Civic Associations That Work: The Contributions of Leadership to Organizational Effectiveness

Why are some civic associations more effective at advancing their public agendas, engaging members, and developing leaders? We introduce a multi-dimensional framework for analyzing the comparative effectiveness of member-based civic associations in terms of public influence, member engagement, and leader development. Theoretical expectations in organization studies, sociology, political science, and industrial relations hold that organizations benefiting from either a favorable environment or abundant resources will be most effective. Using systematic data on the Sierra Clubs 400 local organizations, we assess these factors alongside an alternative approach focusing on the role of leaders, how they work together, and the activities they carry out to build capacity and conduct programs. While we find modest support for the importance of an organizations available resources and external environment, we find strong evidence for each of our three outcomes supporting our claim that effectiveness in civic associations depends to a large degree on internal organizational practices.This publication is Hauser Center Working Paper No. 36. The Hauser Center Working Paper Series was launched during the summer of 2000. The Series enables the Hauser Center to share with a broad audience important works-in-progress written by Hauser Center scholars and researchers

Did local civil rights protest liberalize whites’ racial attitudes?

Mazumder investigates the long-term effect of protest on political attitudes. He finds that whites have more liberal views on race and are more likely to be Democrats in counties where Civil Rights protest was reported in the early 1960s. The analysis omits a crucial predictor of protest and of racial attitudes: college education. We include the proportion of adults with a college degree and the number of college students at the county level. The inclusion of these variables, along with some other contextual variables from the original dataset, cuts the effect of protest by about half. Protest is no longer statistically significant in eight out of nine combinations of outcome variables and protest measures. The size of the effect remains trivial when we shift analysis from the county to the individual level. Even accounting for the individual’s own education, the county’s proportion of college graduates is strongly associated with racial liberalism. This finding emphasizes the importance of education as a contextual variable. Our conclusion highlights two methodological lessons. First, causal inference should be paired with sustained historical inquiry that specifies plausible mechanisms. Second, statistical tests for sensitivity can induce complacency about the risk of confounding

The Relationship of Leadership Quality to the Political Presence of Civic Associations

Member-based civic associations, or citizen groups, have two crucial roles in American democracy. They advocate for members' interests in the public arena, but also operate as Tocquevillian “schools of democracy” linking citizens to politics and equipping them with the skills of democratic citizenship. Yet scant research has examined the interrelationships of these two roles. Does the work that civic associations do in developing democratic participants enhance the work they do advocating for members' interests in the public arena? We bring together two previously disparate strands of research on civic associations by arguing that a key factor affecting the political presence of civic associations is leadership quality. We focus on the relationship of leadership quality to political presence, using data from a unique 2003 study of 226 local entities of the Sierra Club. We show that organizations with more skilled and committed leaders have higher levels of political presence. This contrasts with previous research that has focused primarily on community context and resources as explanatory factors. This study shows that political presence is related to the extent to which leaders develop their skills and demonstrate commitment to the organization

Group Threat and Policy Change: The Spatial Dynamics of Prohibition Politics, 1890–1919

The authors argue that group threat is a key driver of the adoption of new and controversial policies. Conceptualizing threat in spatial terms, they argue that group threat is activated through the joint occurrence of (1) proximity to threatening groups and (2) the population density of threatened groups. By analyzing the adoption of county and state "dry laws" banning alcohol from 1890 to 1919, they first show that prohibition victories were driven by the relative strength of supportive constituencies such as native whites and rural residents, vis-à-vis opponents such as Irish, Italian, or German immigrants or Catholics. Second, they show that threat contributed to prohibition victories: counties bordering large immigrant or urban populations, which did not themselves contain similar populations, were more likely to adopt dry laws. Threat arises primarily from interactions between spatially proximate units at the local level, and therefore higher-level policy change is not reducible to the variables driving local policy

Effectiveness In Civic Associations: Leader Development, Member Engagement And Public Influence In The Sierra Club

For much of our history, civic associations have served as schools of democracy for the millions of Americans to whom they taught leadership skills, democratic governance and public engagement. Civic associations rooted in a membership to whom they are accountable, in governance by elected leaders, and in a commitment to public advocacy not only make claims on public officials but teach the practice of democracy itself by engaging citizens in working together on common goals. In fact, many have argued that the recent trend replacing such associations with professional advocates and professional service providers has eroded valuable civic infrastructure (Putnam, 2000; Skocpol, 2003). But not all civic associations are in decline. Some continue to thrive as they develop leaders, engage their members and influence public life—and afford scholars the opportunity to learn why they work when they do

Leadership, Membership, and Voice: Civic Associations That Work

Why are some civic associations more effective than others? The authors introduce a multidimensional framework for analyzing the effectiveness of civic associations in terms of public recognition, member engagement, and leader development. Using original surveys of local Sierra Club organizations and leaders, the authors assess prevailing explanations in organization and movement studies alongside a model highlighting leadership and internal organizational practices. Although available resources and favorable contexts matter, the core findings show that associations with more committed activists, that build organizational capacity, that carry out strong programmatic activity, and whose leaders work independently, generate greater effectiveness across outcomes

The science of contemporary street protest: new efforts in the United States

Since the inauguration of Donald Trump, there has been substantial and ongoing protest against the Administration. Street demonstrations are some of the most visible forms of opposition to the Administration and its policies. This article reviews the two most central methods for studying street protest on a large scale: building comprehensive event databases and conducting field surveys of participants at demonstrations. After discussing the broader development of these methods, this article provides a detailed assessment of recent and ongoing projects studying the current wave of contention. Recommendations are offered to meet major challenges, including making data publicly available in near real time, increasing the validity and reliability of event data, expanding the scope of crowd surveys, and integrating ongoing projects in a meaningful way by building new research infrastructure

A Preliminary Study of CO2 Flux Measurements by Lidar

A mechanistic understanding of the global carbon cycle requires quantification of terrestrial ecosystem CO2 fluxes at regional scales. In this paper, we analyze the potential of a Doppler DIAL system to make flux measurements of atmospheric CO2 using the eddy-covariance and boundary layer budget methods and present results from a ground based experiment. The goal of this study is to put CO2 flux point measurements in a mesoscale context. In June 2007, a field experiment combining a 2-m Doppler Heterodyne Differential Absorption Lidar (HDIAL) and in-situ sensors of a 447-m tall tower (WLEF) took place in Wisconsin. The HDIAL measures simultaneously: 1) CO2 mixing ratio, 2) atmosphere structure via aerosol backscatter and 3) radial velocity. We demonstrate how to synthesize these data into regional flux estimates. Lidar-inferred fluxes are compared with eddy-covariance fluxes obtained in-situ at 396m AGL from the tower. In cases where the lidar was not yet able to measure the fluxes with acceptable precision, we discuss possible modifications to improve system performance

The Candida albicans transcription factor Cas5 couples stress responses, drug resistance and cell cycle regulation

We thank Cowen lab members for helpful discussions. We also thank David Rogers (University of Tennessee) for sharing microarray analysis of the CAS5 homozygous mutant, and Li Ang (University of Macau) for assistance in optimizing the ChIP-Seq experiments. J.L.X. is supported by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Doctoral award and M.D.L. is supported by a Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellowship (Wellcome Trust 096072). B.T.G. holds an Ontario Graduate Scholarship. C.B. and B.J.A. are supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Foundation Grants (FDN-143264 and -143265). D.J.K. is supported by a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases grant (1R01AI098450) and J.D.L.C.D. is supported by the University of Rochester School of Dentistry and Medicine PREP program (R25 GM064133). A.S. is supported by the Creighton University and the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services (LB506-2017-55). K.H.W. is supported by the Science and Technology Development Fund of Macau S.A.R. (FDCT; 085/2014/A2). L.E.C. is supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Operating Grants (MOP-86452 and MOP-119520), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council (NSERC) of Canada Discovery Grants (06261 and 462167), and an NSERC E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship (477598).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Higher harmonic anisotropic flow measurements of charged particles at 2.76 TeV with the ALICE detector

We report the measurements of elliptic flow $v_{2}$, as well as higher harmonics triangular flow $v_{3}$ and quadrangular flow $v_{4}$, in $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}} =$ 2.76 TeV Pb--Pb collisions, measured with the ALICE detector. We show that the measured elliptic and triangular flow can be understood from the initial spatial anisotropy and its event--by--event fluctuations. The resulting fluctuations of $v_{2}$ and $v_{3}$ are also discussed.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, proceeding of Strangeness in Quark Matter 2011, Cracow, Polan