8
these organizations respond to a common, pressing political issue. This study adds nuance to
previous studies, further tapping the community component that is inherent in any instance of
collective action where SMOs is active.
The nature of the survey-based inquiry here, rare among SMO and interest group research,
demands the articulation of more specific hypotheses. For this we draw on the interest group
literature, which has closely examined the inner dynamics of membership group decision making (as
opposed to institutional decision making) (e.g., Salisbury 1984). In essence, the public presence of
interest groups depends on the satisfactory provision of benefits to members from an entrepreneur
(e.g., Olson 1965; Salisbury 1969; Wilson 1995). Initially it was posed that the benefits offered were
not related to the political positions and actions of the organization, meaning members and leaders
of an organization may not agree on the positions taken by the organization (Olson 1965). This
point has been eased since the initial formulation, particularly because of the inclusion of non-
economic groups, such as churches and public interest groups.
Several factors characterizing MOs alter this framework. MOs are typically small, exist
almost solely in face to face encounters, and elect a leader from among themselves whose fortune is
not tied to the success or failure of the group. Decisions about the nature of the benefit exchange, as
well as the political positions taken (if any), are made collectively instead of independently by the
leadership. The two are likely to be linked, of course, so that the organization may not choose to act
politically if attempting to do so would dissolve the organization due to disagreement in the ranks.
In these organizations of religious professionals, that disagreement may be over issue positions, but
also over the propriety of engaging in political issues.
MOs are also different from run-of-the-mill interest groups in that the membership leads,
and perhaps represents (Djupe and Gilbert 2003), other organizations – that is, churches. Clergy
interests, then, are not so much solely personal, as assumed in the interest group literature, as they
Convention