LAUSR

ABSTRACT The literature on Tea Party activity is a debate between structuralist and culturalist interpretations of the movement’s macro-processes – its origin and meanings – that neglects the micro-processes of organizing Tea Party activity (meetings, rallies, and so on). To address that gap, this article presents the results of a six-year ethnographic comparison of Tea Party chapters in Western North Carolina, focusing on the role of chapter leaders. It finds that these leaders are best understood through micro-process theories that locate them on the border between two different arenas: a national context in which elite-driven advocacy groups seek policy change, and their local context of citizen activism. Chapter leaders’ ability to control the flow of messaging from national organizations to members, and the reverse flow of member activity to different causes, affords them space for agency to pursue idiosyncratic agendas. Like other social movements, the Tea Party is not solely determined by larger social forces, but instead created by interaction between a variety of inter-connected actors.