3 The influence of organizational structure, membership composition and resources on the survival of poor people’s social movement organizations

摘要: The Citizens’ Action Program (CAP), an organization founded with the intention of building cross-cutting alliances between various community and interest groups across Chicago, was the last organizing project started by Saul Alinsky before his death in 1972. The CAP, like many groups formed on the original model of the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), built alliances through thick organizing networks used to develop consensus on broad-based issues, which would unite diverse constituencies. Originally formed as the Campaign Against Pollution, the group fought and won in its early struggles for better air quality and better regulation. Becoming a city-wide organization with a focus on local community interests, the group restructured into the CAP, with the intention of mitigating the relative powerlessness of small, local organizations based primarily on face-to-face ties; such an organization would hold the …