While women's issues groups have staked out varied interests, in 1992, 19
percent of them shared an ongoing interest in outcomes around the proposed
equal rights amendment and around Roe v. Wade ( 1973). Thirteen percent of
them acknowledged such interest in affirmative action, with nearly 12 percent
describing the 1988 Civil Rights Restoration Act as one of three federal laws
most important to them. It seems reasonable to recognize these redistributive
interests as central to the women's liberation movement (see Costain and Costain
, 1983, p. 214). Nor do these groups lobby alone. In keeping with their
centermost concerns, 9 percent of them cite National Organization for Women*
(NOW) as the group with which they most likely would collaborate, and 8
percent cite the American Association of University Women* (AAUW). Five
percent each cite the more specialized National Abortion Rights Action League*
(NARAL) and the National Women's Political Caucus* (NWPC)--this latter
suggesting continuing concern with electoral strategizing (see also Heblom,
1983, p. 37).

Women's issues groups can identify their adversaries as well as their allies.
Five and one-half percent nominate Operation Rescue* (OR) as one of three
groups opposing their interests, and nearly 4 percent, the National Right to Life
Committee* (NRLC) and Chamber of Commerce (CC). CC may be considered
an externality group; but OR and NRLC are themselves women's issues groups.
Robert Salisbury has found "friends and enemies" within a given issue arena,
highlighting the diversity that may emerge ( 1987, p. 1227). Unexpectedly, spe-
cialization in the women's issues arena is characteristically confrontational (cf.
Salisbury, 1987, p. 1229). But Salisbury makes the point that particular issues
arenas will structure issues groups in ways leading to particularized relations of
collaboration and opposition (p. 1230).

Proceeding at the level of the organization, this introduction first discusses
the agenda-setting process as described by a content analysis of the profiles
contained in this volume. It moves on to consider (1) social capital formation
through issue specialization and central political processes, by means of litiga-
tion and by virtue of entrepreneurial behavior; (2) mobilization of such bystander
publics as African American women by majority white women's issues groups,
and including male nonbeneficiary constituents and lesbian potential constitu-
ents; and (3) exchange relations between organizers and constituents that cut
across agenda items, exchange relations with isolated conscience constituents,
exchange relations within membership organizations, and exchange relations
owing to feminists.

In 1848 the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions was issued in Seneca
Falls, New York, from the first U.S. women's rights convention ( Griffith, 1984,
pp. 52-57). In 1983, 135 years later, the Seneca Falls National Women's Center
and Educational Institute (SFNWCEI) reissued the declaration, "to enable all

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