Lara Rusch ~ 2
Introduction
This paper is part of a larger research project examining the capacity of urban
churches to support community organizing for local and regional political change (Rusch
2008). That project considers the ways that external context (in this case, post-industrial,
segregated Detroit) has shaped recent organizing efforts, both motivating and
constraining church involvement in a regional multiracial coalition. The research draws
on scholarship that critiques apolitical understandings of social capital and describes
social capital as reflecting existing power arrangements (Booth and Richard 1998a;
1998b; DeFilippis 2001; Edwards and Foley 1998; Foley and Edwards 1996). In the
dissertation I argue that social capital can behave as both a potential asset and a liability
for democratic social change. Toward that larger argument, this paper focuses on the
interaction of organizers and their practices with participating churches, bringing to light
internal dynamics that affect actors’ ability to draw on their bonding institutions for
political action.
What can the organizing process tell scholars about the political capacity of
community institutions, such as churches? In the decades since Saul Alinsky founded the
Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), community organizers have developed and honed the
process of organizing to prioritize relational methods and leadership building from within
congregations. Scholars and practitioners of “congregation based community organizing”
(CBCO) have detailed these relational strategies (Osterman 2002; Rogers 1990; Warren
2001; Wood 2002). Organizers have found that purposeful relationship building and
leadership training can develop agency in people otherwise marginalized from politics.
Convention