Professionalization in Social Movement Organization: A Case Study of Pennsylvanians for Biblical Morality

This paper is a report on a state chapter of Moral Majority, in which I analyze the professionalization of this social movement organization. Discussed are the structural conditions that influenced professionalization and the implications of such an organizational structure for tactical decisions, using the organization's anti-abortion campaign as an example. I conclude that the ideological nature of the social movement organization's grievances and its political and organizational environments helped to induce professionalization. As a result of these conditions and of the organizational structure itself, the social movement organization adopted the tactics of issue selection and lobbying to achieve its goals.