Social movement organizations and coalitions: Comparisons from the women's movement in Buenos Aires, Argentina

Why are some social movement organizations (SMOs) more likely to participate in coalitions than other SMOs? Drawing on findings from a comparative study of 47 organizations in the women's movement in Buenos Aires, Argentina that were active during the first 20 years of the contemporary democratic period (1983–2003), I examine factors related to participation in coalitions. Using qualitative comparative analysis, I identify three paths for coalition participation that account for 90% of the cases where SMOs participated in coalitions. I find that SMOs cooperated with other groups when they engaged in confrontational protest, when they had broad goals and involved non-members in their work, or when they were inclusive and had a formal division of labor that made it possible to send representatives, as is often necessary in formal coalition work. Along with ethnographic evidence, these findings suggest that scholars should pay more attention to the combinations of organizational factors that influence coalition participation, and the strategic motivations, structural features, and cultural aspects of movement organizations that facilitate cooperation between SMOs.