Collective Action Failure Research Articles

Opportunities and challenges of a community-based bull breeding programme: a case of the regional pastoral livelihood resilience project in Uganda

The Regional Pastoral Livelihood Resilience Project Community-Based Breeding Programme (CBBP) was designed with the objective of increasing production and productivity of local Zebu cattle by introducing Sahiwal bulls among sedentary and agro-pastoral livestock farmers. This study mapped out actors, their roles and level of influence in the CBBP as well as the opportunities and challenges encountered during its implementation using the Process Net-Map tool. The results revealed that there were differences in number and type of influential actors between sedentary and agro-pastoral livestock farmers. The bull host and subcounty veterinary officer were the most influential actors among the sedentary livestock farmers whereas it was the herdsman, bull host, and Community Animal Health Workers (CAHWs) among the agro-pastoral farmers. The CBBP was associated with benefits such as increased market value for cattle, reduced chances for cattle rustling, increased cattle productivity in terms of milk and beef production volumes and ease of access to veterinary services. In contrast, the challenges encountered were related to both governance (limited availability of veterinarians, cattle rustling, exclusion of farmers in the planning phase of the CBBP, political interference and failure of collective action) and bull management (high costs of keeping and maintaining the bulls in terms of feeding, housing, watering and veterinary care, heavy bulls injuring or breaking the small cows, sexually transmitted reproductive diseases among others). Lastly, this paper recommends adoption of a combination of well-organized and facilitated Artificial Insemination (AI) programmes alongside the improved bull service scheme as each has capacity to address the challenges of another.

The Failure of Constructive Collective Action When We Need It Most

The Failure of Constructive Collective Action When We Need It Most

Marginalizing Disorder: Paradoxical Tensions and the Failure of Local Collective Organizing

Using an in-depth qualitative field study of homelessness in the city of Eugene, Oregon in the United States over a 10-year period, I investigate the dynamics leading to the failure of long-term local collective action in resolving social issues. Despite waves of mobilizing, organizing, coordinating, and sometimes organizational and policy outcomes, many local societal issues such as homelessness, crumbled urban transits, and urban police violence, persist. I synthesize insights from social movements research, organizations, and crisis management to unpack how different forms of collective organizing emerge, evolve, sediment, and decay over decades. I analyze these localized long-term dynamics using a tensions-based lens to identify the conflict affecting collective organizing on three levels, socio-historical local discourse, tensions around the social issue, and tensions from collective organizing. These nested multi-level tensions shape and are shaped through the contentions between local communities and how power shifts between settled and disrupted times. I reveal these dynamics and the mechanisms sustaining them to induce a process for the long-term attenuation of local collective organizing.

COVID-19 and the Spanish Celtic Sea fishery: An economic analysis

The Celtic Sea fishing fleet is the largest offshore fleet segment in Spain. Over the last three decades, this fleet has experienced a decrease in its number of vessels. This negative trend was intensified by another disruptive factor: The COVID-19 pandemic. Spain, one of the European countries most affected by this pandemic, implemented restrictive strategies in the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis that also affected fishing activities. The aim of this article is to analyze the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on the profitability, revenues and employment of Spanish shipowning companies whose vessels operate in the Celtic Sea. Through a population sample of 64 companies, the performance of variables such as turnover, total assets, number of employees, return on assets, return on equity or profit margin before interest and taxes has been assessed. The results show a variation of − 25% in turnover, − 10% in the number of employees and − 80% in economic and financial profitability. This is a case of failure of collective action, in which the lack of a contingency plan at the public and private level accentuated the negative consequences of the pandemic, especially in the first state of alarm. In addition, a strong interdependence was detected between the catches of the most valuable species and the activity of the HORECA channel.

Towards a new model of global health justice: the case of COVID-19 vaccines

This paper questions an exclusively state-centred framing of global health justice and proposes a multilateral alternative. Using the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines to illustrate, we bring to light a broad...

Why is China struggling with waste classification? A stakeholder theory perspective

China has been struggling with waste classification for decades, even after the mandatory implementation of relevant policy in 2017. However, the causes of the failing performance of waste classification in developing countries attract little scholarly attention. To fill this gap, this paper addresses why China has been struggling with waste classification for decades by establishing a stakeholder theory framework using the indicators of influence, involvement, and interest to uncover the reality of waste management as well as complex interests among stakeholders. The factors hindering the implementation of waste classification policy, which result in the failure of public collective action, are identified. These factors include the established vagueness on the priority order of waste management from high-level governments, the policy implementation gap from grassroots-level governments, the powerful forces opposing waste classification from incineration enterprises, and the weak strength of formal resource recyclers and non-governmental organizations. This study contributes to presenting a realistic and comprehensive scenario with muti-agents of China's waste management.

A systematic review of the outcomes of sustained environmental collective action

Collective action plays a critical role in progressing efforts to protect the global environment. In this study we examined existing research that specified causal claims about the outcomes of sustained environmental collective action and analysed the collective action characteristics associated with the stated outcomes. Of the 640 studies identified in our literature search, 113 papers examined environmental collective action outcomes over a time period of one or more years. In total, 59 different environmental collective action outcomes were identified, including changing corporate/business practices (n = 16), achieving political outcomes (n = 12), fostering movement building (n = 8), development project-specific outcomes (n = 8), physical changes such as increased forest cover (n = 7), or changes in public opinion, values, or behaviours (n = 4). In terms of general outcomes (i.e., success of failure of environmental collective action) the most common outcome claimed was both success and failure (n = 44), followed by complete success (n = 37) and mostly failure (n = 18). All papers identified the use of normative collective action, while 36 papers mentioned non-violent non-normative action such as blockades and sit-ins. Across the dataset there was a lack of consistency in descriptive terminology, methodological approach and inclusion of empirical evidence in justifying causal claims. We close with recommendations for scholars’ best practices for advancing research into environmental collective action outcomes, namely: consistent terminology, mapping outcomes against goals, increased studies of failure, and diversifying studies in non-WEIRD contexts.

You Won't be My Neighbor: Opposition to High Density Development

Virtually every city in the United States bans multifamily homes in at least some neighborhoods, and in many cities most residential land is restricted to single family homes. This is the case even though many metropolitan areas are facing skyrocketing housing costs and increased environmental degradation that could be alleviated by denser housing supply. Some scholars have argued that an unrepresentative set of vocal development opponents are the culprits behind this collective action failure. Yet, recent work suggests that opposition to density may be widespread. In this research note, I use a conjoint survey experiment to provide evidence that preferences for single-family development are ubiquitous. Across every demographic subgroup analyzed, respondents preferred single-family home developments by a wide margin. Relative to single family homes, apartments are viewed as decreasing property values, increasing crime rates, lowering school quality, increasing traffic, and decreasing desirability.

Основи на съвременната икономика: Мансър Олсън и колективното действие

Mancur Olson (1932-1998) became famous with one great idea: the failure of collective action. Since interest groups provide their members with public (collective) goods with corresponding externalities, he assumed that free riding as a rational individual strategy would be a ubiquitous problem hampering the realization of efficient collective action in the provision of such goods. This remarkable idea – the application of methodological individualism and the assumption of rational individual behavior in the analysis of interest groups, provided a fertile ground for theory building in all social sciences, most notably in political science. In the field of economics, Olson’s ideas contributed to the establishment of the Public Choice Theory and became a prerequisite for fundamental research in experimental economics – on public goods, voluntary contribution mechanisms and games such as the prisoner dilemma. The present paper briefly discusses his two best-known books.

The Failure Factors of Collective Action in Promoting the Recognition of Customary Forest: Case of Kenegerian Rumbio Customary Forest in Riau Province

One of the five schemes in social forestry program in Indonesia is customary forest recognition. Kenegerian Rumbio Customary Forest, a customary forest in Riau Province, is failed in the recognition process. The objectives of this study are to analyze the failure factors of collective action and to formulate strategies to encourage the success of collective action on recognition of Kenegerian Rumbio Customary Forest. This research was built by using both quantitative and qualitative approach where the data were collected by using survey and in-depth interviews. The research results found that improper facilitation caused by communication issues between involved parties, the absence of the symbolic power, the failure in forming the common knowledge are the factors leading to the failure of collective action. To reconstruct the collective action, this study offered four strategies: (1) to frequently communicate with personal approach to the two highest indigenous leaders with whom facilitators have difficulty communicating well, (2) to mediate the two conflicted indigenous leaders for generating their motivation to propose their forest, (3) to conduct socialization to all indigenous leaders (40 jini) and community representatives to increase an understanding regarding the purpose and importance of recognition of customary forest, and (4) to conduct a participatory mapping to reduce area border issues among two sub-tribes.

Coastal Community Resilience and Power in the United States: A Comparative Analysis of Adaptability in North Carolina and Louisiana.

Community adaptations to increase resilience and reduce vulnerability depend on adaptability, which is constituted by how power shapes collective mobilization of differential capacities across scales and levels of governance systems. A multidimensional power framework (MPF) to track the role of power in adaptability is presented and applied in a qualitative, comparative case study of two historical fishing communities in the United States. The MPF conceptualizes power as differential capacities at the individual and group levels, structural at the policy level, and systemic, reflective of generalized norms, strategies, and technologies of political economic imperatives. The first case, Two Rivers, North Carolina represents an example of collective action failure resulting in transformation to a new resilience regime consisting of fundamentally altered community functions, structures, and identity. The second case, Delcambre, Louisiana represents collective action success; community adaptations resulted in continuity in change for fisher livelihoods. Success here is defined as the ability to maintain a semblance of structure, function, or identity of the original resilience regime without connotations of positive or negative desirability. The cases were similar in demographics, vulnerabilities, and differential capacities. Key differences existed in systemic political economic imperatives, structural power at the policy level, and the ways closure, the ability to enforce a common sense of place within the communities reflected systemic power. The utility of the MPF is mapping vulnerabilities and differential capacities against broader structures and systemic processes to inform effective mobilization for improved socio-ecological resilience and sustainability.

Buying time for democracies? European Union emergency politics in the time of COVID-19

Successive crises in the European Union have led critics to identify a pervasive tendency to emergency politics, where democratic deliberation gives way to policy decisions forced through by executive authority. By contrast, in this article it is argued that crises may stimulate deliberation and compromise, even when preceded by open conflict and an evident collective action failure. Drawing on a new dataset of 1759 policy-related actions covering the EU and its member states’ responses to COVID-19 between March and July 2020, the timing, sequencing and origins of policy claims and steps are traced. Both urgent epidemiological responses are found, where emergency measures were in evidence; and responses to anticipated economic challenges that had to overcome disagreement concerning necessary institutional reforms. The findings depict a multifaceted crisis response. The European Commission acted swiftly but also bought time for member state governments to deliberate. This casts doubt on the many-crises-one-script account of EU emergency politics.

The EU migration policy securitization process: from a domestic to a foreign dimension

This research addresses the foreign policy strategies of the EU after the 2015 refugee crisis. It investigates to what extent the EU migration policy is part of the European foreign policy. The paper outlines that collective action failure is not provided at the domestic dimension of migration policy and, that in order to overcome it, it is transferred to the external dimension of the EU. It argues that migration, previously considered being part of the state’s domestic affairs, transformed from the issue of domestic policy to the foreign one. Thus, the authors study the interconnection between migration and security as a key element for understanding this “foreignization” process. The development of close cooperation with third countries in the field of migration regulation has become one of the priorities of the overall migration policy of the European Union. However, the EU has not gained much success and migration crisis even more clearly indicated the need to develop an external dimension to the management of migration processes, but on a more pragmatic approach that would ensure the EU’s security interests. The basis for the external dimension of EU migration policy is relations with third countries and linking development assistance with security and border protection issues. The paper analyses EU parliamentary debates before and after the 2015 refugee crisis, by doing so, the interconnection between migration and security is assessed leading to a further understanding about the EU migration “foreignization process”.

Contending with the nature of climate change: Phenomenological interpretations from northern Wisconsin

In this study we conduct interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) of the narrative accounts of 17 community members who reside on the south shore of Lake Superior in northern Wisconsin regarding the experience of living amid climate change. We propose that there is a connection between the fundamental nature of climate change and the phenomenological nature of living with it, and that difficult emotions emerge from those experiences. Our analysis illustrates how feelings of helplessness and fear are entwined with not only experiences of ecological loss and living within harmful systems and structures, but also the experience of living with an awareness of the global scale and complexity of climate change. Participants narrate their understandings of the failure of collective action and the uncertainties surrounding the magnitude and timing of localized effects of climate change. While facing and processing difficult emotions that arise in relation to climate change can lead toward hope, renewal, and political and moral action, we propose that the nature of climate change challenges us to be more intentional about providing spaces for such transformations.

Investigating the invisible roots of a prevailing narrative of farmers’ failed collective action in Morocco

ABSTRACTIn rural areas in developing countries, the origin and persistence of prevailing narratives of failed collective action have often been explained by the existence of relations of domination. This article focuses on a case in which power relations alone cannot explain the persistence of a prevailing narrative. In a large-scale irrigation scheme in Morocco, farmers and staff from the regional agricultural development authority share the view that farmers lack the capacity to undertake successful collective action. This narrative influences public policies as well as the farmers’ self-esteem. It prevails despite rare communication between the farmers and the staff of the development authority and despite several successful examples of informal collective action at local scale. An analysis of the different actors’ discourses and of the farmers’ practices revealed the different underlying root causes of the narrative: (i) farmers and development authority staff overlook contextual factors, (ii) they confuse collective action with formal farmers’ organisations, (iii) the resistance of words where the actors describe a changed situation using the same words, and (iv) the nostalgia of the older generation for a strong state-managed scheme. As a consequence, actors consider that the failure of past collective action is the farmers’ fault, irrespective of the unfavourable context and the legacy of the past. Studies of prevailing narratives that are not simply linked to power relationships, should go beyond discourse analysis and focus on actors’ practices and on the origin of the narratives. Understanding the roots of prevailing narratives can also help challenging them.

A Global Map of Amenities: Public Goods, Ethnic Divisions and Decentralization

This paper presents a new global dataset on the geocode locations of public amenities, e.g., schools, hospitals or libraries, based on OpenStreetMap data. Volunteered geocoded information can be systematically incomplete; therefore, we develop and study two new proxies for the degree of completeness of OSM data in first-level administrative regions. Using our new data, we study the effects of decentralization and ethnic divisions on the provision of public amenities associated with various public goods. We find strong evidence for the existence of collective action failure at the subnational level worldwide. More autonomous regions with high degrees of ethnic fractionalization provide significantly fewer public amenities than others.

Shared latrines in Maputo, Mozambique: exploring emotional well-being and psychosocial stress

BackgroundApproximately 18% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s urban population relies on shared sanitation facilities, which are shared by one or more households. While there is growing recognition of sanitation’s relationship with stress and well-being – particularly among women – most research has focused on rural populations and the transition from open defecation and/or unimproved latrines to private shared sanitation. This study explores sanitation-related stressors among users of both improved and unimproved shared sanitation facilities.MethodsThis study was nested within the larger MapSan health impact trial (Trial Registration: NCT02362932). Participants were recruited from the control arm of the trial (Traditional Latrine (TL) users) and intervention arm, which received one of two improved shared sanitation facilities – Shared Latrines (SL) shared by up to 20 individuals and Community Sanitation Blocks (CSBs) shared by more than 20 individuals. Sampling was informed by a life stage perspective to reflect diversity in sanitation needs and experiences within the population. Data included 96 in-depth interviews, 7 focus group discussions, and 25 unstructured observations. Data collection and analysis followed a Grounded Theory approach, which was used to identify the key domains of sanitation-related stress among participants. A semi-structured tool was applied to all female interview transcripts to assess the frequency and severity of key stressors.ResultsParticipants reported stress due to: lack of safety; lack of privacy; disgust about the latrine condition; and collective action failure in terms of managing the latrine, often causing neighborhood conflict or unhygienic sanitation conditions. Fewer SL and CSB users reported specific stress domains and – with the exception of perceived safety – reported fewer severe stressors. The leading cause of stress reduction due to the intervention was decreased disgust followed by increased privacy and safety.ConclusionsOur data suggest that “improved”, shared facilities can reduce stress when proper maintenance and management systems are in place. Private, shared sanitation only had limited impact on users’ perceptions of safety, particularly at night, suggesting that safety concerns extend beyond the physical latrine structure. Our research demonstrates that factors including latrine location and neighborhood violence are important determinants of safety perceptions and corresponding psychosocial stress.

Assortment, but not knowledge of assortment, affects cooperation and individual success in human groups.

The success or failure of human collective action often depends on the cooperation tendencies of individuals in groups, and on the information that individuals have about each other’s cooperativeness. However, it is unclear whether these two factors have an interactive effect on cooperation dynamics. Using a decision-making experiment, we confirm that groups comprising individuals with higher cooperation tendencies cooperate at a higher level than groups comprising individuals with low cooperation tendencies. Moreover, assorting individuals with similar cooperation tendency together affected behaviour so that the most cooperative individuals tended to cooperate more and the least cooperative individuals cooperated less, compared to their behaviour in randomly formed groups. In line with predictions of evolutionary models of cooperation, there was a strong positive association between individuals’ cooperation tendency and success when groups were formed assortatively, whereas such association did not exist when groups were formed randomly. Surprisingly, information about group members’ cooperativeness in assorted groups had no effect on cooperation levels. We discuss potential explanations for why information about cooperativeness of others may be disregarded in certain circumstances.

Building up collective actions to qualify GIs

The paper deals with the analysis of behind the procedures for the recognition of a geographical indication (GI). More precisely, by applying a new theoretical perspective, based on structure-conduct-performance paradigm and on seven variables of collective action recently provided in literature, the article tries to explain possible failures of strategies of valorization of agricultural products based on GIs. The application of the selected methodology to a case-study in Italy is effective in showing the specific variables affecting the failure of collective action. Therefore, this methodology permits limits and obstacles to implement the virtuous circle of collective action to emerge. Moreover, it addresses possible normative solution aiming at acquiring a more prudential approach before applying for a GI recognition, in order to avoid possible failures.

China in Africa: What challenges for a reforming European Union development policy? Illustrations from country cases

During the past decade, the EU has introduced several reforms to make collective development policy more coherent and effective. At the same time, development exists alongside (and sometimes competes with) other policy fields, particularly in settings where the EU has strong economic interests. Reforms to EU external relations take place against a backdrop of rapidly intensifying economic and political relations between China and African countries, a debate often framed as increasing competition with the EU. This article argues that Chinese engagement in Africa poses challenges for the EU's development policy, but these differ considerably across African countries. We look at three country cases to show that China's increasing engagement with individual African countries does not cause EU collective action failures.