POWERFUL MOBILIZER

In my evaluation of the several constructs this blog has presented, I’ve used Eugene Meehan’s criteria.[1]  Those criteria were developed to analyze social science theories and models.  The criteria are made up of eight elements:  comprehension, power, precision, consistency or reliability, isomorphism, compatibility, predictability, and control.  I used the criteria to look at the three mental constructs I claimed can be used in choosing content for a civics curriculum.  Those three are the natural rights construct, the critical theory construct, and the liberated federalism construct (a.k.a. federation theory).  Each element of the criteria has a question which can be asked of any theory, model or construct; for example, using the criterion, comprehension, one can ask:  does the theory, model, or construct explain as many phenomena which are related to the area of concern as possible?  In my evaluation, given that I was concerned with a construct not to conduct academic research, but for curricular purposes, I added the criteria abstraction level and motivational level.  In this posting, I want to focus on one of Meehan’s criterion.  I am looking at power and revisiting the question:  does federation theory control its explanatory aspects by being valid and complete in its component parts and in the relations between those parts?

Using power, one can ask whether federation theory’s support of communal strategies is functional; that is, do groups that are noted for having viable bonds of partnership experience more efficacious performance?  This blog has dedicated a lot of space to describing these modes of operation.  I just completed a series of postings that reviewed change strategies that pick up on this view.  Those would be normative-re-educative strategies which I contend are based on federalist principles and values.  In short, I want to address whether such an approach is powerful.

Hahrie Han has recently looked at this concern.[2]  She conducted research on the effectiveness between transactional mobilizing and transformational mobilizing among community based organizations.  Transactional mobilizing relies more on reward and punishment strategies while transformational mobilizing relies on altering the attitudes, perceptions, biases, and even values of people to become active and effective community workers.  This latter technique gets at issues of legitimacy, reference, and expertise rather than punishments and rewards.  Using observations and interviews, she took a highly in-depth view of members in two national organizations.  The main independent variable was the level of engagement one could detect among the chapters of these organizations.  She distinguished high and low levels of engagements.  She then tested whether transactional or transformational techniques could be associated with each level.

Han found that transformational mobilizing was associated with high level engagement.  Most interesting is that the chapter that opted to develop transformational strategy was deemed more successful than the chapter that attempted to find talented and interested individuals as their main approach.  While in using transformational techniques was more expensive – especially in terms of time and effort – the results were characterized by organizational workers who exhibited higher levels of self-motivation for longer periods of time.  The organization’s “mobilizers,” who were charged with recruiting and used the transformative approach, would “allow people to self-select the level of activity they desire … [Organizers] seek to transform people’s interests as they recruit them for action.”[3]  In Han’s accounts of how each of the two types practiced recruitment, transactional mobilizers would seek those workers who would come to the organization ready to function.  On the other hand, transformational mobilizers would invest a great deal of time using one-on-one techniques to train and mentor individual workers so they could develop those leadership skills that could then operate independently within communal arrangements.  This “training” would emphasize the emotional and cognitive elements of a worker’s perspective.  In short, it would be of a normative-re-educative type of strategy.  A noted difference between the two approaches is that the transactional mobilizer type is more successful if highly talented and self-motivated personnel are recruited initially.  It also demands less time and effort to implement.  If people are self-motivated and can see themselves as determining such factors as time, they can be very productive at low costs; i.e., contributing to higher productivity.  Otherwise – and what is usually the case – higher levels of engagement are secured by implementing transformational mobilizing strategy.  In addition, while relying on promoting a communal sense and social capital, there is the added benefit that related attitudes, emotions, and values which are akin to healthier citizenship are enhanced.

I believe this research attests to the power of federalist values.  As such, it adds to the supportive literature that helps warrant the implementation of federation theory in our efforts to develop civics education curriculum.

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[1] Meehan, E. J. (1969). Explanations in social science: A system paradigm. Homewood, IL: The Dorsey Press.

[2] Han, H.  (2014).  How organizations develop activists:  Civic associations and leadership in the 21^st century.  New York, NY:  Oxford University Press.  AND thanks to Michelson, M. (2015).  Political Science Quarterly, Book Review, Fall, pp. 559-560.

[3] Ibid., p. 15.