The debate around Michels's ''iron law of oligarchy'' over the question of whether organizations inevitably become oligarchic reaches back almost a century, but the concept of oligarchy has frequently been left underspecified, and the measures that have been employed are especially inadequate for analyzing nonbureaucratically structured organizations. A conceptual model is needed that delineates what does and does not constitute oligarchy and can be applied in both bureaucratic and nonbureaucratic settings. Definitions found in the research are inadequate for two reasons. First, treating oligarchy solely as a feature of organizational structure neglects the possibility that a powerful elite may operate outside of the formal structure. A democratic structure is a necessary precondition, but it does not guarantee the absence of oligarchy. Second, studies that equate oligarchy with goal displacement and bureaucratic conservatism cannot account for organizations with radical goals that are nonetheless dominated by a ruling elite. This article presents a model that distinguishes between legitimate and illegitimate forms of formal and informal power to define oligarchy as a concentration of illegitimate power in the hands of an entrenched minority. The model is intended for use in organizations that are nominally democratic to determine whether a formal or informal leadership has in fact acquired oligarchic control. By providing a common framework for tracking fluctuations in the distribution and legitimacy of both formal and informal power, it is hoped that this model will facilitate a more productive bout of research on the conditions under which various forms of democratically structured organizations may be able to resist oligarchization.
The term prefigurative politics refers to a political orientation based on the premise that the ends a social movement achieves are fundamentally shaped by the means it employs, and that movements should therefore do their best to choose means that embody or “prefigure” the kind of society they want to bring about. On one level, this commitment to means–ends consistency reflects what Weber called a “value‐rational” logic of action, in which action is guided by values rather than instrumental efficiency. But a prefigurative orientation is motivated by more than a commitment to moral action in its own right; it has been pursued as an alternative to both vanguardist and structural‐reformist strategies for social change. Rather than looking to a revolutionary vanguard to seize existing power structures and implement revolutionary change on behalf of the masses or to trade unions or political parties to leverage reforms within the existing system, a prefigurative approach seeks to create the new society “in the shell of the old” by developing counterhegemonic institutions and modes of interaction that embody the desired transformation. In this sense, a prefigurative strategy is based on the principle of direct action, of directly implementing the changes one seeks, rather than asking others to make the changes on one's behalf.
It is axiomatic among scholars of participatory democracy that consensus-based decision making is inefficient, yet no study has systematically assessed that claim. This article examines the efficiency of consensus decision making in 12 social movement groups from the German autonomous and nonviolence movements. Data were analyzed from 62 semistructured interviews regarding how long it took each group to make a typical decision and what types of decisions were the easiest and most difficult to make. A measure of inclusiveness was included to determine whether efficiency was attained by silencing dissent. Most decisions were made in less than two hours. Factors were identified that distinguished more and less efficient groups.
This article reports key findings from in-depth interviews with undergraduate students returning from international service trips (ISTs). These interviews examined students’ perceptions of social change activities and assessed students’ affinity toward service and activism independently as well as the perceived relationship and interaction between the two. Using an identity project model, we argue that far from being complementary, service and activism may act as competing identities with service being preferred. We further argue that ISTs can incorporate and model a broader range of civic engagement activities to help students better understand the different approaches taken to enacting social change. In particular, we call for the deliberate incorporation of strategic activist skill-building, and discussions of the history and ideology of activism within ISTs.
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