The Role of Leadership and Strategy in Navigating Political Incorporation: Defining a Niche for Human Relations in Orange County, California, 1971–2000

Abstract

Political incorporation represents an important and complex trajectory for social movements. Whether that trajectory leads to favorable substantive outcomes or merely to formalistic representation within the polity depends in part on the strategic decisions made by leaders. We have few frameworks, however, for understanding their role in navigating incorporation. This research presents a “niche definition” framework emphasizing strategic differentiation and articulation across political actors in distinct institutional locations sharing common goals. It focuses attention on leaders' efforts to identify and exploit unique resources and leverage made available through incorporation. Overall, the framework emphasizes the potential for collective strategy and cooperative interorganizational dynamics, thereby expanding possibilities for favorable outcomes of political incorporation. The framework is illustrated through a case study of the Orange County (California) Human Relations Commission from its creation in 1971 to 2001. I trace the long-term challenges and consequences of incorporation through leaders' definition of successive niches.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Research was funded in part by a doctoral dissertation improvement grant from the National Science Foundation (SBR-9802035). I would like to thank the following individuals for generous comments on the manuscript: Leslie Bunnage, Valerie Jenness, Deana Rohlinger, and David Smith, as well as the editor and anonymous reviewers from TSQ. Also, an early draft benefited from presentation at the Social Movement/Social Justice Workgroup at the University of California, Irvine.

NOTES

Notes

¹ As Gamson (1990:140) states most clearly: “The central difference among political actors is captured by the idea of being inside or outside of the polity. Those who are inside are members whose interest is vested—that is, recognized as valid by other members. Those who are outside are challengers.”

² The organizations were predominantly private organizations and were most often known as race relations committees, community relations committees, or civic unity committees. During the war era and the immediate postwar era, they were most actively promoted by the American Council on Race Relations (e.g., ACRR 1945, 1946, 1948). After the war, the federal government also promoted them to some extent (President's Committee on Civil Rights 1947). For a brief contemporary perspective on the organizations, see McWilliams's (1951:17–22) assessment of their legacy.

³ The commission became dominated by activists partly because of the logic of incorporation but also because leadership composition was shaped by active recruitment. One early chairperson explained that commission members knew when positions opened, so they could encourage and assist other activists to apply for nomination. Moreover, the nature and intensity of the work only attracted committed activists.

⁴ In the early 1990s, when state funds were made available through the courts to carry out dispute resolution training, the OCHRC applied for and was awarded one of several grants in the county. California passed the Dispute Resolution Programs Act (DRP) in 1986. Orange County first allocated funds in the 1990s. By the end of the decade, the DRP was handling well over 1,000 mediation/conciliation cases annually, and staff members were training hundreds of persons throughout the county.

⁵ McAdam (1988) observed that trend in his study of the biographical consequences of activism. Specifically, many ex-Freedom Summer activists entered social service and other public institutions, importing their desire for social change into those institutions.