Meta-organizations and other inter-organizational arrangements in the French women's cause field

This chapter examines how diverse inter-organizational arrangements coexist and interact within the French women's cause field. Drawing on meta-organization theory, research on women's and feminist organizations, and the sociology of social movements, it develops a field-level analysis of the organizational landscape of feminist collective action, encompassing numerous individual-based organizations and various inter-organizational arrangements, including both informalized inter-organizational networks and different types of meta-organizations. We argue that meta-organizations should be understood not in isolation, but in relation to the broader diversity of interorganizational arrangements that structure organizational fields. To account for this diversity, we approach organizational integration as a key analytical dimension for comparing and differentiating inter-organizational arrangements, and more specifically variations among meta-organizations. From this meta-organizational perspective, organizational integration can be assessed through elements such as the structuring role of the secretariat, the density of interdependencies between the meta-organization and its member organizations, the formalization of internal coordination, the meta-organization's ability to set common rules and ensure their enforcement among members, and its degree of collective actorhood.Building on qualitative data collected through interviews and the mapping of French feminist associations, we show how different types of activities and relationships with public authorities are associated with varying degrees of organizational integration and distinct forms of inter-organizational arrangements. More specifically, organizations engaged in formalized and ongoing relationships with public authorities are typically regrouped within meta-organizations, albeit with varying degrees of integration depending on their activities. Meta-organizations involved in public service provision are more likely to be strongly integrated, with substantial coordination and standardization among member organizations, whereas advocacy-oriented meta-organizations engaged in cooperative relationships with public authorities are more likely to take the form of weakly integrated meta-organizations. In contrast, advocacy-oriented organizations involved in more contentious and adversarial relationships with public authori ties, and often characterized by a strong reluctance toward formalized and hierarchical forms of organization, tend to rely on loosely coordinated and weakly formalized interorganizational networks rather than meta-organizations.By examining meta-organizations alongside other forms of inter-organizational arrangements at the field level, we contribute both to the study of feminist collective action and to meta-organization theory. More specifically, our analysis highlights organizational integration as a useful analytical lens for interpreting the heterogeneity of field-level organizational landscapes and variations among meta-organizations.