Page 158 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

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Environmental Advocacy 18:0
This“secondtypeofmembership”didnotpaydues,anddidnotconsider
itself attached to the organization in the way that traditional members
did. But they were sufficiently interested to seek opportunities for polit-
ical learning and engagement; they were a new resource to be exploited
by the organization.
Other environmental organizations were making similar discoveries
at the same time. Defenders of Wildlife designated the Internet a “high
priority” by 2000, and one official reports that “every part of the orga-
nization is involved” in its Internet-based information system. Like ED,
grassroots lobbying had also not been an important part of Defenders’
strategyuntilthetechnologicalrevolutionofthelate1990s.Thesamewas
true of the World Wildlife Fund, which had little experience in grassroots
political action prior to taking on Internet-based communication.
By 2001, ED, Defenders, and World Wildlife Fund were each operating
with two distinct classes of membership. They used various terms for the
new class, calling them “activists” or “in-kind members.” These citizens
would find a group’s web site and express an interest in some particular
issue the organization was working on, but would limit their association
to that. In many cases, these loosely affiliated citizens are politically cen-
trist and did not identify themselves even as environmentalists, let alone
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as formal members of the organization. Instead of the kind of support
for an environmental agenda that characterizes traditional members,
these affiliates were often defined by a single concern. Because of their
moderate political orientation and unwillingness to become involved in
a sustained way, the potential pool of affiliated citizens are sometimes
called “lite-greens.”
An official of the World Wildlife Fund claims that his organization
thinks of traditional members and the new class of affiliates as equals,
even though the latter do not pay dues. 80 The fact that the affiliates
can be mobilized in service of one of the fund’s goals gives them their
political standing. Defenders of Wildlife has made a strategic decision

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This thin form of membership is not entirely novel, especially at Environmental
Defense. A large number of traditional “members” of the Environmental Defense
Fund understood themselves chiefly to be donors, rather than formal members of a
group or organization. See Putnam, Bowling Alone. The new form of membership is
intriguingbecauseitexpandsthesizeofthemembership,removingtheonehistorically
important connection, namely, donations, but at the same time introducing more
possibilities for actual political participation through the organization’s mobilization
efforts.
80
Anonymous official, World Wildlife Fund, personal interview by Joe Gardner for the
author, May 22, 2000, Washington, D.C.
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