Evolution Of Collective Action Research Articles

A Serious Board Game to Analyze Socio-Ecological Dynamics towards Collaboration in Agriculture

Climate change exacerbates water scarcity and associated conflicts over water resources. To address said conflicts and achieve sustainable use of water resources in agriculture, further development of socio-ecological adaptations are required. In this study, we evaluate the ability of MAHIZ, a serious board game, to analyze socio-hydrological dynamics related to irrigated agriculture. Gameplay involves the player’s decision-making with associated impacts on water resources and crop productivity in diverse climate and policy scenarios. We evaluated MAHIZ as (1) an innovative science communication and sustainability education approach, and (2) a data collection method to inform socio-hydrological theory and models. Analysis of 35 recorded game sessions demonstrated that MAHIZ is an effective education tool about the tragedy of commons in agrohydrology and was able to identify important decision-making processes and associations between critical social parameters (e.g., communication, trust, competence) and the evolution of collective action. MAHIZ has an open game design, so the approach can be adapted for both scientific insight and outreach.

From state fetish to community fetish: a spatial analysis of 15M and Podemos in Spain

PurposeOver the last four years in Spain, a strong autonomist movement (15M), based on radical democracy and mistrust of any kind of instituted politics, seems to be turning toward statist and institutionalized politics. The purpose of this paper is to answer the following questions: Can we speak of a community fetishism, as opposed to State fetishism? Do autonomist social movements have a spatial project as opposed to a State spatial project? Why do horizontal and self-management-oriented social movements turn to the conquest of the State in the current framework?Design/methodology/approachThe empirical evidence for this study stems from a qualitative methodological approach. The authors used two different types of sources. First, direct observations from the authors’ own engagement in social movements in Spain from 2011 to the present are used. Second, this work is part of a systematic research on spatial dynamics and the evolution of collective action in Spain. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with activists involved in social movements from 2012 to 2015, in which time informal interviews were conducted, and documents and observational notes were also collected.FindingsSocial movements have tended to develop alternatives to state spatial projects, partially as a result of an institutional setting that has been progressively closed to political alternatives to the neoliberal state. This last point leads to the posing of politics as completely independent of the political arena of the State (community fetish). From the first square occupations to the subsequent organization in local meetings, the 15M movement was the last expression of this tendency in Spain, while the turn on State political institutions responds to the obvious limitations of community fetishism in the context of the social and political tensions of the Spanish crisis.Originality/valueThis analysis contributes to the current debates on social movements in two ways. First, the authors investigate a usually neglected agent in the production of spatial political projects and strategies such as social movements. Second, the specific case of the 15M movement in Spain strongly shows the contradictions and limitations of the movements, which supposedly do not aspire to replace the State’s sovereign power through the idea of community fetishism.

Evolution of Collective Action in a Ski Resort Facing Declining Domestic Demand and Inbound Opportunity: Hakuba's Dynamic Downsizing

In Japan's ski boom of 1960–80 Hakuba's subsistence farmers collectively transformed adjacent mountain slopes into ski areas and built new incomes by individually offering accommodation. Since the domestic market went bust, they have reorganized collective and individual efforts to create a destination resort attractive to inbound tourists. A differentiated common pool resources approach, using concepts from evolutionary economy geography, is utilized to evaluate their success in this endeavor. This structure evolved path dependencies that inhibit coordination of ski areas, generate some divisions in resort governance, and preclude integration of mountain and town activities. The structure does, however, enable reformulation of social capital and a competitive selection of firms that enables dynamic downsizing of the resort.

Evolution of collective action in adaptive social structures

Many problems in nature can be conveniently framed as a problem of evolution of collective cooperative behaviour, often modelled resorting to the tools of evolutionary game theory in well-mixed populations, combined with an appropriate N-person dilemma. Yet, the well-mixed assumption fails to describe the population dynamics whenever individuals have a say in deciding which groups they will participate. Here we propose a simple model in which dynamical group formation is described as a result of a topological evolution of a social network of interactions. We show analytically how evolutionary dynamics under public goods games in finite adaptive networks can be effectively transformed into a N-Person dilemma involving both coordination and co-existence. Such dynamics would be impossible to foresee from more conventional 2-person interactions as well as from descriptions based on infinite, well-mixed populations. Finally, we show how stochastic effects help rendering cooperation viable, promoting polymorphic configurations in which cooperators prevail.

ANALYSIS OF THE EMERGENCE AND EVOLUTION OF COLLECTIVE ACTION: AN EMPIRICAL CASE OF SPANISH GROUNDWATER USER ASSOCIATIONS

ABSTRACTThis paper analyses the emergence and evolution of collective action in relation to intensive groundwater user by looking at the case of groundwater user associations in Spain. The paper analyses the rules in norm or constitutional level and the typology of collective organizations, to then offer an empirical analysis of the main factors in the emergence and evolution of collective action in Spanish groundwater user associations. It identifies some key endogenous and exogenous factors that either facilitate or hinder collective action by groundwater users, as well as documenting their evolution through time towards a more diverse institutional range, partly explained by reaching increasing resource limits, which triggers looking for additional resources to minimize and manage risk and uncertainty. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The emergence and evolution of collective action: Lessons from watershed management in Haiti

The practice and theory of collective action is constrained by a dearth of rigorous empirical tests of why and how such institutions emerge and evolve, and under what conditions they can be successful. Empirical analyses of cooperative watershed management in Haiti reveal that, given a conducive environment and political leadership, groups will emerge and survive where a “critical mass” of individuals have practical knowledge of the potential gains from action. Emergence can be constrained in the short run by: 1. (a)landscape factors that affect the potential net economic gain, and 2. (b)sociocultural factors that affect the cost of constructing the new institution.