A Two-Stage Model for a Two-Stage Process: How Biographical Availability Matters for Social Movement Mobilization

In: Mobilization: the international quarterly review of social movement research, Band 11, Heft 3, S. 219-240

Abstract

We model differential participation in protest as a two-stage mobilization process: willingness to engage in protest & conversion of willingness into participation. Treating mobilization as a two-stage process resolves an important puzzle in the literature on differential participation: the lack of constraining effects for biographical unavailability. Using a nationally representative sample of individuals in the United States, we find that while our measures of biographical unavailability have no effect on the second stage of the mobilization process (converting willingness to protest to actual behavior), they show robust negative effects on the first stage of the mobilization process, removing people from the pool of willing protest participants. We also find that gender moderates the relationship between some of our measures of biographical unavailability-particularly marital status-& protest willingness. Tables, Figures, References. Adapted from the source document.