SOCIAL-MOVEMENT INSIDERS - THE IMPACT OF INSTITUTIONAL ACTIVISTS ON AFFIRMATIVE-ACTION AND COMPARABLE WORTH POLICIES

We challenge the assumption within resource mobilization theory that p olity members and social movement activists are distinct entities by o ffering the concept of ''institutional activists.'' Institutional acti vists are social movement participants who occupy formal statuses with in the government and who pursue social movement goals through convent ional bureaucratic channels. Using regression analyses we examine the impact of institutional activists and social movement organizations (S MOs) on the comprehensiveness of two U.S. state policies: affirmative action, pursued by the civil rights movement; and comparable worth, pu rsued by the women's movement. We find that SMOs were decisive in adop tion of affirmative action, but not comparable worth policies. In cont rast, institutional activists were important for the passage of compar able worth but not affirmative action policies. These findings suggest that resource mobilization theory would better capture the impact of social movements on policy outcomes by recognizing activists who work as insiders on outsider issues.