There are various factors that can contribute to social movement involvement, and they are disputed among sociologists. There are multiple classical social theories of social involvement: 1) status inconsistency; 2) cumulative deprivation; 3) relative deprivation; 4) rising expectations; and, 5) isolation. According to the status inconsistency approach, people join d when they experience psychological tensions due to ascribed status (183). The cumulative deprivation model theorizes that the poor are most likely to join a social movement, although there is not efficient evidence to support this claim (186). Evidence does support the relative deprivation theory (187). This theory states that those who join social movements are most likely to come out of the middle class which has enough indigenous resources to sustain a movement and discontent with the current social structure. Other suggest that social movement involvement arose due to rising expectations (188). According to some theorists, social movement involvement occurs when people feel isolated, but these theorists lack all support (190).
Orum argues that the classical social theories of social movement involvement are insufficient because classical theorists focus on the psychological stress causes movement involvement, but there is evidence that hose who are subject to psychological stress are less likely to participate in a social movement (191). Classical social theorists believe that psychological stress is the reason for participation where as modern social movement theories believe that those who participate in social movements are much more rational in their decision to join.
Orum believes that there are four separate mechanisms that lead to social movement involvement: 1) socialization; 2) deprivation; 3) political effectual; and, 4) mass society (196). First of all, people are socialized to join a movement (195). It is the environment that shapes an individual and makes them more or less likely to join a movement. Secondly, social movement participants are most likely to be relatively deprived (196). Participants are most likely to benefit from disturbing the class structure and have the resources to due so. Also, people who have participated in social movements before are most likely to do it again since they feel like change can occur (196). Finally, Orum believes that those who have time on their hands and unengaged are most likely to join a social movement (196).
Viterna explained how women were “pulled, pushed and persuaded” into joining the Salvadoran guerilla army (1). She argues that her theory applies to the other revolutionary social movements (39). Viterna comes to the conclusion that networks, biographical availability, and repression as key factors to social movement involvement. Most influential was the social networks that connected the women to the movement (36). The women would be more likely to participate if they had previous affiliation with the social movement. Women were also more likely to join a movement if they were single with no children. Viterna concludes that although other studies show that repression improves the likelihood of revolutionary involvement, her study did not find a correspondence. Instead, she determines that women are more likely to be reluctant or recruited members due to repression (39).
There are both high and low cost forms of social activism. According to McAdam: “the term ‘cost’ refers to the expenditures of time, money, and energy that are required of a person engaged in any particular form of activism” and “risk refers to the anticipated dangers – whether legal, social, physical, financial, and so forth- of engaging in a particular type of activity” (67). The factors leading to recruitment in these two very distinct environments differs.
Recruitment becomes much more complicated when dealing with a high risk environment. Due to the possibility of repercussions, those who become involved in a social movement with a high risk environment must be committed. McAdam argues that in order for a social actors to possibly join in high risk activism, they must first meet an activist and be introduced into the network. Then, the social actors must gain sympathy for the cause. Finally, they must role play being a activists by taking part in a rally and thus initiating role transformation. (70). Only after low risk involvement is a person likely to participate in a high risk environment. Mc Adam emphasizes that high risk social movement involvement is more likely to occur in people who are biographically available (70).
In a low risk environment, recruitment is not as difficult. People are likely to participate in a social movement in a low risk environment as long as they are receptive to the motives of the social movement (68). Since there is a low cost in joining a social movement, even those who are apathetic to the cause may join.
