Continuing the Collective Action Dilemma

Abstract

Group populations take many different types of actions in order to influence government, but how those actions are received depends on the traits of group populations. This article uses data on national-level voluntary associations in the United States from 1974 to 1999 to investigate group survival and discuss how it affects representation. The results demonstrate the existence of density dependence, significant positive effects for group-level resources, group-level characteristics, and government attention on group survival. These findings also include counterintuitive significant negative effects for public attention suggesting that increases in public attention lead to group replacement rather than group survival.