A Dynamic Model of Member Participation in Interest Groups

We know a great deal about how and why interest groups form, why individuals choose to give their time and resources to political organizations, but we know very little about why they stay in these organizations, if, in fact, they tend to. Are participation rates by members constant over time, or do they decline? If the trend is towards decline, why does participation decline and what types of members are more likely to participate less over time? In this paper I use a data set on weekly meetings of members of a charter school advocacy organization to track participation by the entire member population for five years, beginning at the time of the organization's creation. I find that participation does decline over time, but original members participate longer, as do those whose interests are more clearly aligned with the group's positions