Collective Action and Rational Choice: Place, Community, and the Limits to Individual Self-Interest

Abstract

AbstractDespite geographers' increasing concern with place-based politics, the effects of place-based social relations on collective political action remain largely untheorized. By emphasizing the free rider problem—why a rational, self-interested individual would engage in collective action when his/her impact is negligible and the benefits of collective action are public and free—rational choice theory correctly problematizes collective action. Its reliance on the essentialist homo economicus model of human nature, however, often leads to untenable solutions that do not consider nonstrategic forms of rationality, collective identity formation, and the crucial effects of place-specific social relations. Habermas's The Theory of Communicative Action, in contrast, provides a broader conception of rationality that recognizes communicative as well as strategic and instrumental forms of rationality and focuses on social interaction rather than on isolated individuals. Individuals reach common understandings, ...