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associations promote political activism because members are susceptible to mobilization
by their own, as well as other group leaders… is basically anecdotal” (1996, 447).
Leighley (1996) uses data collected from members and leaders of 459
organizations, and partially overcomes the problem of inadequate data. Like Pollock, she
theorizes that organizations promote participation both intentionally and unintentionally.
She defines intentional mobilization as the frequency with which the group recruits its
rank and file to participate in politics. Unintentional mobilization is defined as the
respondent’s level of activity within the group adjusted for the group’s openness to
member involvement. A third factor is taken into account as well: member incentives for
joining the group. Both intentional and unintentional mobilization are shown to impact
five non-voting forms of participation, and intentional mobilization by group leaders is
constrained by member incentives. Unintentional mobilization is not similarly
constrained. As predicted, members appear to simply “pick up” and “practice” skills
relevant to democratic politics, regardless of their reasons for involvement in the group.
Leighley provides the most direct evidence for the two theories. But her data is
confined to a single group membership for each set of respondents (members and
leaders). And although she accounts for the frequency of recruitment recounted by group
leaders, other forms of group-based recruitment are not considered. Moreover, she
models the participatory decision for non-voting acts only. Where Rosenstone and
Hansen conceptualize and test recruitment broadly, Leighley conceptualizes and tests
narrowly.
Convention