| While self-help/mutual-aid has become a part of our national culture, and its presence recognized in the social science literature, little is known about the socio-economic, and political, forces shaping the growth and decline of self-help/mutual-aid in the United States. Lack of a theoretically informed framework results in failure to systematically explain social processes influencing the pattern of growth and decline among self-help/mutual-aid organizations.; This dissertation research combines institutional ecology and social movement perspectives to answer the question: What organizational, ecological, socio-economic, and political factors influence self-help/mutual-aid formation and disbanding? To do so, this study reformulates institutional ecology's density-dependence hypothesis by operationalizing the mechanism of legitimation and competition, and respecifying the model, through which organizational density is expected to shape population vital rates. In addition, social movement elements such as governance regimes, political entrepreneurs, and social and economic policies are predicted to shape population vital rates.; Longitudinal data for 589 self-help/mutual-aid organizations, drawn from sources such as The Encyclopedia of Associations, Index Medicus, and Congressional Information Service, covering the period 1955–2000, were used to address the research question.; Results of hypothesis testing were mixed. Statistical analyses show that, consistent with prior research, the rate of self-help/mutual-aid founding and disbanding is a curvilinear function of organizational density, but, unexpectedly, not always a function of organizational legitimation and competition. Growth in the size of the self-help/mutual-aid population (density) influences the extent to which self-help/mutual-aid gains recognition (legitimation) among medical, academic, political, and popular authorities which results in accelerated founding rates, but does not reduce the likelihood of organizational disbanding. Surprisingly, competition does not inhibit self-help/mutual-aid formation, but, as expected, it does increase the likelihood of organizational disbanding. Socio-economic and political forces, such as professional hegemony and affiliation, and disposable income, have a significant influence on self-help/mutual-aid founding rates, (overwhelming the individual effects of density, legitimation and competition), but these factors do not account for self-help/mutual-aid disbanding.; Overall, the introduction of social movement elements into an institutional ecology framework provides a deeper understanding of societal-level processes that lead to new configurations of organizations in the community-based health and human services sector. |
