Edward Walker
Edward Walker
Professor & Chair
Office: 235 Haines Hall
Email: walker@soc.ucla.edu
Phone: 310-206-2918
Biography
Edward Walker is a sociologist interested in the political activities of corporations and social movements.
In current work, he focuses on social movements and business responses to public contention around climate change, sustainability, and the politics of energy extraction and distribution. This has included investigations into the anti-fracking movement and responses to it by firms and industries, how residents engage with fracking in their local communities, matters related to the natural gas industry surrounding utility connections to residential and commercial buildings, the sociology of subnational environmental policy, and also efforts by firms to move toward “net zero” emissions in the years ahead. His research on these topics appears in such venues as the American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Annual Review of Sociology, NPJ Climate Action, and American Behavioral Scientist.
He also interested in the ways that firms and industries mobilize in response to contention. Starting with his book Grassroots for Hire and earlier research, he has examined how firms, industries, and other organizations mobilize their stakeholders through both overt and covert (e.g., “astroturfing”) means. He continues to examine these topics in recent studies on how constituency-building strategies represent a double-edged sword for business sponsors, how firms or industry groups work to create “bootlegger and Baptist” coalitions, and how the use of illegitimate “astroturfing” strategies may harm trust in advocacy groups. This research appears in outlets including American Sociological Review, Academy of Management Review, Business & Society, Academy of Management Discoveries, and Social Currents.
Edward Walker is a former fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford and a former Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Scholar in Health Policy Research at the University of Michigan. He has won awards for his research including the Charles Tilly Award from the American Sociological Association (for Grassroots for Hire), in addition to multiple article awards from the American Sociological Association, as well as from the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA). His public commentaries have appeared in the New York Times and the Washington Post, and his research has received additional coverage in The Atlantic, Los Angeles Times, Time, San Francisco Chronicle, and other outlets. He also previously served as co-chair of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Net Zero Living.
Please see his personal homepage for links to articles and further information.
Publications
Books
Grassroots for Hire: Public Affairs Consultants in American Democracy. 2014. Cambridge University Press.
(Purchase: Amazon, Cambridge).
Democratizing Inequalities: Pitfalls and Unrealized Promises of the New Public Participation. 2015. NYU Press.
(edited with Caroline W. Lee and Michael McQuarrie).
(Purchase: Amazon, NYU Press).
Selected Articles
Walker, Edward T. and Ion Bogdan Vasi. Forthcoming. “Boosting Your Enemies to Garner the Sympathy of Friends: Evidence from Communication Strategies by a Contested Industry.” Social Problems.
Wen, Yuni, Edward T. Walker, and Lori Yue. Forthcoming. “By the People and for the People: Double-Edged Effects of Platform User-Mobilization on Public Policies.” Academy of Management Discoveries.
Vasi, Ion Bogdan and Edward T. Walker. 2024. “Subnational Environmental Policy: Trends and Issues.” Annual Review of Sociology.
Walker, Edward T., Tijs van den Broek, Anna Priante, and Michel Ehrenhard. 2023. “Patient-Activist or Ally? Assessing the Effectiveness of Conscience and Beneficiary Constituents in Disease Advocacy Fundraising.” Sociology of Health and Illness 45(8): 1652-1672.
Walker, Edward T. and Andrew N. Le. 2023. “Poisoning the Well: How Astroturfing Harms Trust in Advocacy Organizations.” Social Currents 10(2): 184-202.
Walker, Edward T. and Ion Bogdan Vasi. 2022. “Industry Repertoires: How Transgressive and Conventional Industry Associations Seek to Counter Contention.” American Behavioral Scientist 66(9): 1238-1262.
Walker, Edward T. and Lina M. Stepick. 2020. “Valuing the Cause: A Theory of Authenticity in Social Movements.” Mobilization 25 (1): 1-25.
Jerolmack, Colin and Edward T. Walker. 2018. “Please in My Backyard: Quiet Mobilization in Support of Fracking in an Appalachian Community.” American Journal of Sociology 124(2): 479- 516.
“‘No Fracking Way!’ Documentary Film, Discursive Opportunity, and Local Opposition against Hydraulic Fracturing in the United States, 2010 to 2013.” American Sociological Review 80(5): 934-59 (2015). (with Bogdan Vasi, John Johnson, and Hui Fen Tan).
“Signaling Responsibility, Deflecting Controversy: Strategic and Institutional Influences on the Charitable Giving of Corporate Foundations in the Health Sector.” Research in Political Sociology 21: 201-33 (2013).
“Putting a Face on the Issue: Corporate Stakeholder Mobilization in Professional Grassroots Lobbying Campaigns.” Business & Society 51(4): 619-59 (2012).
“Social Movements, Organizations, and Fields: A Decade of Theoretical Integration.” Contemporary Sociology 41(5): 576-587 (2012).
“Replacing Members with Managers? Mutualism among Membership and Non-Membership Advocacy Organizations in the U.S.”American Journal of Sociology 116(4): 1284-1337 (2011). (with John D. McCarthy and Frank R. Baumgartner).
“Legitimacy, Strategy, and Resources in the Survival of Community-Based Organizations.” Social Problems 57(3): 315-340 (2010, lead article) (with John D. McCarthy).
“Privatizing Participation: Civic Change and the Organizational Dynamics of Grassroots Lobbying Firms.” American Sociological Review 74(1): 83-105 (2009).
“Confronting the State, the Corporation, and the Academy: The Influence of Institutional Targets on Social Movement Repertoires.” American Journal of Sociology 114(1): 35-76 (2008). (with Andrew W. Martin and John D. McCarthy).
“Contingent Pathways from Joiner to Activist: The Indirect Effect of Participation in Voluntary Associations on Civic Engagement.” Sociological Forum 23(1): 116-143 (2008).
Awards & Grants
Awards
CASBS Fellowship, Stanford University (2021-22)
Best Article Award, ASA Collective Behavior and Social Movements Section (2016)
Best Article Award, ASA Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology Section (2016)
Charles Tilly Award for Best Book, ASA Collective Behavior and Social Movements Section (2015)
Outstanding Article Award, Honorable mention, Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (2014)
Faculty Fellowship Award, UCLA Center for American Politics and Public Policy (2014)
UCLA Faculty Career Development Award (2013)
Selected Grants
“Corporate Net Zero Goals for Decarbonization.” National Science Foundation (2023-25)(with Bodi Vasi)
“Sources and Impacts of the Movement for Corporate Political Accountability.” National Science Foundation (2018-21).
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Fellowship in Health Policy Research, University of Michigan, 2009-11.
“The Influence of Professional Grassroots Lobbying Campaigns on Civic and Political Engagement.” National Science Foundation Sociology and Political Science (2009).
“Democratizing Inequalities: Participation without Parity?” ASA Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline Grant (2009). (with Caroline W. Lee and Michael McQuarrie).
“A Proposal to Chronicle More Than a Decade of Change in a Sample of Neighborhood and Community Based Organizations.” Community Action Research Initiative, American Sociological Association Spivack Program in Applied Social Research and Social Policy (2007). (with John D. McCarthy).
