Walsh, Edward and Rex Warland. "Social Movement Involvement in the Wake of a Nuclear Accident: Activists and Free Riders in the TMI Area". American Sociological Review, Vol.48, No.6 (1983): 764-780.

Walsh, Edward and Rex Warland. "Social Movement Involvement in the Wake of a Nuclear Accident: Activists and Free Riders in the TMI Area". American Sociological Review, Vol.48, No.6 (1983): 764-780.

• Dr. Mansur Olson argues, contrary to most sociologists, that collective interests is not enough of a reason for a group to mobilize. A small group of people may be motivated by this, but most people requires rewards beyond collective interests to join an interest group (764).
• Many other scholars in the field of Sociology have criticized the extend of the 'free-rider problem' as described by Dr. Olson, claiming that a more significant number of people can be mobilized through urgent collective interest (765).
• Another prominent group in Sociology which draws on Dr. Olson's work is the field of resource mobilization, which borrows his idea that most people are not driven by altruism. Instead, these scholars argue that most people in social movements will be mobilized by friendship groups or organizational ties, not by their own self-interest (765).
• This study provides qualified support of Dr. Olson's views on the prominence of free-riding in social movements, although it does not replicate his hypothesis on the reason for this disparity (778).
• In March 1979 more than 150,000 residents of communities near Three Mile Island [TMI], Pennsylvania, were evacuated after a major leak at the TMI nuclear reactor. After a few weeks all residents were allowed to return. On May 1979 a major anti-nuclear protest attracted 200,000 participants, followed up by a presidential committee on the incident, and sporadic protests against the restart of the reactor (766).
• Using the aftermath of the nuclear meltdown at TMI, the authors monitor the levels of social participation among different groups, and assert that free-riding is much less prevalent than Dr. Olson suggested (766-767).
• The authors test 5 different hypotheses on the levels and reasons for public involvement in social movements following the TMI disaster (767).
• The First Hypothesis suggests that most citizens will be free-riders on the actions of a few citizen activists, as predicated by Dr. Olson (767).
• Hypothesis Two predicts that self-interest -- namely the ability to profit from public goods without expending resources through participation -- should explain the vast majority of free-riding behavior predicted by Dr. Olson (767).
• The Third Hypothesis expects that activists in social movements should have many more relationships in solidarity with other activists than the free-rider population (767).
• The Fourth Hypothesis predicts that the pre-incident political views of activists will incline them to participation in the anti-nuclear movement, while free-riders were less likely to hold those political views prior to the incident (767).
• Hypothesis Five suggests that activists will report higher levels of specific grievances regarding the TMI incident than the general population (767).
• Studies of this kind face a great deal of trouble in defining the difference between 'activists' and 'free-riders', with many forms of support not cleanly fitting into either categorization. The authors settle on a division between those 'activists' who are part of structured social organizations versus, free-riders who support certain goals but are not part of an organized response (768).
• The author discuss the methodology of the study and data-collection methods, primarily data from social organizations combined with interviews of relevant individuals, from page 768 to page 769. Other relevant data collected during the study is available from page 770 to page 772.
• Despite the salience of the TMI incident to local politics -- leaving only 5% of residents undecided on the issue -- the levels of free-riders were extremely high, with 87% of those opposing and 98% of those support the reopening of the TMI facility acting as free-riders (772).
• The lack of prominent anti-nuclear movements in Pennsylvania prior to the incident shows that the TMI incident did have an effect on mobilize anti-nuclear movements, but the data presented also shows that even those directly affected by the meltdown were unlike to join social movements (772-773).
• Difference did exist in the social ties maintained by activists versus the general population. Those who joined social movements were likely to have more connections outside of the affected community, and perhaps indicate a certain kind of 'instigator' personality (774-775).
• Results did not clearly vindicate the Second Hypothesis, but instead demonstrated that free-riders had a variety of reasons for not participating in social movements, with only 25% acting as self-interested agents. The most common reason, at over 25% was a lack of awareness of active social movements (773-774).
• Activists for anti-nuclear social organizations were much more likely to identify as liberal, and more likely to have help anti-nuclear views prior to the incident compared to the population of free-riders (775). The activists were also more political involved and aware than the general population prior to the incident (776).