User:Bam05e/mobilizationdraft

Mobilization (Sociology)
Through complicated interaction of organizational and environmental factors, people as well as groups have the ability to progress towards success and prosperity, or to mobilize. Mobilization is the widely used to describe, through social interactions, how individuals and social groups(such as Americans, women, etc) strive and achieve Status Attainment. Or in other words "mobilization is a process in which a social unit gains relatively rapidly in control of resources it previously did not control." [Etziono, 2003: 243] The study of mobilization may have focus in many areas depending on the resources being focused on. Resources may be military, economic, political or psychological.

"The concept first was used to refer to the shifting of resource control from private-civilian to public-military hands. More recently it has been applied to a society’s or some other collectivity’s deliberate change in the control of other resources, such as new nations’ mobilization for development, regional organizations’ mobilization for political unification, and the civil rights movement’s mobilization of apathetic citizens." [Etziono, 2003: 243] All forms of mobilization have two major factors in common. They entail a transformation of the social unit involved and increase the unit’s ability to act collectively. "Mobilization, like policy making, social planning, and other related concepts, implies a preference for theoretical conceptions which recognize emergent properties of collectivities above and beyond those individuals." [Etziono,2003: 244]

In this respect Mobilization is viewed as "a project deliberately initiated, guided, and terminated, and not simply as a by product or outgrowth of ‘interaction’ among social units or as a summation of the decisions of myriad participants." This is not that there are no unintended consequences or that the actor is in full control, but there is collective action. All change involved is in part intended. [Etziono,2003]

"Mobilization in itself has a cost, that is, some resources are used up to mobilize new resources. Under most conditions, mobilization has a marginal rising cost."[Etziono,2003: 244]  While every social unit has a mobilization barrier, the barriers differ from culture to culture and from period to period. "The social science view stresses that high mobilization is rare, and that it is more realistic to compare actual levels of mobilization to each other rather than to the abstract notion of full mobility." [Etziono,2003: 245] "Even under crisis conditions, the notion of full mobilization is without foundation. Even high mobilization, in terms of the total amount of a collectivity’s or society’s resources, is rare.  From 1960 to 1965 the civil rights movement was greatly helped by a student movement of the North, but was actually not more than 5,000 students, or less than one out of every hundred, were involved.  Similarly in the South, only a small group was involved in the various sit-ins, demonstrations, and marches.  The point being that major societal changes are propelled by small changes in the level of mobilization."[Etziono,2003:246]

Mobilization during this period the goal was improving the status of African-Americans through the provision of educational, economic, and social welfare services. The various movements of the time- civil rights, women’s rights, antiwar, New Left and countercultural- were indicative of an open environment for social action that was unmatched in U.S. history.[Minkoff,1999]

"The effect of mobilization is determined only in part by the amount of resources made available for the collective usage. Mobilization often precedes attempts to produce a change either in the relations between two units or among the sub-units that make up a given unit." [Etziono,2003: 248]

"The concept of mobilization is often found in discussions of modernization. Here it is widely associated with the transition of control of resources from sub-societies to national units." [Etziono,2003:248] There is however "much to modernization that is not mobilization, particularly the use of the resources mobilization has made available.  Similarly, there are mobilization processes that do not lead to modernization, such as resources that are built up and used for war."[Etziono,2003: 248]

Sociologists are increasingly interested in the political response of populations experiencing economic downturns. Conceptual development of Mobilization, however, remains limited. Structural mobilization can be extended by considering how determinants are contingent on household and gender related factors and how they operate during periods of economic downturn. [Lobao & Meyer, 2003]

A study by Katherine Meyer and Linda Lobas of Ohio State University, outlines mobilization of US farmers during the 1980’s in connection to political and economical factors. [Lobao & Meyer, 2003]

Resource Mobilization theory provides a starting point for conceptualizing political response to economic crisis."It recognizes that although grievances may be ambiguous mobilization is not."[Lobao & Meyer, 2003: 160] The interest is in maximizing personal and collective goals and social structural openings or political opportunities that affect timing and location of mobilization. [Lobao & Meyer, 2003]

Need to extend includes "bases of action related to gender and the household and to political behaviors that reflect more comprehensive responses." [Lobao & Meyer, 2003: 160] The findings show that political action, particularly conventional behaviors, emerges in households that make multiple adjustments to hardship, where ties with supportive others are strong and where family members are affiliated with organizations. Individuals are impacted by economic restructuring differently, according to household characteristics.[Lobao & Meyer, 2003: 160]

"Economic mobilization can be discussed under three main headings: (1) a survey of the normal economy in action and its potential for military effectiveness, (2) the jobs to be done, the legislative authority needed, the agencies required to perform the jobs, the problems likely to be encountered and the procedures to be followed, in converting the civilian economy to a war economy; and (3) the reconversion to a peacetime economy. Each represents a major field of study."[McGuire,1951: 84]

Resources
Etzioni, Amitai. "Mobilization as a Macrosociological Conception." The British Journal of Sociology 3rd ser. 19 (1968): 243-253. 28 Oct. 2006.

Lin, Nan. "Social Networks and Status Attainment." Annual Review of Sociology 25 (1999): 467-87. 29 Oct. 2006.

Lobao, Linda, and Katerine Meyer. "Household, Gender, and Political Responses to Economic Downturn: Extending Theories of Mobilization." The Sociological Quartly 44 (2003): 159-178.

McGuire, Samuel H. "Economic Mobilization- a New Field of Study." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 278 (1951): 83-87. Jstor.

Minkoff, Debra C. "Bending with the Wind: Stategic Change and Adaptation by Women's and Racial Minority Organizations." American Journal of Sociology 6th ser. 104 (1999): 1666-1703. 28 Oct. 2006.