sources of power in society mayfacilitate their mobilization (Olzak, 2006; Wimmer et al., 2009). Often, racial/ethnic mobiliza-tions reflect responses to threatened losses of social position and/or political power (Beck andTolnay, 1990; Olzak, 1992; Van Dyke and Soule, 2002). But this need not always mean thatgroups agitating around issues of racial/ethnic diversity will be free of internal strife. Taken to



the extreme, community organizing that neglects to address racialized oppression may perpet-uate inequalities (Gutierrez and Lewis, 2012). Variations in grassroots CBOs organizationalstructures and cultures reveal different approaches to racial and ethnic diversity with varyingoutcomes in terms of political presence, mobilization, and solidarity (Hart, 2001; Lichterman,1995; Swarts, 2008; Warren, 2001; Wood, 2002).Multiracial organizations cultivate solidarity along explicitly racial and ethnic lines, and this

has been seen in cases ranging from the New Left’s multiracial community organizing in the1960s (Frost, 2001) to the multiracial Hapa movement of more recent years (Bernstein & DeLa Cruz, 2009). Still, multiracial grassroots organizations benefit from intra-racial and intra-ethnicsocial capital, but may lack bridging social capital (Wood, 2002; but see Rusch, 2010). Toovercome racial and ethnic divides, multiracial groups devote time and energy to buildingorganizational cultures that are attentive to group differences; Wood (2002: 135–6) arguesthat multiracial groups tend to focus on the local level at the cost of affecting broader socialinequities. Other scholars argue that such organizational culture work is imperative to buildingstrong, racially diverse grassroots organizations (Lichterman, 1995, Osterman, 2006; Swarts,2008). In the case of grassroots environmentalist organizations, for example, espousing anexplicitly multicultural ideology is not sufficient to form strong multicultural alliances;Lichterman (1995) argues that it is also necessary to alter ostensibly color-blind organizationalcultures. Congregation-based community organizations (CBCOs) are seen by many analystsas successfully bridging race and class differences due to their explicitly interfaith structure andtheir continuing engagement in cultural work to address diversity within their membership(Swarts, 2008: xvi, 172; Osterman, 2006; Warren, 2001).In contrast, certain grassroots organizations such as the former ACORNorganizations tend to

avoid potentially divisive reference to race/ethnicity (Swarts, 2008), even though communityorganizations structured in similar ways take on more controversial issues than theircongregation-based counterparts (McCarthy and Walker, 2004; see also Hart, 2001; Wood,2002). The local ACORN chapters Swarts (2008) examines are racially and ethnicallyhomogenous, allowing unofficial and informal invocations of racial identity at the local level.At the national level, however, ACORN was racially diverse, and selects class-based, populistissues and frames (Swarts, 2008: 32). This combination allowed the larger organization tobenefit from solidarity based on racial and ethnic solidarity at the local level, while bridgingracial and ethnic differences at the national level (Swarts, 2008: 33). Not acknowledging theplace of racial and ethnic diversity in organizing can lead to conflict, however.4 Saito and Park(2000) discuss the importance of ethnic organizations that promote deep and lasting civicengagement within local neighborhoods and serve as the basis for multiracial coalitions andlasting relationships.The tensions between explicitly race- and ethnicity-based organizational identities and osten-

sibly race-neutral ones stem from the history of grassroots community organizing in the UnitedStates, especially its rise in the 1970s “backyard revolution” and in the era surrounding the pas-sage of the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (Boyte, 1980; Walker, 2013a). Further, in thewake of the Civil Rights era, explicitly intersectional identities and organizations emerged(Ferguson, 2012). The identity politics of those organizations, though important for establishinga collective identity (Bystydzienski and Schacht, 2001), often led to internal tensions and limitedcapacity for transformative social change (Rodriguez, 2003: 41). These efforts represent a con-trast to earlier campaigns by groups like ACORN that followed from welfare-rights organizingefforts, which focused on winning campaigns rooted in neighborhoods without explicitlyinvolving racial and ethnic identity politics (Santow, 2007; Stein, 1986). Places featuring highracial inequality may, in fact, struggle when seeking to organize primarily around neighbor-hoods (Santow, 2007).



The contemporary era of what Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (2010) calls color-blind racism, inwhich coded policy language tends to avoid explicit mention of race, represents anotherchallenge for community organizing efforts that attempt to bridge racial and ethnic divisions.CBOs confront the challenges of bridging racial and ethnic divides within a broader societalmilieu that deemphasizes racial inequality (Bonilla-Silva, 2010: 147). In their discussion ofsuccessful multiracial coalition efforts, Saito and Park (2000: 463–464) stress the importanceof directly addressing the persisting importance of race in society while transcending narrowrace-based politics.Intersectional approaches to organizing that attend to the ways in which race and ethnicity

intersect with class interests also hold promise for bridging diversity, some analysts argue. Thiswas the case for multiracial organizing in the wake of the 1993 Los Angeles riots (Widener,2008) and the panethnic Asian American solidarity and collective action formed due to occupa-tional segregation and shared class interests (Okamoto, 2003). A shared sense of threat may alsounite individuals across racial and ethnic divides, as in the case of panethnic immigrant rightsmobilizations (e.g. Bloemraad, Voss, and Lee, 2011) and Muslim-American panethnic and multi-racial organizing in response to post-9/11 fears about Islam (e.g. Bakalian and Bozorgmehr, 2009).

Class diversity

An advantage that many see of grassroots organizing efforts, when compared to government-initiated shared governance models (such as neighborhood councils or community advisoryboards), is that CBOs do more to mobilize diverse social class interests (especially by organizingthose experiencing more severe hardships and resource deprivations) (see e.g. King &Cruickshank, 2012; Ostrander, 2012). While there has been debate over which types of orga-nizational structures are most effective in organizing the poorest of the poor (e.g. Delgado,1994; Walker and McCarthy, 2004), it is widely recognized that grassroots organizations are aprimary force in generating representation for constituencies that are otherwise ignored in thepolitical process of theUnited States (Hart, 2001;Orr, 2007; Swarts, 2008;Walker andMcCarthy,2010; Warren, 2001; Wood, 2002). Their campaigns often disrupt the routine workings of“growth machine” politics in many urban areas.5

Nonetheless, traditions of grassroots organizing in the United States have generally organizedaround issues of poverty and inequality without invoking the Marxian frames surrounding classexploitation. Saul Alinsky’s organizing, in fact, explicitly eschewed Marxism (Reitzes andReitzes, 1987: 16), favoring instead language of basic equity that he traced back to the nation’sfounding fathers (Reitzes and Reitzes, 1987). Organizations that were established in this tradi-tion in later years – such as the Community Action Project (CAP) in Chicago – featured orga-nizers formerly active in the student and civil rights movements who themselves were interestedin organizing disadvantaged communities through a “non-Marxist radicalism” (Reitzes andReitzes, 1987: 89). Inequalities in community resources (and associated political voice) wereat the center of this organizing model, but their claims making was much more focused ongaining power for the disadvantaged rather than developing a broader critique of capitalism.Grassroots organizations often struggle over how to balance their interest in promoting voice

for the most disadvantaged while also being open and inclusive to participation by moderate-income (and even, at times, middle-class) members and communities. Shirley (1997: 59), forinstance, describes how some CBCOs explicitly focus their organizing efforts not only on verypoor neighborhoods but also certain working-class neighborhoods that have a greater represen-tation of home-owning families, often effectively blending these diverse interests. But many ofthe same factors that make the poor less politically active in voting, contacting their electedrepresentatives, and other forms of lobbying also make them difficult to organize in protest



campaigns and similar organizing (e.g. Verba et al., 1995), and in mixed-income organizingefforts, groups must resist the gravitational pull toward the interests of less-disadvantaged constit-uencies. In fact, it remains the case that the interests of poor- and middle-class residents oftencome into conflict within community coalitions that seek to represent both demographics(e.g. Kadushin et al., 2005), and low-income community organizations must still rely onoutside conscience constituents like foundations and other sponsors to support their efforts bothmorally and financially (Walker and McCarthy, 2010). This may be compounded in organiza-tions that are started by a middle-class cadre who struggle to organize local, low-income residentsto eventually play a greater role in the organization.The distinct challenge in managing the diverse social class backgrounds of activists in broad-

based grassroots organizations lies in finding the capacity to fight the gravitational pull of issuestoward those favored by middle-class participants, and evidence suggests that the groups that aremost effective in doing so are those that emphasize other areas of similarity between organizers,such as a shared commitment to broad religious values (e.g. Warren, 2001) or to the vitality of ageographic region (Kleidman, 2004).

Gender diversity

Gender identity can be effective for generating solidarity necessary for mobilization for men(e.g. Heath 2003) and for women (e.g. Goss and Heaney 2010), though organizations mustnegotiate how they frame changing and contested gender norms (Goss and Heaney 2010).Within male-dominated organizations, women may organize separate women’s caucuses ormake other efforts to gain visibility within an organization and effectively mobilize distinctpolitical agendas, but this gender boundary work may also have limitations, as we describebelow.Grassroots organizations working for social change, including those that do not directly ad-

dress issues of gender in their primary work, can be thought of as gendered (Taylor 1999), justas other spaces of public discourse and civic engagement may have a gendered character (Pollettaand Chen, 2013). Such organizations may have gender-skewed memberships (e.g. Einwohner1999), gendered leadership structures and preexisting networks for mobilization (Einwohneret al. 2000; Pardo 1995; Stall and Stoeker 1998; Taylor 1999), and gendered goals (Robnett1997), tactics (Einwohner et al. 2000; Fonow 1998; Goss and Heaney 2010), and claimedand attributed identities (Einwohner et al. 2000). Broader visions and approaches to communityorganizing practices are also gendered, and may present challenges or opportunities for womento engage in political activism (Stall and Stoeker 1998). Feminist scholars reveal that women arechallenging patriarchal public/private divisions in community organizing and political mobiliza-tion, but that gender diversity remains a challenge that organizations must negotiate if they aimto maintain a feminist focus on participatory, collective, and relational community organizingand engagement while pushing to expand the private sphere, gain power, and achieve largergoals of social change (Acker 1995; Roth 1998).Grassroots organizations and their opponents may strategically employ gender identity as a

cultural resource to facilitate solidarity, mobilization, and legitimacy (Einwohner et al. 2000).Goss and Heaney (2010) discuss how women were mobilized in the Million Mom Marchand also by Code Pink, each emphasizing shared and hybrid frames of womanhood and oppres-sion that helped overcome potential disagreements about changing views of women’s roles. In astudy of the Christian men’s group Promise Keepers, Heath (2003) argues that Christian menare mobilized by the perception that traditional masculinity is under threat. Their claims empha-sized individualism and supported a limited, interactional “softer masculinity” of caring andinterracial support, but reinforced structural gender and racial hierarchies (Heath, 2003).



On the other hand, scholars have identified limitations of organizing around gender identi-ties. Organizing that emphasizes feminine stereotypes, for example, may limit the effectivenessof mobilization in the masculinist political sphere and fail to challenge the existing genderregime (Einwohner et al. 2000). Organizing women within male-dominated organizations,as in the case of the women’s caucus of ACT UP/LA (Roth 1998), carries similar risks. A sep-arate women’s caucus may help women’s roles and political goals gain visibility both within andoutside of the organization, but this organizational structure and practice carries with it the riskof slippage as womenmust devote time and energy to negotiating howmuchmale participationthey need to facilitate mobilization and how much they can allow while still maintaining own-ership of the space and agenda (Roth 1998). Further, Roth (1998) highlights the risk thatforming separate caucuses may lead to compartmentalization of women’s issues, which are del-egated to the women’s caucus while the larger organization maintains its male-driven agendaand organizing culture.Stall and Stoeker (1998) discuss organizing cultures and highlight the role of gender in two

contrasting ideal types of community organizing. The authors argue that the Alinsky organizingmodel emphasizes a masculinist, competitive public sphere, in which women’s activism andwomen-led community building is often invisible (Stall and Stoeker 1998, 731). In contrast,the ideal type of woman-centered community organizing emphasizes relational, collective,and non-hierarchical organizing. It can be understood as an extension of the private sphere toneighborhood and institutional change. This woman-centered community organizing modelevolved from “community othermothers” (Collins 1990) and “activist mothering” (Naples1992) in the Black community that extends caregiving to activism and organizing on behalfof the larger community. The woman-centered model rejects the principles of self-interestand of zero-sum struggles over power, as found in the Alinsky model. Instead, they view poweras ever-expanding through relational empowerment (Stall and Stoeker 1998, 741). A furtherdifference between the two models, according to Stall and Stoeker, is that the Alinsky model,in emphasizing the potential of organized groups to gain access to and influence in the polity,does not challenge the basic pluralist model of American politics. In contrast, the women-centered model focuses on expanding the private sphere into the public sphere to combat thestructural and systemic exclusion of women and women of color from the polity (Stall andStoeker 1998, 742).Women who mobilize one another through this woman-centered organizing may strategi-

cally emphasize gendered identities and transform networks shaped by gendered roles andwomen’s activities as mothers and caregivers into networks for political action (Pardo 1995).In the case of Mothers of East Los Angeles (MELA) and Concerned Parents of Monterey Park(CPMP), Pardo (1995) reveals that women used their roles as mothers to legitimate their claims(Pardo 1995, 369). In both cases, women successfully formed empowering relationships and po-liticized gender identities and networks while also accomplishing political goals (Pardo 1995,370). However, this was also accompanied by gendered division of labor within the organiza-tions, with women taking on more of the detail-oriented, labor-intensive, and less visible tasksthat supported mobilization particularly in the CPMP case (Pardo 1995, 367).The two differently gendered models of organizing, the Alinsky and women-centered

models, challenge our concept of mobilization and collective action, which traditionally fitsthe Alinsky model with its emphasis on a competitive public sphere.Women-centered organiz-ing may emphasize actions more modest in scale than the Alinsky model, but women-centeredorganizing may result in deeper and longer-lasting gains in terms of empowerment, day-to-daychallenges to structural gender and intersectional oppression (Stall and Stoeker 1998, 747), andsolidarity for future mobilization efforts (Stall and Stoeker 1998, 750). In practice, these idealtypes may be blended and blurred as organizations negotiate issues of gender diversity in



organizational culture and practices. Acker (1995) addresses the dilemma of respecting feministprinciples of participatory, collective, relational democracy while still working toward gainingpower and making institutional changes. She emphasizes how time and labor-intensive rela-tional organizing feminists advocate for is vulnerable to succumbing to “a gendered logic of or-ganization” (Acker 1990) involving a move toward bureaucratization and hierarchy that assumethe participation of male leaders and participants (Acker 1995, 139). This risk is a real concernfor organizations committed to feminist principles of collective, democratic engagement andwomen’s political activism, whether or not the organization has explicit goals regarding gender(Roth 1998). It is a risk that may be exacerbated by a failure to address the ways in which orga-nizational composition, goals, tactics, frames, and structures are gendered (Einwohner et al. 2000).

Religious diversity

TheUnited States has, since themid-1960s, become amore religiously diverse society (Williams,2007: 44–6). Much of this shift is due to immigration, especially from Asia (although, of course,the most substantial flows of United States immigrants are Latin American Catholics;Hirschman, 2004). Robert Wuthnow (2005) has described these shifts as the “challenges ofreligious diversity,” in which the majority of Americans embrace the freedom of such hetero-geneous religious groups to practice their faith, even though there is relatively little understand-ing of non-Christian faiths. Some worry that having a broad diversity of religious traditionsengenders a problematic “fragmented moral culture” (Huntington, 2004; for a contrastingreview, see Williams, 2007: 44), whereas others highlight the value of having a diversity ofofferings in a pluralistic and competitive religious marketplace (e.g. Finke and Stark, 1992; Grimand Finke, 2007).Along the lines of the latter, many grassroots advocacy organizations have found it beneficial

for their efforts to mobilize a variety of faith traditions. Most advocacy organizations do not ex-plicitly utilize religious appeals or organize around religious diversity, but faith-based organizingis today a well-established mechanism for the social change efforts of grassroots organizations(Hart 2001; Lichterman 2005; McCarthy and Walker, 2004; Swarts 2008; Walker, 2012;Walker and McCarthy, 2010; Warren, 2001; Wood 2002; Wood, Fulton, and Partridge2012). Interfaith organizations active in grassroots politics are often seen, by their very nature,to be effective sources of bridging social capital, which is more inclusive by nature (Wood,2002: 147; Wood and Warren, 2002). And even though much research on the role of congre-gations in civil society and the political sphere emphasizes its conservatism – as in, for instance,the religious right’s political efforts domestically and globally (Bob, 2012) – a burgeoning liter-ature focuses on how congregation-based community organizations (CBCOs) organize forchange in low- and moderate-income communities, often explicitly embracing a pluralistic, in-terfaith approach (Hart 2001; Lichterman 2005; McCarthy and Walker, 2004; Stout 2010;Swarts 2008; Walker, 2012; Walker and McCarthy, 2010; Warren, 2001; Wood 2002; Wood,Fulton, and Partridge 2012). This literature augments earlier research on the important role ofreligious congregations in spurring participation in social movements (Young, 2002) and otherforms of associational and political engagement (e.g. Putnam 2000).Many argue that grassroots organizing using religious congregations as a building block

should be a particularly effective strategy for building power for disadvantaged communities,given a number of factors: higher rates of church attendance than membership in most otherkinds of civil society organizations, churches’ often close integration into various other popula-tions of voluntary associations, and congregations’ continuing presence as a source of publicengagement in locales where resource challenges have limited the efforts of other kinds ofvoluntary associations (see e.g. Wood and Warren, 2002). Religious groups are also sources



of important cross-class linkages that may be unavailable in many other voluntary associationsettings (Reimer, 2007; Schwadel, 2009).Leading CBCO organizing networks, such as the post-Alinsky Industrial Areas Foundation

(IAF) and PICO, explicitly take a “broad-based” strategy that seeks to organize across groupdifferences. They focus especially on bridging religious congregational traditions, not tomention working across racial/ethnic boundaries and economic ones (Osterman, 2006; Shirley1997, 2002; Warren, 2001; Wood, 2002; Wood and Warren, 2002), although most CBCOsare active in low-income areas that are predominantly Black and/or Latino/a. Osterman (2006:646–7) argues that part of what makes CBCO groups like the IAF unique is that religiouscongregations provide a membership and resource base that few other types of associationscan provide, and significant efforts must bemade to enhance (or evenmaintain) the engagementof a congregation in the broader CBCO. Yet there are also limitations in CBCOs’ faith-basedorganizing strategies. Comparing local neighborhood councils with faith-based organizations,Weare and colleagues (2008: 222–3) found that faith-based groups generally had less far-reaching social networks than neighborhood councils, with members of the latter being moreconnected to local business associations and other civic groups than participants in faith-basedgroups tended to be. Weare et al. therefore “question the conventional wisdom that religiousassociations function as compensating associations for politically disenfranchised individuals”(Weare et al., 2008: 223).Still, scholars have long recognized that bringing diverse perspectives into social movement

leadership teams can exploit diverse sources of input for strategic advantage (Ganz, 2000;Andrews, 2001; Jasper, 2006). This also applies when groups build around religious faiths. Forinstance,Wood’s (2007) case study of the PICO “NewVoices” campaign suggests that religiousdiversity within the strategic core of the campaign served as a resource for the creativity ofleadership, and also helped to generate broader religious rhetorics that construct shared meaningacross diverse participants (pp. 177–8); leaders of the PICO campaign were Hispanic, African-American, and White leaders from Catholic, Pentecostal, Lutheran, Baptist, Jewish, Episcopal,and Presbyterian faith traditions (p. 184). However, Wood argues that the religious back-grounds of leadership were also, in a sense, a weakness, as core leaders were “heavily weightedin favor of those whose primary organizational experience lies narrowly within churchstructures and the specific field of faith-based community organizing” (p. 183). Along the samelines, Walker and McCarthy (2012) found in a national study of low-income communityorganizations that interfaith organizations often have contentious debates about whether tobegin meetings with prayer (as well as the content of such a prayer), which is telling abouthow delicate it may be to blend diverse faith traditions.Lastly, there are mixed views on whether faith-based organizing strategies either remedy or

exacerbate inequalities. Delgado’s (1994) argument that faith-based organizations fail toorganize the poorest of the poor – who tend not to be members of religious congregations –is well known (see McCarthy and Walker, 2004), but not without its critics (e.g. Wood,2002: 307). It’s also relatively well established that interfaith organizing efforts generally lackrepresentation by groups outside the dominant Judeo-Christian traditions (e.g. Hart, 2001;Wood, Fulton, & Partridge, 2012), although a few studies document cases of organizing by re-ligious groups outside these traditions in the United States (see, for example, Hondagneu-Sotelo, 2007).6 But Hart (2001: 234) reminds us that faith-based organizing may have positivespillovers for addressing inequalities across diverse racial/ethnic groups, in that although congre-gations tend to be racially homogeneous, interfaith groups often effectively bridge thosedifferences. They also engage not only in advocacy but also in service provision, which mayallow services to penetrate more deeply into low- and moderate-income communities(Campbell, 2002: 215–8).



Citizenship status diversity

Diversity of immigration and citizenship status is common in immigrant communities and fam-ilies (Pallares and Flores-Gonzalez, 2010). Community organizing that highlights intersectionalidentities may help to unite undocumented immigrants, legal permanent residents, and US cit-izens (Wong, 2006: 206), and indeed many community organizations today are centrally fo-cused on expanding their focus to issues affecting the undocumented (Walker and McCarthy,2012). Organizers highlight shared experiences of discrimination, threat, struggle, and familyunity (Bloemraad, Voss, and Lee 2011; Flores, 1997, 269; Pallares and Flores-Gonzalez, 2010).Solidarity among co-ethnics of different immigration and citizenship statuses is not a given,however. Native-born residents have polarized and often mixed feelings toward immigrants(Gutierrez, 1995; Martinez, 2008; Okamoto, 2003), and organizing immigrants and citizensaround common interests is challenging work and often hotly contested (Martinez, 2008;Okamoto, 2003). Scholarship examining collective action of undocumented immigrants andnative-born co-ethnics challenges assumptions about the naturalness of ethnic solidarity, themobilization potential of non-citizens, and the civic engagement capacity of an otherwisevulnerable and disenfranchised population.The 2006 immigrant rights marches highlighted the challenges and successes of organizing

across immigration and citizenship status. In the 12weeks from mid-February to early May2006, an estimated 3.5 to 7 million immigrants and citizens marched in over 160 cities in theUnited States to rally for immigrant rights (Bloemraad, Voss and Lee, 2011). Though main-stream media portrayed the marches as spontaneous and the turnout far exceeded organizers’expectations, it was nonetheless the case that community organizations, churches, labor unions,Latinomajority schools, and Spanish-language DJs activated networks early and continuously tomobilize across race, ethnicity, and immigration and citizenship status (Barreto et al. 2009;Martinez 2008; Martinez 2011). Organizers overcame divisions between native-born Latinosand immigrants by emphasizing common struggles and avoiding national-origin discourseand symbols such as the Mexican flag (Bloemraad, Voss, and Lee 2011; Martinez 2008). DiverseLatinos were mobilized through institutional networks. Furthermore, in 2003, the ImmigrantWorkers Freedom Ride brought together organized labor, the Catholic Church, and CBOsin broad-based coalition, which carried over to the 2006 marches.The solidarity between citizens and undocumented immigrants in the 2006 immigrant rights

marches is notable in part because it stands in contrast with the Chicano rights movement of the1960s, which largely focused on US-born citizens (Bloemraad, Voss, and Lee 2011; Gutierrez1995). In fact, tensions betweenUS-born citizens ofMexican and Chicano heritage and undoc-umented immigrants have often been a point of contention. The League of Latin AmericanCitizens, which later became LULAC, historically emphasized assimilation and the rights ofMexican Americans as US-born citizens (Martinez 2008). Though he later supported immi-grant rights, in the 1970s, Cesar Chavez supported immigration restrictions (Shaw, 2008). Con-temporary examples include anti-immigrant Latino organizations such as You Don’t Speak forMe and Latino members of the Minutemen (Martinez, 2008).Still, the 2006 marches are an example of highly successful, large-scale mobilization across

diverse immigration and citizenship statuses. Community organizers emphasized transcendentframes like family and human rights to mobilize across difference (Bloemraad, Voss, and Lee,2011; Martinez 2008). Bloemraad and Trost argue that the family itself acted as a mechanismfor mobilization through intergenerational exchange of information and bidirectional mobilizingefforts by family members (Bloemraad and Trost, 2008). The frame of family unity mobilizedmarchers not only from mixed-status families but also among those who were not as directlyaffected by proposed immigration policies targeting undocumented immigrants (Pallares and



Flores-Gonzalez, 2010). Additionally, the shared experiences of racism and threat in the anti-immigrant discourse and policies of the 1990s and early 2000s served to unite Latinos(Bloemraad, Voss, and Lee, 2011; Martinez, 2008). Though Chicanos and undocumented im-migrants had divergent daily realities in many other respects, Chicanos were increasingly beingtargeted in anti-immigrant attacks, including some who were detained by ICE in immigrationraids despite their status as US-born citizens (Martinez, 2008: 570).Increasingly punitive and restrictionist immigration policies such as H.R. 4437, known as the

Sensenbrenner bill, and rising numbers of immigration raids and deportations, were threateningfor all those racialized as Latino in the buildup to the 2006 marches (Bloemraad, Voss, and Lee,2011). This shared threat echoes earlier experiences in which native-born Asian Americans andChicanos organized with undocumented immigrants against Proposition 187 (Wong, 2006).Flores (1997: 265) discusses Chicano and undocumentedMexican immigrant solidarity in responseto threats to a neighborhood clinic serving undocumented immigrants. Organizers emphasizedcommon experiences of immigration and discrimination to organize together in defense ofundocumented immigrants’ rights (Flores, 1997: 267). These examples reveal that the potentialof threat can lead to mobilization across difference (Bloemraad, Voss, and Lee, 2011).The immigrant rights marches of 2006 highlight how non-citizen actors can engage in con-

tentious politics despite their formal disenfranchisement (Bloemraad, Voss, and Lee, 2011).Community organizing with undocumented immigrants reveals the ways in which undocu-mented immigrants challenge the traditional paradigm of political participation as involvingexclusively electoral politics (Castañeda, 2012; de Graauw, 2008; Fox and Bada, 2011;Ramakrishnan and Bloemraad, 2008). Scholars note the importance of immigrants’ civicengagement for the impact it may have on Latino citizens in their families and neighborhoods(Fox and Bada, 2011; Varsanyi, 2005). Further, undocumented immigrants’ civic participationreveals an emergent cultural citizenship (Flores, 1997). Community organizing can promote“de facto urban citizenship” through inclusive discourses and political activity that goes beyondvoting (Castañeda, 2012: 72–73).Scholarship documenting the growing number of strategic, often militant, and successful

organizing efforts of undocumented immigrants demonstrates that their organizing efforts arepushing the boundaries of citizenship and contentious politics (e.g. Galindo 2012; Gonzalez,2008;Milkman, 2000; Nicholls, 2013; Seif, 2011). Undocumented students supporting the De-velopment, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, known as DREAMers,defy the belief that undocumented immigrants will remain in the shadows, as they continueto innovate new forms of protest and collective action (e.g. Galindo, 2012; Nicholls, 2013; Seif,2011). DREAMers also participate in coalition efforts with other immigrant rights organizationsas well as grassroots organizations that focus on broader issues of criminalization across race,ethnicity, and immigration and citizenship status (Nicholls, 2013: 157). The research reviewedhere suggests that many grassroots organizations are reaching out to undocumented immigrantsto build on the past two decades of panethnic organizing.

Conclusions

Reviewing research of the role of five types of socio-demographic diversity – racial/ethnic,social class, gender, religious, and citizenship – and their respective roles in grassroots organizingprocesses, we have found a preponderance of evidence that whether latent as a hidden fault lineor manifest as a source of conflict (Lau and Murnighan, 1998), diversity often presents a seriouschallenge to such efforts. Groups often find that these characteristics represent severe boundariesthat thwart grassroots organizations’ capacities for developing collective identities, maintainingcoalitions, and reaching shared understandings about other considerations such as tactical



approaches, appropriate organizing structures, and cultural frames that resonate with key audi-ences. This may be one reason why much research on such topics as ethnic mobilization tendsnot to highlight multiracial organizing (Olzak, 2013), as well as why many studies of commu-nity organizing highlight organizing primarily in more poor communities without finding thatthey do substantial organizing that builds bridges to moderate-income communities. In theoverview of studies we have presented here, there is certainly some evidence of the “hunkeringdown” described by Putnam (2007).And yet there are also some bright spots, especially with respect to religious organizing and

coalitions between documented and undocumented citizen groups, as well as in some casesof multiracial or multi-class organizing efforts, and in other efforts to bridge gendered divisionswithin organizations or coalitions. The reasons for these “strength in diversity” cases are hetero-geneous. In interfaith organizing, groups often build from religious congregations and are verycareful and attentive that they acknowledge and appreciate the contributions of each memberfaith. In addition, because overt conflict between faith groups in the United States is relativelyrare in comparative perspective, bridging faith differences may be easier than managing those ofrace or class. In the latter cases, rising inequality in incomes and wealth has proved to be difficultbarriers to bridge, and racial differences are delicate topics to address in a broader societal contextthat downplays the significance of race. Lastly, citizenship continues to serve as one of the de-fining boundaries in the contemporary American context, yet there is reason to be optimisticthat coalitions that cross these boundaries are having a significant political impact. Further, theresearch reviewed here reveals that organizing at points of intersectionality can successfully man-age diversity. For example, organizing that explicitly addresses racial and ethnic diversity, but si-multaneously emphasizes how these identities intersect with shared class or religious identities,helps bridge difference. A shared sense of threat, as in the cases of panethnic immigrant rightsmobilization and panethnic Muslim-American mobilization, can also bridge diversity.A goal of this review has been to encourage further research on the careful work that grass-

roots organizations do to build bridges across a variety of axes of difference. Future researchshould take this approach further by examining not only mobilization processes but also the rolethat group diversity plays in shaping organizers’ successfulness in generating media coverage,shifting public discourse, and having ultimate policy consequences. Doing so would be wel-come not only for those who study grassroots organizing but also for broader research on socialmovements, the responses by movements’ organizational targets, and the mediating role ofsocial stratification.

Acknowledgement

The lead author acknowledges the support of a UCLA Faculty Diversity Career Award.

Short Biographies

Edward T. Walker is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, LosAngeles. His research interests include social movements, political sociology, organizations,and community organizing processes. He is author ofGrassroots for Hire: Public Affairs Consultantsin American Democracy (2014, CambridgeUniversity Press) and co-editor (with Caroline Lee andMichael McQuarrie) of Democratizing Inequalities: Dilemmas of the New Public Participation(forthcoming, NYU Press). His earlier research has appeared in the American Sociological Review,American Journal of Sociology, Social Problems, and other journals.Lina M. Stepick is a doctoral student in Sociology at UCLA. Her research focuses on immi-

grant integration, community organizing, and the politics of gentrification. She is a National



Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and received a Ford Foundation PredoctoralFellowship Honorable Mention and the UCLA Graduate Dean’s Scholar Award. Beforecoming to UCLA, Stepick worked as community organizer in the Los Angeles neighborhoodof Boyle Heights. She holds a BA in Sociology and Anthropology, Modified with Women’sand Gender Studies from Dartmouth College.

Notes

* Correspondence address: Edward T.Walker, Department of Sociology, UCLA, 264 Haines Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095,USA. E-mail: [email protected]

1 It is worth noting there are also substantial bodies of work devoted to the roles of residence/neighborhood (Orr, 2007;Heathcott, 2005; Rusch, 2012), disability (e.g. Shapiro, 1994), and sexual preference diversity (Armstrong, 2002; Ghazianiand Baldassarri, 2011) in broader grassroots organizing processes.2 That tradition continues today both in CBOs that engage in institution-based organizing (which use local institutions such asdiverse religious congregations, ethnic associations, and labor unions as building blocks for organizing) and also in groups thatbring together a range of individual members independent of local institutions (seeMcCarthy andWalker, 2004;Wood, 2002).3 For an earlier discussion that reaches a similar conclusion, see Costa and Kahn (2003).4 This is particularly the case when there is a racial or ethnic divide between staff and membership, or when organizationalleaders do not directly address racial/ethnic differences. For example, Swarts (2008: 40) describes a case in which the Whitedirector of the majority African-American St. Louis ACORN chapter consistently ignored implicit racial conflicts within theorganization (or left them to be dealt with privately), which only exacerbated tensions. Swarts (2008) argues that such aleadership style is consistent with some aspects of ACORN’s organizing culture. However, Delgado (2009: 269–70)correctly points out that it was mainly ACORN’s earlier organizing efforts – following from the National Welfare RightsOrganization’s model – that tended to avoid issues of racial justice. ACORN’s work in the final years before its demise –on issues including “school reform, predatory lending, housing, and environmental justice” – “all pointed to racialdisparities and worked to address institutional racism.”5 Still, McQuarrie (2010) describes how such groups are often incorporated into development planning and negotiations.Similar questions are often raised about the rise of Community Development Corporations (see Stoecker, 1997).6 Summarizing the field of CBCOs as of the late 1990s, Hart (2001: 46) claims that they are “fairly diverse religiously, withbroad representation from all kinds of Christians except White evangelicals, a Jewish presence found at about the level foundin the American population, and a sprinkling of congregations from non-Judaeo-Christian faiths.”

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Documents

Strength in Diversity? Group Heterogeneity in the Mobilization of Grassroots Organizations