The Population Ecology of Interest Group Death: Gay and Lesbian Rights Interest Groups in the United States, 1945–98

Abstract

An event-history analysis of the disbandings of nationally active gay and lesbian rights advocacy groups in the United States for the period 1945-98 is presented. Specifically, the hypothesis (which comes from population-ecology theory) is tested that the survival prospects of gay and lesbian rights interest groups are related non-monotonically to the number of groups in the population (i.e., density). The statistical analyses presented support the hypothesis: as density rises from near zero to high, the death rate first decreases but eventually increases. Several other hypotheses are also tested, and among the findings is the following: the survival prospects of gay and lesbian rights interest groups are related non-monotonically to group age -as group age increases, a group's probability of death first rises but then decreases.

Survival in local voluntary associations

“…This pattern has been reproduced in studies of labor unions (Hannan and Freeman, 1988) and gay and lesbian groups (Nownes and Lipinski, 2005). However, research on voluntary organizations has not always corroborated these results.…”

“…Later it was demonstrated that the liability of newness is often really a liability of adolescence (Bruderl and Schussler, 1990;Fichman and Levinthal, 1991;Nownes and Lipinski, 2005). The personal or financial assets that people have invested in the organization make them reluctant to give up right away.…”

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Past analyses of organizational failure and success include studies of traditional social movements (Sandell, 2001;Stern, 1999), interest organizations Lowery, 1995, 1997;Haider-Markel, 1997;Nownes and Lipinski, 2005), and new social movements (Edwards and Marullo, 1995;Minkoff, 1993Minkoff, , 1997. Most of these, however, focus exclusively on factors outside the organization' s control or on organizational design and strategy.

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Interest organizations across economic sectors: explaining interest group density in the European Union

“…However, there is an important caveat here. Even in cases with near infinite resources, at some point the number of interest organizations will stop growing because the marginal utility of ever more specialized interest organizations declines with density (Lowery andGray 1995, Nownes andLipinski 2005). In other words, the growth of the number of organizations depends on the pre-existing density of organizations in an economic sector.…”

Comparing Populations of Interest Organizations: Skating on Thin Ice?

“…The design of each of the abovementioned studies guarantees some variation in the context in which groups operate. In the examples cited, this variation is at the level of the policy issue or legislative proposal, but there are also large-n, explanatory studies with cross-country (Rasmussen 2010) or time series designs (Fisker 2013, Nownes& Lipinski 2005. The large majority of studies do not choose a country comparison.…”