Positive collaboration: Factors and mechanisms of evolution

Abstract

T is proposed in the article to distinguish between two types of collaboration: a positive (not directed against third parties) and a negative one. I consider the hypothesis that in the process of social development, transaction costs ratio of the three main types of coordination - competition, power, and collaboration - is changing in favor of the latter. The mechanisms responsible for the implementation of this tendency are studied, and an attempt to explain its nonmonotonicity is made. It is shown that the strengthening role of positive collaboration is largely explained by cultural changes: the enhance of tolerance culture, the spread of cosmopolitanism and altruism, increasing planning horizon as well as trust radius. I demonstrate the importance of the institutions of positive collaboration in the process of catchingup development; it is shown that shock reforms could lead to the formation of negative collaboration mechanisms. For the further development of these ideas, a program of interdisciplinary researches is outlined.