Collective Action Research Articles

Factors Influencing the Perceived Economic Benefits of Innovative Agri-Environmental Contracts

Continued innovation in contract design may enhance the delivery of agri-environmental climate public goods (AECPG), but barriers to adoption arise in terms of how farmers perceive the economic benefits. Therefore, this paper examines survey data from Ireland and the Netherlands to analyse whether land managers agree that results-based, collective action, value chain and land tenure contracts for the delivery of AECPG are understandable, applicable to their farm and economically beneficial. Using Probit models, we also identify groups of land managers who perceive the different contract types as being economically beneficial, and these findings can inform policymakers of farmer groups who need adequate consideration during the design of agri-environmental contracts. For example, greater incentives could encourage older farmers to enrol in results-based contracts in Ireland and value chain contracts in the Netherlands. We also find a link between contract duration and the perceived economic benefits of collective action contracts in both countries, with land managers in Ireland desiring a longer duration. We highlight that policymakers and land managers in Ireland could apply lessons from the design of agri-environmental contracts in the Netherlands, where they are more common and varied. Greater knowledge exchange between users and non-users of such contracts would also help bridge the gap between theory and practice in both countries.

Exploring the implementation of an educational film within antenatal care to reduce the risk of cytomegalovirus infection in pregnancy: A qualitative study

BackgroundCongenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection is a leading cause of sensorineural hearing loss and neuro-disability in childhood. In the absence of a licensed vaccine, adoption of hygiene-based measures may reduce the risk of CMV infection in pregnancy, however these measures are not routinely discussed with pregnant women as part of National Health Service (NHS) antenatal care in the United Kingdom (UK).MethodsAn exploratory qualitative study was conducted, underpinned by Normalization Process Theory (NPT), to investigate how an educational intervention comprising of a short film about CMV may best be implemented, sustained, and enhanced in real-world routine antenatal care settings. Video, semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants who were recruited using a purposive sample that comprised of midwives providing antenatal care from three NHS hospitals (n = 15) and participants from professional colleges and from organisations or charities providing, or with an interest in, antenatal education or health information in the UK (n = 15).FindingsMidwives were reluctant to include CMV as part of early pregnancy discussions about reducing the risk of other infections due to lack of time, knowledge and absence of guidance or policies relating to CMV in antenatal education. However, the educational intervention was perceived to be a useful tool to encourage conversations and empower women to manage risk by all stakeholders, which would overcome some identified barriers. Macro-level challenges such as screening policies and lack of official guidelines to legitimise dissemination were identified.DiscussionSuccessful implementation of education about CMV as part of routine NHS care in the UK will require an increase in awareness and knowledge about CMV amongst midwives. NPT revealed that ‘coherence’ and ‘cognitive participation’ between service members are vital to imbed CMV education in routine practice. ‘Collective action’ and ‘reflexive monitoring’ is required to sustain service changes.

U.S. physician burnout and the proletarianization of U.S. doctors: A theoretical reframing

We delve into the escalating issue of U.S. physician burnout, arguing its roots lie in the proletarianization of the U.S. medical profession—a transition driven by the loss of autonomy and control under the shadow of capitalist systems. This process, aligned with Marx's concept of proletarianization, sees physicians morph from independent practitioners to exploited workers within a wage-labor system controlled by a corporatized U.S. healthcare system. We contend that contemporary factors attributed to U.S. physician burnout—loss of control, emphasis on productivity, increased clerical demands, and a diminishing sense of work's meaning—are not novel but deeply ingrained in the medical profession's socio-historical fabric. By juxtaposing burnout with proletarianization, we highlight macro-level sources of strain and advocate for reevaluating physician work through Marxist theory and, in turn, extend the argument that addressing burnout necessitates moving beyond individual or organizational solutions to encompass broader socio-economic structures as seen through the lens of work exploitation. We conclude by discussing “class consciousness” among U.S. physicians and posit that collective awareness and action could pave the way for substantial reforms for the practice of medicine, the organization of medicine as a profession, and the burnout epidemic among U.S. physicians.

‘Against imposition, we defend education’: teachers’ movements against austerity and neoconservative reforms in the Spanish context

ABSTRACT Between 2011 and 2015, at the dawn of the global financial crisis, Spain went through severe austerity measures that led to social unrest and to the emergence of new expressions of collective action. In the educational field, teachers’ unions and grassroots movements organised against the neoliberal and neoconservative policies promoted by the central government and several regional governments. The case of the Teachers’ Assembly in the Balearic Islands is particularly relevant because it was a highly successful protest experience that triggered unprecedented social mobilisation and broad social support. Drawing on social movement theories and combining semi-structured interviews with document and media analysis, this study finds that the combination of alliance-building, disruptive collective actions, and framing processes was key to explaining the success of the social mobilisation.

Legitimacy and place leadership: responding to and recovering from disruption in regional soft spaces

ABSTRACT This article explores through interviews the influence of legitimacy on place leadership within regional soft spaces in England during the COVID-19 pandemic. Legitimacy is an important yet underexamined facet of place leadership. Employing a tripartite legitimacy framework – input, throughput and output legitimacy – we illuminate novel insights on the nature of legitimacy relationships at different boundaries of regional soft spaces and how they shape place leadership over time in a changing context. We further argue that political astuteness is vital for multi-hatting leaders within regional soft spaces to enable cross-boundary mobilisation for collective action in response and recovery from disruption.

Combating climate change through sustainable cattle ranching in the global south: The role of societal corporatism.

The contours of the collective action necessary to limit climate change remain difficult to discern. In this context, societal corporatist political processes, fueled by crisis narratives, have shown some promise as political devices for mobilizing people. Corporatist processes have, historically, brought political competitors like employers and labor unions together to negotiate compacts that have advanced collective goods during times of crisis. In response to the climate crisis in the Global South, affluent donor groups, state officials, some farmers, and indigenous peoples have begun to assemble corporatist-like coalitions to pursue climate stabilization. A comparative case study of efforts to promote sustainable cattle ranching through the spread of silvopastoral landscapes in Colombia and Ecuador illustrates this political dynamic, its shortcomings, and its accomplishments.

We Keep Each Other Safe: Mutual Aid and the Methods of Graphic Medicine

Mutual aid, a framework rooted in crip queer and trans, Black, indigenous, and people of color care practices, has increasingly been taken up through mainstream visibility and parlance. Dean Spade (2020) articulates that while aiming to meet survival needs, mutual aid does further politico-therapeutic work: it builds shared understandings as to why we do not have what we need, mobilizes people to expand solidarity and build movements, and engages communities in participatory problem solving through collective action. How is the project of graphic medicine entangled with mutual aid outcomes and sensibilities? How might a mutual aid framework crip graphic medicine? Elaborating genealogies of mutual aid in disability justice work and crip survival tactics brings into relief graphic medicine’s entanglements with mutual aid. The article first explores graphic medicine storytelling as grounded in shared genealogies of crip care. It then takes up Félix Guattari’s concept and practice of transversality to diagnose politico-therapeutic potentialities of graphic medicine.

Why are union members more willing to strike and protest than nonunion members? Evidence from Argentina and Chile

Empirical studies have shown that union members are more likely to participate in collective actions than nonunion members. However, we still know little about the mechanisms that explain why this occurs. In this article, we aim to fill this gap in the literature. Using data from the World Values Survey for Argentina and Chile (2006–2018), we employed the Karlson–Holm–Breen mediation analysis to analyze the degree to which the relationship between union membership and participation in demonstrations and strikes is explained by union members’ higher levels of politicization and stronger left-wing orientation, as hypothesized in previous studies. We found that in the two countries these two mediators explain more than 30% of the relationship between union membership and participation in demonstrations. We also found that these two mediators explain around 20% of the relationship between union membership and strike participation in Argentina, and nearly 40% of such relationship in Chile. At the end of the article, we offer some explanations for these findings and show how they contribute to the literature on trade unions, class politics, and industrial relations.

A social monitoring mechanism for third-party judges promotes cooperation in evolutionary games

Corruption of third-party judges seriously undermines the level of cooperation. Without intervention, more corruptors and defectors would emerge, disrupting social harmony. Therefore, introducing an anti-corruption mechanism is crucial for the evolution of cooperation. In this paper, we propose a social monitoring mechanism to monitor third-party judges so that their payoffs are affected by the proportions of cooperators. Monte Carlo simulations on periodic boundary lattices. The results show that the social monitoring mechanism is effective in promoting cooperation and inhibiting corruption, and enhances the effectiveness of zealots in promoting cooperation. This facilitation effect is not only manifested in the Prisoner's Dilemma Game but also in the Snowdrift Game, which confirms the robustness of the results. Our research provides new insights for solving social dilemmas and curbing corruption.

The Europeanization of Wage Policy and Its Consequences for Labor Politics: The Case of Ireland

This article investigates the transnational labor politics associated with the Europeanization of wage policy, based on process tracing of Irish minimum wage regulation reforms over the past two decades. The policy struggle in Ireland started as an employer-led domestic challenge to market-embedding regulation and was then affected by two EU interventions on wage policy: one with a de-regulatory orientation (during EU-IMF conditionality) and one with a re-regulatory one (with the approval of the EU minimum wage directive). Findings show that differences in collective action undertaken by employers and trade unions to influence wage policy at the national level can be explained by the intersection of each actor’s preferences toward market-constraining or liberalizing labor regulation and their access to supranational (EU-level) institutions and support. This analysis contributes to debates on how transnational opportunity structures can alter labor’s and employers’ local power resources and strategies.

Deciphering the Socio-Ecological Determinants of Contemporary Collective Action in China: Insights from 2010–2016 Panel Data Analysis

The current study delves into the macro-level driving forces behind collective action in contemporary China, advancing beyond the constraints of previous narrower perspectives by adopting an all-encompassing socio-ecological and cultural approach. Utilizing the CASM-China database and analyzing 2454 socio-ecological indicators, we scrutinize the incidence of conventional, disruptive, and violent collective actions, alongside 11 manually coded triggers. Furthermore, employing panel data spanning from 2010 to 2016 enhances the robustness of our predictor selection, while a principal component analysis reveals a four–factor structure. Significantly, the Modernization dimension (factor 1) predicts both conventional and violent collective actions, correlating with issues such as “education” and “homeowner/property”. The Secondary and Tertiary Industries dimension (factor 2) forecasts disruptive collective action, associated with “pension/welfare” problems. In contrast, the Primary Industry dimension (factor 3) shows a negative correlation with violent and disruptive collective actions, particularly affecting “medical dispute” issues. The Living Condition dimension (factor 4) positively correlates with conventional collective action with various social issues. These findings deepen our comprehension of the intricate interplay between socio-cultural and ecological factors and collective action in China, offering new pathways for future research.

Sources of solidarity. Between given identity and collective action

This article discusses possible ways to account for how solidarity comes to be constituted. Beyond accounts tying solidarity either to identity, or to the adherence to a common normative framework, recent scholarship has underscored the role played by collective action in bringing about solidarity. In this paper, I agree that collective action has been often overlooked as a fundamental element in constituting solidarity but warn against the risk of conceptualizing the source of solidarity exclusively in terms of action. Instead, I propose to understand solidarity as resulting from the continuous interaction between two different dimensions of solidarity: constitutive solidarity that centres on collective action, and constituted solidarity which centres on given identities. My paper begins by distinguishing the two meanings of solidarity – constituted and constitutive. The first referring to an (instituted) set of mutual obligations applying to a given group, the second referring to solidarity as underlying social bond, which establishes the solidarity group in the first place. The paper then goes on to discuss three different accounts of constitutive solidarity: identity-based, obligations-based and action-based. I argue that only the action-based account can conceptualise the coming about of new forms of solidarity and the changing scope of the solidarity group. Yet, such accounts are unable to conceptualise how constitutive solidarity can come to ground constituted forms of solidarity, able to endure through time. On this basis, I propose to interpret constitutive and constituted solidarity as two ‘moments’ of solidarity, one symbolically grounding the other, even if not through linear causation. Rather, constitutive solidarity is constantly evolving and constantly contributes to remap the identities depicting social reality, which ground constituted forms of solidarity.

The role of emotions in collective responses to in-group norm violations: the case of university’s sensitivity to the natural environment norm

The primary objective of this study was to examine the influence of perceptions of environmental in-group norm violations and the associated emotions on the level of support for environmental social movements. Particularly, we examined the association between collective action intentions and the emotions of anger, disgust, guilt, and pride elicited in response to the violation of in-group pro-environmental norms. There were 221 undergraduate participants (154 females, 62 males, 5 non-binary) studying at a Turkish state university, where preserving on-campus environment is perceived as the norm. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions in which on-campus environmental norms were violated or adopted by their peers (i.e., in-group members). Then, their perceptions of norm-violation, emotions about their peers’ on-campus environmental behaviors, and collective action intentions in improving campus’s environmental circumstances were measured. We used structural equation modeling to test the hypothesized links between the study variables. Our findings revealed that participants exhibited high levels of norm violation anger, guilt, and disgust and low levels of pride when their peers were presented as polluters. Only anger and pride were found to be influential in motivating intentions for collective actions. Norm violation perception by itself was not instrumental in mobilizing individuals for the sake of the environment. When coupled with feelings of anger and pride, its association with endorsing intentions for environmental collective action became significant. The current findings shed light on the emotions associated with norm violation and their potential to foster pro-environmental collective action.

Collective action within an environment of unknown unknowns: Experiences with the port of Mars Game.

There is limited research about how groups solve collective action problems in uncertain environments, especially if groups are confronted with unknown unknowns. We aim to develop a more comprehensive view of the characteristics that allow both groups and individuals to navigate such issues more effectively. In this article, we present the results of a new online experiment where individuals make decisions of whether to contribute to the group or pursue self-interest in an environment with high uncertainty, including unknown unknowns. The behavioral game, Port of Mars is framed as a first-generation habitat on Mars where participants have to make decisions on how much to invest in the shared infrastructure to maintain system health and how much to invest in personal goals. Participants can chat during the game, and take surveys before and after the game in order to measure personality attributes and observations from the game. Initial results suggest that a higher average social value orientation and more communication are the key factors that explain why some groups are more successful than others in surviving Port of Mars. Neither other attributes of players nor the group's communication content explain the observed differences between groups.

From the Oppression of Patriarchy and Inferiority to Freedom: The Reconstruction of Muslim Women’s Selfhood in Brick Lane by Monica Ali

This study aims to explore patriarchy and inferiority as social oppression experienced by Muslim women, as well as the reconstruction of selfhood that Muslim women achieved despite the oppression inflicted upon them by patriarchy and inferiority. To achieve this aim, the novel Brick Lane (2003) by the contemporary Bangladeshi-British author Ali will be analysed, with a focus on the social dilemmas faced by the Muslim female character, Nazneen. Through the analysis of the selected novel, this study will underscore the powerful role of inferiority and patriarchy in unjustly oppressing Muslim women, while also highlighting the reconstruction of selfhood as a crucial pathway to their liberation.

The deformation of democracy in the United States: When does bureaucratic “neutral competence” rise to complicity?

AbstractRecent years have seen a step‐change in the severity and nature of threats to United States democracy, including extensive efforts by elected officials to undercut democratic governance. When elected officials undermine democracy, this constitutes “deformation of democracy.” As implementors and agents of policy, public administrators can sometimes play essential roles as bulwarks against democratic deformation. However, among public administrators there is historically a strong ethos emphasizing neutral competence and subordination to political authority, in some cases reinforced by law. How should public administrators respond when confronted by deformation and, at the same time, constrained by tradition and law? We selectively review strands of public administration theory, focusing on theory especially relevant to the United States governmental system, to construct and assess a catalog of responses that public administrators can take under democratic deformation. We conclude by offering a set of recommendations focused on institutionalized collective action by public administrators.

Pulling together or pulling apart? Understanding the heterogenous collective action frames of local climate activists through a Q methodology study

ABSTRACT The potential for green community groups to respond effectively to climate change depends on the heterogeneity of preferences of individual member activists. Using a Q-methodology study of two groups in England, we propose an original typology of collective action frames for local green activism: ‘consensus seeking’, ‘community building’, ‘radical adversarial’, and ‘eco-egalitarian’. These differ according to how activists articulate and act upon the diagnosis of the problem, the solutions proposed, and the rationale for action. Both groups comprised members aligned to the four different frames, none of which was dominant. This presents organisers with the challenge of how to construct frames meaningful to such heterogeneous collectives. Ongoing (re)framing was observed in both groups, reflecting struggles between the four frames identified. We conclude by reflecting on how a heterogeneity of frames within community groups was managed through flexible organisational forms that facilitate multiple platforms and projects, enabling sub-groups to act autonomously.

The development of Birth to Five Matters guidance: reflections on the critical agency and collective advocacy of an English early childhood coalition

ABSTRACT In 2019, the English government embarked upon revision to the statutory Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) document and to associated non-statutory guidance. At the time, concerns were raised that early childhood experts were insufficiently involved in drafting the document. Consequently, an Early Years Coalition of early childhood organisations was formed to develop a version of curriculum guidance ‘for the sector, by the sector’. This paper draws on contemporaneous documents and communications from the period, coupled with the author’s own experiences as a contributor to this coalition’s guidance. It reflects the perceived critical agency and collective action of coalition partners. Further, deploying the notion of agonism, the author considers how the diversity of early childhood representative bodies involved was conducive to developing the conditions for policy contestation. The paper concludes with reflections on the potential for further collaborative advocacy in seeking greater autonomy and professionalism, for and with the early childhood workforce.

Messina, 1167–68: A Microhistory of Urban Agency in the Twelfth-Century Kingdom of Sicily

ABSTRACT Recent scholarship on the cities of the twelfth-century Kingdom of Sicily continues to nuance our understanding of urban life under the umbrella of a new monarchy. Collectively, these studies demonstrate that this new monarchy, centralising and powerful as it was, did not fully squash its cities’ independence, and that this was not even its aim. This picture has been aided by recent studies that interpret urban identity and agency in a more holistic and polycentric framework, incorporating both its political and economic situations and its socio-cultural, religious, ceremonial and communicative contexts. Consequently, recognition of a vibrant “public arena” within the cities of the medieval world now extends to those in the twelfth-century Kingdom of Sicily. The present article supports and further expands this re-evaluation of the kingdom’s cities through a microhistory. It takes one episode of unrest in one city which offers an unusually close (for the Kingdom of Sicily at least) snapshot of urban dynamics. It interprets this moment via approaches grounded in recent scholarship on urban public politics that foreground the “political turn” in rebellion, and which view such moments of unrest and collective action as a normal part of a continual dialogue within a polycentric political landscape.

Fire is associated with forest degradation and economic land concessions, but not land conversion in the rapidly transforming Cambodian landscape

Abstract Cambodia is beset by high deforestation rates and fire frequencies. From 2001–2020, forest cover declined by 34%, and cropland and rubber expanded by 31,401 km2 and 4,530 km2, respectively; meanwhile nearly 8.7 million fires burned 41.6% of the land. Fires may be associated with deliberate land change, stable land management systems, and unplanned forest degradation. We integrated annual land cover and monthly burned area data from 2001–2020 to test three hypotheses. First, if fire is used during land conversion, there would be a detectable pulse in fire activity in the year immediately prior to, and the year of land cover change. Our temporal analysis found statistically elevated burn rates in five of 16 transition tests, however, they were typically <1% outside the predicted range, indicating no practical significance in the association of fire with land cover change. Second, fire prevalence would be lower in land managed for conservation or agricultural production than unclassified or unmanaged land. persistent forest and shrubland burned at significantly higher rates than expected, cropland burned significantly less, burning was almost absent from rubber plantations, and forests in protected areas (PAs) exhibited lower total burn percentages than unclassified land or industrial economic land concessions (ELCs), thus supporting the fire-land management hypothesis. However, total burned area in ELCs was greater than unclassified land for several persistent land cover classes, suggesting that local landowners may prevent fire in commercially valuable private agricultural land, but there may be no such prevention measures in industrial ELCs. Anti-fire policy enforcement in ELCs should be enhanced. Third, forests that converted into (degraded) shrublands would experience increasing fire frequency in the years leading up to transition, a hypothesis we found strong support for through our temporal analysis. Cambodia’s 2013 Law on Fire Prevention and Fire Fighting deputizes the public to enforce its provision, however given that the vast majority of fires occur in persistent forest in state-owned land, collective action problems are likely to hinder its effective implementation.