Understanding Activism and Civic Engagement

Hahrie Han has written How Organizations Develop Activists: Civic Associations and Leadership in the Twenty-First Century (Oxford UP, 2014). Han is associate professor of political science at Wellesley College. She has previously written Groundbreakers: How Obama’s 2.2 Million Volunteers Transformed Campaigns in America.

Han’s book explores the world of activism, and the role organizations play in mobilizing and organizing people. She makes the provocative argument that organizations vary in whether they simply want to mobilize community members or whether they want to transform them into activist leaders. Only certain organizations devote the resources to the time-consuming process of transformation. What makes Han’s book so interesting is the way it straddles the disciplinary concerns of political science with some practical lessons and advice for organizations. The audience for this book, thus, is wide.