Collective Action Dilemmas Research Articles

What are the main barriers to smart energy information systems diffusion?

The aim of this study is to identify the main barriers to smart energy information systems (SEIS) diffusion. We used the grounded theory method (GTM), with its repetitive cycles, to develop a theoretical model that illustrates these barriers. As a starting point, we discussed the discrepancy between the potential and the actual status of smart energy information systems diffusion. Having conducted a literature review and 23 interviews, we discovered that the main barriers to SEIS diffusion are adoption costs, switching costs, a collective action dilemma, and a lack of business cases for all stakeholders. Our study contributes to the literature on IS-enabled smart energy solutions in the industrial sector by deriving propositions for SEIS diffusion and by developing a theoretical model of the main barriers to SEIS diffusion that explains the discrepancy between the advantages and the actual diffusion of such systems.

Strength in Diversity? Group Heterogeneity in the Mobilization of Grassroots Organizations

AbstractGrassroots groups often find that they need to manage issues of diversity along racial/ethnic, class, gender, religious, and/or citizenship lines, among several other axes of difference. There are strong reasons to expect that diversity is a benefit to such groups, especially in terms of coalition breadth and the widely held expectation that internal heterogeneity helps organizations to resolve collective action dilemmas. Nonetheless, a long tradition within sociological research sets out the expectation that group heterogeneity thwarts the formation of collective identities and group solidarity, and therefore limits the potential for effective organizing. With a particular emphasis on groups active in local community‐based organizing since the 1970s, we review studies on a variety of features of group diversity and their effects on mobilizing processes. We find that although researchers remain somewhat divided on these critical issues, the preponderance of evidence suggests that managing diversity poses significant challenges for grassroots organizing efforts. While these challenges may not easily be overcome, we point to a variety of cases in which group differences offered a significant asset to social change efforts.

Corruption in the aftermath of war: an introduction

‘Corruption in the aftermath of war’ brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars to enquire into the dynamics of corruption in post-conflict societies. This introduction discusses five themes, problematising and summarising key findings from the 10 articles included. First, we discuss the problems with the corruption concept, related to its moralising connotations and definitional vagueness, and propose viewing corruption as a collective action dilemma as a way of avoiding these moralising aspects. Second, we discuss post-conflict societies, and highlight the great varieties of ‘peace’ that that label can refer to. We suggest that the causes, dynamics and effects of corruption in post-conflict societies bear many similarities with those in other societies, but that the post-conflict situation often generates an intensification and entrenchment of corruption-related problems. Third, we analyse the dynamics between international interveners and domestic actors, and show the contradictions and tensions in international–domestic relations. Fourth, we argue that the inter-linkages between inequality, mistrust and corruption deserve consideration in the study of post-conflict societies, and that inequality in particular merits more attention. Finally, we discuss some methodological challenges encountered by the contributors in their studies of corruption in post-conflict societies.

Fear or Greed? Duty or Solidarity? Motivations and Stages of Moral Reasoning

As institutional economists recognize the limits of the canonical self-interest assumption, the lack of a theory of human valuation specifying the determinants of individuals’ utility judgments renders the prediction of behavior in collective action dilemmas virtually impossible. This problem hinders our ability to devise institutions to help cope with a variety of pressing social dilemmas that persist. We suggest that scholars can overcome this difficulty by integrating models of sociocognitive and moral development into the framework of institutional analysis and that such integration aligns with a new revolutionary shift in the social sciences. This shift is evidenced by the “rehabilitation” of key notions once downplayed due to the dominance of positivism. We present results from hypothesis testing linked to a cognitivist-developmental theory of human valuations. These results demonstrate that cooperative motivations and choices in public goods provision dilemmas are associated with further stages of interior development of the participants. We conclude that institutions addressing choices in morally relevant conflicts of action should be designed to promote swifter movement of individuals along the path of interior growth.

Intergovernmentalism and Its Limits: Assessing the European Union's Answer to the Euro Crisis

The Lisbon Treaty has institutionalized a dual constitution, supranational in the single market’s policies and intergovernmental in (among others) economic and financial policies. The extremely complex system of economic governance set up for answering the euro crisis has been defined and implemented on the basis of the intergovernmental constitution of the EU. The euro crisis has thus represented a test for the validity of the intergovernmental constitution of the Lisbon Treaty. Although the measures adopted in the period 2010-2012, consisting of legislative decisions and new intergovernmental treaties, are of an unprecedented magnitude, they were nevertheless unable to promote effective and legitimate solutions for dealing with the financial crisis. In the context of an existential challenge, the intergovernmental approach faced a structural difficulty in solving basic dilemmas of collective action.

Polarizers or landscape groomers? An empirical analysis of party donations by the 100 largest German companies in 1984–2005

What can donation strategies tell us about corporate political preferences, as seen from the perspective of power resource and varieties of capitalism theories? This article tests six hypotheses within an Olsonian framework for corporate donations to political parties with new data from the 100 largest German firms between 1984 and 2005. The findings reveal that only a minority of firms donate, and donation amounts are surprisingly small given the financial assets of these companies, which suggests the presence of a collective action dilemma with small selective and arguably larger collective benefits. Management ties between firms are an important way of making firms overcome the collective action dilemma. Firms distribute their donations if any – mainly on the right side of the political spectrum, particularly if the firms are personally interwoven with other large companies or if they are family owned. However, some firms, particularly those belonging to the automobile sector, donate across the political spectrum.

Self-Organization for Collective Action: An Experimental Study of Voting on Sanction Regimes

Entrusting the power to punish to a central authority is a hallmark of civilization, yet informal or horizontal sanctions have attracted more attention of late. We study experimentally a collective action dilemma and test whether subjects choose a formal sanction scheme that costs less than the surplus it makes possible, as predicted by standard economic theory, or instead opt for the use of informal sanctions (IS) or no sanctions. Our subjects choose, and succeed in using, IS surprisingly often, their voting decisions being responsive to the cost of formal sanctions. Adoption by voting enhances the efficiency of both IS and non-deterrent formal sanctions. Results are qualitatively confirmed under several permutations of the experimental design.

Boundary organisations for resource mobilisation: enhancing citizens’ involvement in the Dutch energy transition

New social movement organisations in the Netherlands, which aim at accelerating the Dutch energy transition through assisting (local) citizens’ initiatives, claim to be part of a new type of environmental movement. Using a conceptual framework that combines resource mobilisation theory with insights from other political and social theories, the characteristics and discourse of six of these organisations are investigated, especially as regards the role of government. As they consider knowledge a critical resource and link (new) knowledge to local action, these are considered to be ‘bottom up’ social movement boundary organisations (SMBOs). How they conceive of their boundary role and to what extent they are prepared to challenge the dominant knowledge framework of the Dutch energy-related institutions are considered. The institutional barriers and collective action dilemmas they face, and how these might be overcome, are discussed.

The Institutional Collective Action Framework

Institutional collective action (ICA) dilemmas arise from the division or partitioning of authority in which decisions by one government in one or more specific functional area impacts other governments and/or other functions. The focus on externalities of choice in fragmented systems integrates multiple research traditions into a conceptual system to understand and investigate collective dilemmas ubiquitous in contemporary governance arrangements. The mechanisms for mitigatingICAdilemmas are classified according to their scope and enforcement. Incentives to participate in a mechanism are hypothesized to favor mechanisms that provide the greatest gain for the least cost under different conditions of collaboration risk as determined by the nature of the underlyingICAproblem, the compositions of affected jurisdictions, and institutional contexts. After reviewing empirical applications of the framework, an agenda to advance the theoretical and empirical development of theICAapproach is advanced.

Intergovernmentalism and Its Limits

The Lisbon Treaty has institutionalized a dual constitution, supranational in the single market’s policies and intergovernmental in (among others) economic and financial policies. The extremely complex system of economic governance set up for answering the euro crisis has been defined and implemented on the basis of the intergovernmental constitution of the EU. The euro crisis has thus represented a test for the validity of the intergovernmental constitution of the Lisbon Treaty. Although the measures adopted in the period 2010-2012, consisting of legislative decisions and new intergovernmental treaties, are of an unprecedented magnitude, they were nevertheless unable to promote effective and legitimate solutions for dealing with the financial crisis. In the context of an existential challenge, the intergovernmental approach faced a structural difficulty in solving basic dilemmas of collective action.

Marine informational governance, a conceptual framework

Marine governance involves interaction between networks and actors from different types and levels of organizations. The concept of multi-level or network governance steps away from the assumptions that supra-national and national government at the macro level is the dominant policy making unit. At all levels information is crucial, among others to overcome social dilemmas of collective action in marine resource use and management. In this paper theories of multi-level governance, of collective action, of trust and of information economics will be linked to the idea of the increasing importance of information, information technologies and information processes in environmental governance, which is termed ‘informational governance’. This linking of theories and concepts results in a new and innovative framework to better understand the changing role of information in marine resource management, enterprises, institutions and actual practices of governance. The framework will help to investigate the effectiveness of informational governance in solving problems related to marine resources.

Book review: James Habyarimana, Macartan Humphreys, Daniel N Posner, and Jeremy M Weinstein, Coethnicity: Diversity and the Dilemmas of Collective Action

Book review: James Habyarimana, Macartan Humphreys, Daniel N Posner, and Jeremy M Weinstein, Coethnicity: Diversity and the Dilemmas of Collective Action

Helping to self-help? External interventions to stimulate local collective action in Joint Forest Management, Maharashtra, India

The governance of community forests requires that resource appropriators overcome collective action dilemmas. Often, forest communities appear unable to do this. External actors then present themselves to help. Inducing the organization of communities through external actors is common practice in development efforts in general, and in community forestry programs, in particular. Does external-agent involvement affect the likelihood of durable collective action at the local level? We apply criteria associated with durable collective action to six communities in Maharashtra, India, with varying levels of external-actor involvement in the organization of Joint Forest Management committees. Our results show that although there is a (weak) correlation between external-agent involvement and expected durability of local collective action, such interventions do not appear to straightforwardly lead to the emergence of durable forms of collective action in communities where it didn't previously exist.

Continuing the Collective Action Dilemma

Group populations take many different types of actions in order to influence government, but how those actions are received depends on the traits of group populations. This article uses data on national-level voluntary associations in the United States from 1974 to 1999 to investigate group survival and discuss how it affects representation. The results demonstrate the existence of density dependence, significant positive effects for group-level resources, group-level characteristics, and government attention on group survival. These findings also include counterintuitive significant negative effects for public attention suggesting that increases in public attention lead to group replacement rather than group survival.

Sabotaging Civil Service Reform in Aid-Dependent Countries: Are Donors to Blame?

Summary International development assistance has focused increasing resources on raising civil service capacity in low-income country administrations plagued by low pay, poor establishment controls, and the absence of merit-based human resource practice. At the same time, donors sabotage civil service capacity development over the longer term. Notwithstanding international accords calling on donors to curtail this behavior, collective action problems constrain donors from dismantling the projectized aid infrastructure that fragments government institutions. We identify practical implications of this collective action dilemma and explore alternative reform approaches. We examine an agency-level civil service reform (ACSR) in Cambodia, in comparative perspective, showing how strategic, incremental introduction of merit-based incentives yielded benefits in one ministry but faltered when the pilot was expanded to other agencies. To the extent that the accumulated ACSR experiences have achieved some , albeit limited, traction, they may offer a small but significant beacon for those seeking to move forward on civil service reform under difficult conditions.

Producing public goods in networks: Some effects of social comparison and endogenous network change

As actors participate in the production of public goods, processes of social comparison may affect the decisions about the individual contributions as well as the endogenously changing structure of an underlying social network. This leads to the transformation of an ordinary n-player Prisoner's Dilemma of collective action into an n-player coordination game. The paper uses agent-based simulations to trace the formation of public goods while varying network characteristics, such as density, segregation, or the strength of relationships. Additionally, the usage of both a forward- and a backward-looking agent model shows possible implications of different assumptions about the actors’ decision making.

Altruistic punishment and between-group competition : evidence from n-person prisoner's dilemmas.

Collective action, or the large-scale cooperation in the pursuit of public goods, has been suggested to have evolved through cultural group selection. Previous research suggests that the costly punishment of group members who do not contribute to public goods plays an important role in the resolution of collective action dilemmas. If large-scale cooperation sustained by the punishment of defectors has evolved through the mechanism of cultural group selection, two implications regarding costly punishment follow: (1) that people are more willing to punish defecting group members in a situation of intergroup competition than in a single-group social dilemma game and (2) that levels of “perverse” punishment of cooperators are not affected by intergroup competition. We find confirmation for these hypotheses. However, we find that the effect of intergroup competition on the punishment of defectors is fully explained by the stronger conditionality of punishment on expected punishment levels in the competition condition.

Book Review: James Habyarimana, Macartan Humphreys, Daniel N Posner and Jeremy M Weinstein, Coethnicity: Diversity and the Dilemmas of Collective Action

Book Review: James Habyarimana, Macartan Humphreys, Daniel N Posner and Jeremy M Weinstein, <i>Coethnicity: Diversity and the Dilemmas of Collective Action</i>

Public Happiness as the Wealth of Nations: The Rise of Political Economy in Naples in a Comparative Perspective

The paper surveys the rise of political economy in eighteenth-century Naples in a comparative perspective. It presents several arguments: first, that far from being a passive receptor, Naples was a producer of ideas about political economy that complemented other currents of thought in Europe; that the contribution of Antonio Genovesi was at the core of the intellectual development in Naples; that the progress of science and arts in Naples did not constitute a sharp break with the past; and, finally, that thinkers like Genovesi created a credible alternative to both the Hobbesian view of human nature and the Scottish model of political economy associated with Adam Smith. Genovesi’s attention to how cooperation can be created to overcome collective-action dilemmas adds to our knowledge of the archeology of modern rational choice theory, while his emphasis on public happiness has been given renewed significance in light of recent recognition that increases in wealth do not necessarily produce individual happiness or life satisfaction.

Counterterrorism strategies in the lab

We conduct experiments to test the collective action dilemmas associated with defensive and proactive counterterror strategies. Defensive policies are associated with creating public ‘bads' (e.g., a commons) whereas proactive policies are akin to the voluntary provision of public goods. When combined, the inefficiency of collective action is exacerbated, resulting in a situation known as a Prisoner’s Dilemma squared (PD2). Deterministic versus probabilistic equivalent versions of the associated externalities are compared within a laboratory setting. Experimental results reveal that the collective action problem associated with counterterror strategies is deepened in uncertain environments, and is indeed a robust regularity that is not easily overcome; as individuals gain more experience, they become even more self-interested.