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Collective action
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Collective action refers to action taken together

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by a group of people whose goal is to enhance

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their status and achieve a common objective.[1] It

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is enacted by a representative of the group.[2] It is

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a term that has formulations and theories in many

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Positivism Antipositivism Postpositivism
Functionalism Conflict theories
Social constructionism Structuralism
Interactionism Critical theory
Structure and agency Actornetwork theory

Contents
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1 The social identity model
1.1 Perceived injustice

Tools

1.2 Perceived efficacy

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Methods

1.3 Social identity

Quantitative Qualitative Historical

Mathematical Computational Ethnography
Ethnomethodology Network analysis

1.4 Model refinement

2 Public good
2.1 Collective action problem

Subfields

2.2 Exploitation of the great by the small

2.3 Institutional design
2.3.1 Joint products
2.3.2 Clubs

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2.3.3 Federated structure

3 In philosophy
4 See also
5 Footnotes

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6 Bibliography

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The social identity model

Espaol

[ edit ]

Vte

Researchers Martijn van Zomeren, Tom Postmes,

Portugus
Svenska

and Russell Spears conducted a meta-analysis of over 180 studies of collective action, in an
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attempt to integrate three dominant socio-psychological perspectives explaining antecedent

conditions to this phenomenon injustice, efficacy, and identity.[3] In their resultant 2008 review
article, an integrative Social Identity Model of Collective Action (SIMCA) was proposed which
accounts for interrelationships among the three predictors as well as their predictive capacities
for collective action.[3] An important assumption of this approach is that people tend to respond

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to subjective states of disadvantage, which may or may not flow from objective physical and
social reality.

Perceived injustice

[ edit ]

Examining collective action through perceived injustice was initially guided by relative
deprivation theory (RDT). RDT focuses on a subjective state of unjust disadvantage, proposing
that engaging in fraternal (group-based) social comparisons with others may result in feelings of
relative deprivation that foster collective action. Group-based emotions resulting from perceived
injustice, such as anger, are thought to motivate collective action in an attempt to rectify the
state of unfair deprivation.[3] Meta-analysis results confirm that effects of injustice causally
predict collective action, highlighting the theoretical importance of this variable.[3]

Perceived efficacy

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Moving beyond RDT, scholars suggested that in addition to a sense of injustice, people must
also have the objective, structural resources necessary to mobilize change through social
protest. An important psychological development saw this research instead directed towards
subjective expectations and beliefs that unified effort (collective action) is a viable option for
achieving group-based goals this is referred to as perceived collective efficacy. Empirically,
collective efficacy is shown to causally affect collective action among a number of populations
across varied contexts.[3]

Social identity

[ edit ]

Social identity theory (SIT) suggests that people strive to achieve and maintain positive social
identities associated with their group memberships.[4] Where a group membership is
disadvantaged (for example, low status), SIT implicates three variables in the evocation of
collective action to improve conditions for the group permeability of group boundaries,[2]
legitimacy of the intergroup structures, and the stability of these relationships. For example,
when disadvantaged groups perceive intergroup status relationships as illegitimate and
unstable, collective action is predicted to occur, in an attempt to change status structures for the
betterment of the disadvantaged group.
Meta-analysis results also confirm that social identity causally predicts collective action across a
number of diverse contexts. Additionally, the integrated SIMCA affords another important role to
social identity that of a psychological bridge forming the collective base from which both
collective efficacy and group injustice may be conceived.[citation needed]

Model refinement

[ edit ]

While there is sound empirical support for the causal importance of SIMCAs key theoretical
variables on collective action,[3] more recent literature has addressed the issue of reverse
causation, finding support for a related, yet distinct, encapsulation model of social identity in
collective action (EMSICA).[5] This model suggests that perceived group efficacy and perceived
injustice provide the basis from which social identity emerges, highlighting an alternative causal
pathway to collective action. Recent research has sought to integrate SIMCA with intergroup
contact theory (see Cakal, Hewstone, Schwr, & Heath[6]) and others have extended SIMCA

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through bridging morality research with the collective action literature (see van Zomeren,
Postmes, & Spears[7] for a review).

Public good

[ edit ]

The economic theory of collective action is concerned with the provision of public goods (and
other collective consumption) through the collaboration of two or more individuals, and the
impact of externalities on group behavior. It is more commonly referred to as Public Choice.
Mancur Olson's 1965 book The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of
Groups, is an important early analysis of the problems of public good cost.
Besides economics, the theory has found many applications in political science, sociology,
communication, anthropology and environmentalism.

Collective action problem

[ edit ]

The term "collective action problem" describes the situation in which multiple individuals would
all benefit from a certain action, but has an associated cost making it implausible that any
individual can or will undertake and solve it alone. The ideal solution is then to undertake this as
a collective action, the cost of which is shared. An allegorical metaphor often used to describe
the problem is "belling the cat".[8]

Exploitation of the great by the small

[ edit ]

Mancur Olson made the claim that individual rational choice leads to situations where individuals
with more resources will carry a higher burden in the provision of the public good than poorer
ones.[9] Poorer individuals will usually have little choice but to opt for the free rider strategy, i.e.,
they will attempt to benefit from the public good without contributing to its provision. This may
also encourage the under-production (inefficient production) of the public good.

Institutional design

[ edit ]

While public goods are often provided by governments, this is not always the case. Various
institutional designs have been studied with the aim of reducing the collaborative failure. The
best design for a given situation depends on the production costs, the utility function, and the
collaborative effects, amongst other things. Here are only some examples:
Joint products [ edit ]
A joint-product model analyzes the collaborative effect of joining a private good to a public good.
For example, a tax deduction (private good) can be tied to a donation to a charity (public good).
It can be shown that the provision of the public good increases when tied to the private good, as
long as the private good is provided by a monopoly (otherwise the private good would be
provided by competitors without the link to the public good).
Clubs [ edit ]
Some institutional design, e.g., intellectual property rights, can introduce an exclusion
mechanism and turn a pure public good into an impure public good artificially.

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If the costs of the exclusion mechanism are not higher than the gain from the collaboration,
clubs can emerge. James M. Buchanan showed in his seminal paper that clubs can be an
efficient alternative to government interventions.[10]
A nation can be seen as a club whose members are its citizens. Government would then be the
manager of this club.
Federated structure [ edit ]
In some cases, theory shows that collaboration emerges spontaneously in smaller groups rather
than in large ones (see e.g. Dunbar's number). This explains why labor unions or charities often
have a federated structure.

In philosophy

[ edit ]

Over the past twenty years or so analytic philosophers have been exploring the nature of
collective action in the sense of acting together, as when people paint a house together, go for a
walk together, or together execute a pass play. These particular examples have been central for
three of the philosophers who have made well known contributions to this literature: Michael
Bratman, Margaret Gilbert, and John Searle, respectively.
In (Gilbert 1989) and subsequent articles and book chapters including Gilbert (2006, chapter 7)
Gilbert argues for an account of collective action according to which this rests on a special kind
of interpersonal commitment, what Gilbert calls a "joint commitment". A joint commitment in
Gilbert's sense is not a matter of a set of personal commitments independently created by each
of the participants, as when each makes a personal decision to do something. Rather, it is a
single commitment to whose creation each participant makes a contribution. Thus suppose that
one person says "Shall we go for a walk?" and the other says "Yes, let's". Gilbert proposes that
as a result of this exchange the parties are jointly committed to go for a walk, and thereby
obligated to one another to act as if they were parts of a single person taking a walk. Joint
commitments can be created less explicitly and through processes that are more extended in
time. One merit of a joint commitment account of collective action, in Gilbert's view, is that it
explains the fact that those who are out on a walk together, for instance, understand that each of
them is in a position to demand corrective action of the other if he or she acts in ways that affect
negatively the completion of their walk. In (Gilbert 2006a) she discusses the pertinence of joint
commitment to collective actions in the sense of the theory of rational choice.
In Searle (1990) Searle argues that what lies at the heart of a collective action is the presence in
the mind of each participant of a "we-intention". Searle does not give an account of weintentions or, as he also puts it, "collective intentionality", but insists that they are distinct from
the "I-intentions" that animate the actions of persons acting alone.
In Bratman (1993) Bratman proposed that, roughly, two people "share an intention" to paint a
house together when each intends that the house is painted by virtue of the activity of each, and
also intends that it is so painted by virtue of the intention of each that it is so painted. That these
conditions obtain must also be "common knowledge" between the participants.
Discussion in this area continues to expand, and has influenced discussions in other disciplines
including anthropology, developmental psychology, and economics. One general question is

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whether it is necessary to think in terms that go beyond the personal intentions of individual
human beings properly to characterize what it is to act together. Bratman's account does not go
beyond such personal intentions. Gilbert's account, with its invocation of joint commitment, does
go beyond them. Searle's account does also, with its invocation of collective intentionality. The
question of whether and how one must account for the existence of mutual obligations when
there is a collective intention is another of the issues in this area of inquiry.

See also

[ edit ]

Collaborative innovation network

Collective intelligence
Collective intentionality
Common property resource
Constitutional economics
Coordination good
Free rider problem
Mass collaboration
Nash equilibrium
Pareto efficiency
Polytely
Prisoner's dilemma
Private-collective model of innovation
Public good
Social fact
Tragedy of the commons
Tragedy of the anticommons

Footnotes

[ edit ]

1. ^ "collective action problem - collective action"

2. ^

ab

. Encyclopedia Britannica.

Stephen C. Wright; Donald M. Taylor; Fathali M. Moghaddam (June 1990). "Responding to

Membership in a Disadvantaged Group: From Acceptance to Collective Protest". Journal of

Personality and Social Psychology. 58 (6): 9941003. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.58.6.994
3. ^

abcdef

van Zomeren, M.; Postmes, T.; Spears, R. (2008). "Toward an integrative social

identity model of collective action: A quantitative research synthesis of three socio-psychological

perspectives". Psychological Bulletin. 134 (4): 504535. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.134.4.504
PMID18605818

4. ^ Tajfel, H.; Turner, J.C. (1979). "An integrative theory of inter-group conflict. In W.G. Austin & S.
Worchel (Eds.)". The social psychology of inter-group relations. (pp. 33-47): Monterey, CA:
Brooks/Cole.
5. ^ Thomas, E.F.; Mavor, K.I.; McGarty, C. (2011). "Social identities facilitate and encapsulate
action-relevant constructs: A test of the social identity model of collective action". Group
Processes and Intergroup Relations. 15 (1): 7588. doi:10.1177/1368430211413619

6. ^ Cakal, H.; Hewstone, M.; Schwr, G.; Heath, A. (2011). "An investigation of the social identity
model of collective action and the 'sedative' effect of intergroup contact among Black and White
students in South Africa". British Journal of Social Psychology. 50 (4): 606627.

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Collective action - Wikipedia

doi:10.1111/j.2044-8309.2011.02075.x

. PMID22122025

7. ^ van Zomeren, M.; Postmes, T.; Spears, R. (2012). "On conviction's collective consequences:
Integrating moral conviction with the social identity model of collective action". British Journal of
Social Psychology. 51 (1): 5271. doi:10.1111/j.2044-8309.2010.02000.x

. PMID22435846

8. ^ Dowding, Keith (1996). Power. University of Minnesota Press. pp.31ff. ISBN0-8166-2941-2

9. ^ Olson, Mancur (1965). "logic of collective action: Public goods and the theory of groups".
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
10. ^ Buchanan, James M. (1965). "An Economic Theory of Clubs". Economica. 32 (125): 114.
doi:10.2307/2552442

Bibliography

. JSTOR2552442

[ edit ]

Bratman, Michael (October 1993). "Shared intention"

doi:10.1086/293577

. JSTOR2381695

. Ethics. Oxford Journals. 104 (1): 97113.

Dolata, Ulrich; Schrape, Jan-Felix (2015). "Masses, Crowds, Communities, Movements: Collective
Action in the Internet Age" . Social Movement Studies. ahead-of-print: 118.
doi:10.1080/14742837.2015.1055722

Gilbert, Margaret (1989). On social facts. London New York: Routledge. ISBN9780415024440.
Gilbert, Margaret (2006a). "Rationality in Collective Action"

. Philosophy of the Social Sciences. 36

(1): 317. doi:10.1177/0048393105284167

Gilbert, Margaret (2006). A theory of political obligation: membership, commitment, and the bonds
of society. Oxford Oxford New York: Clarendon Press Oxford University Press.
ISBN9780199274956.
Hardin, Russell (1982). Collective action. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
ISBN9780801828195.
Meinzen-Dick, Ruth Suseela; di Gregorio, Monica, eds. (2004). Collective action and property rights
for sustainable development

. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. 2020

Focus No. 11. Pdf.

Olson, Mancur (1965). The logic of collective action: public goods and the theory of groups.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN9780674537514.
Ostrom, Elinor (1990). Governing the commons: the evolution of institutions for collective action.
Cambridge New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN9780521405997.
Searle, John R. (2002), "Collective intentions and actions", in Searle, John R., Consciousness and
language, New York: Cambridge University Press, pp.90105, ISBN9780521597449.
van Winden, Frans (December 2015). "Political economy with affect: on the role of emotions and
relationships in political economics"

. European Journal of Political Economy. Elsevier. 40 (B):

298311. doi:10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2015.05.005
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