Kind Of Collective Action Research Articles

Problemáticas: Multi-scalar, affective and performative politics of collective action among fishing cooperatives in Mexico

The world’s fisheries face complex and high-stakes governance problems that increasingly require mobilizing diverse collectives of governance actors. How fishers and fishing organizations understand and articulate governance problems has implications for how they engage with governance institutions and the kinds of collective action they enact. In Mexico, cooperatives are a major form of organization for small-scale fishers. Fishing cooperatives form regional organizations (federations), which in turn form national organizations (confederations). These are nested or multi-scalar organizations that represent fishers’ interests and negotiate with other governance actors. Drawing on longitudinal data from assemblies of a national organization (2016–2019) – which represents more than 30,000 fishers in Mexico organized in about 300 cooperatives – as well as regional meetings involving federations and cooperatives, this study examines how cooperativist fishers in Mexico articulate problems in the governance of fisheries and to what effect. More specifically, the paper builds on scholarship about the performativity of collective action to examine the strategic discursive and affective practices through which fishers engage with major governance problems and the implications for collective action. Through the politics of multi-level cooperative institutions, specific issues are prioritized as leaders of fishers’ organizations translate diverse local-regional concerns to advance the interests of the sector at the national level. Using examples of (1) conflicts surrounding environmental conservation in the Gulf of California and (2) legacies of privatization and the decline of cooperatives in shrimp fisheries, the analysis demonstrates how discourses and affects are incorporated into specific storylines and mobilized in political spaces. Cooperativist fishers become contingently aligned along these storylines, which shapes the translation of local-regional concerns into national priorities, giving rise to a multi-scalar performative politics of collective action.

Structural Injustice and Massively Shared Obligations

AbstractIt is often argued that our obligations to address structural injustice are collective in character. But what exactly does it mean for ‘ordinary citizens’ to have collective obligations vis‐à‐vis large‐scale injustice? In this article, I propose to pay closer attention to the different kinds of collective action needed in addressing some of these structural injustices and the extent to which these are available to large, unorganised groups of people. I argue that large, dispersed, and unorganised groups of people are often in a position to perform distributive collective actions. As such, ordinary citizens can have massively shared obligations to address structural injustice through distributive action, but, ultimately, such obligations are ‘collective’ only in a fairly weak sense.

Framing computer security and privacy

This paper provides historical perspective on recent debates about professional ethics and computer security by discussing the relationship between conceptions of professional responsibility and framings of computer security. It begins by describing Willis Ware's changing conception of the relationship between computer security and privacy. It then describes three different ways that computer security was framed between the late 1960s and early 1980s: as a tool for protecting the privacy of individual citizens and consumers from the intrusions of large bureaucratic organizations; as a means of protecting corporations from computer-related crime; and as a means of protecting U.S. national security from foreign adversaries. In each case, the framing of computer security intertwined with distinctive conceptions of professional responsibility, and motivated different kinds of collective action.

Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats of Green Marketing

My interest is the future, because I am going to spend the rest of my life there. - Charles F. Kettering Every social and global issue is a business opportunity just waiting for the right kind of inventive entrepreneurship, the right kind of investment, the right kindof collective action. - Peter DruckerConsumers now have worries about the future of the world and as results of this mostly prefer environment friendly products. In return to these attitudes of the consumers, companies have started to form their marketing strategies so as to appeal increasing awareness of this environment-friendliness. These marketing strategies, named as green marketing. Green Marketing also known as ecological marketing or environmental marketing has become a vital topic in today’s fastest growing world. Green marketing is an attempt to characterize a product as being environmental friendly (eco-friendly). The definition has been refined and segmented into three main brackets: i) Retailing Definition ii) Social Marketing Definition iii) Environmental Definition. Green marketing should not neglect the economic aspect of marketing. Marketers need to understand the implications of green marketing. Green marketing should not be considered as just one more approach to marketing, instead should be pursued with greater vigor as it has societal and environmental dimensions. Marketers also have the responsibility to make the stakeholders aware about the need and the advantages of green products. This paper has highlighted various aspects on evolution of green marketing, different phases of green marketing, reasons for green marketing, golden rules of green marketing and SWOT analysis.

The Positive Following Bias of Information Source and Its Impact on Decision-maker’s Prediction Performance

Social identity, group-based emotions and efficacy are three major social psychological factors that affect people’s participation in a collective action. Previous researches, focusing largely on the disadvantaged groups, examined a single factor at a time and/or explored the relationships among these factors in the offline collective action. Recent studies, however, extended levels and types of factor in their models and attended to the online collective action. The current study attempted to integrate the above three major factors by exploring the moderating effects of multiple social identities in the relationships among group-based emotions, efficacy and participation of different kinds of collective action. Three studies were conducted using different methods. In Study 1, 240 undergraduate students from auniversity in Tianjin City took part in a questionnaire survey on the Diaoyu Island Event. Study 2 was a questionnaire survey on the Libya Event. and 480 undergraduate students from 6 different universities in Tianjin City were recruited to complete it. Both surveys included demographics in the first part, followed by a questionnaire on different social identities, group-based emotions and efficacies. Study 3 was an experiment 135 female undergraduates were randomly assigned to three different conditions, female identity primed group, school identity primed group and the control group. Participants then completed a questionnaire on their attitudes toward potential gender discriminations faced by job applicants. Data was collected and analyzed using SPSS 13.0 and Lisrel 8.70. Results indicated that group anger had a significant positive effect on offline collective action participation; and efficacy had a significant positive effect on both offline and online collective action participation. The above effects were further moderated by different social identities. Specifically, identification with a large social category of event affected behavior tendency by moderating emotional path (and rational path some times), and identification with the organization of collective action affected behavior tendency by moderating rational path only. Findings suggested that people were rather rational in their participants of the online collective actions.

Movimentos Sociais e Grupos de Pressão: Duas Formas de Ação Coletiva

Neste trabalho, faz-se uma discusso terica, comparando a trajetria e a forma de atuao dos movimentos sociais e dos grupos de presso. Esses dois modelos de ao coletiva no costumam ser analisados conjuntamente, pois, do ponto de vista dos especialistas, no possuem o mesmo grau de legitimidade. Argumentamos que, apesar de os movimentos sociais terem trazido poltica brasileira uma nova maneira de expresso e ao, os grupos de presso ganharam legitimidade ao se fortalecerem com o processo de redemocratizao ps-1985. Em razo da mudana no formato de representao de interesses no Brasil, hoje a classe trabalhadora se organiza tanto em movimentos sociais quanto em grupos de presso quando se trata de garantir seus direitos, principalmente no mbito legislativo.

Collectivism, Universalism, and Struggles over Common Property Resources in the 'New' Europe

<section class="abstract"> Anyone who studies post-socialist political economy probably has to begin a discussion of ‘the commons’ and common property resources by explaining the relationship between common property and collectivism, and the enormous impact that liberal and neo-liberal thought and institutions have had on the social economies of the Eastern European commons. In this article, I want to do this in three ways. First, I argue that contemporary accounts of socialist and post-socialist common property resources and practices have been shaped by the commitments of neo-liberalism and have had the very particular effect (and perhaps intent) of discrediting certain kinds of collective action and common property institutions. Second, I illustrate the ways in which a new definition of the commons has emerged in Europe—one that struggles to harmonize juridical and political aspirations for a peaceful and inclusive European Union with a common economic project and space of harmonized markets and trade policy. These twinned projects of this new ‘common economic union’ and their own versions of what constitutes a public, a commons, as well as their universal value, are increasingly conflated with post-colonial notions of a return to Europe and with deeply historical and racialized views of identity and commonality. The building of markets through the institutions and projects of structural adjustment and shock therapy has resulted in a thoroughgoing integration of the economies of the region with those of the broader international market and a fundamental recomposition of class forces in the region. </section>

Made in Thailand (review)

Reviewed by: Made in Thailand Jane Kiser Made in Thailand, videotape by Eve-Laure Moros and Linzy Emery. 1999. 30 minutes. This videotape, using a quasi-documentary style, presents the viewer with the words and images of Thai women organizers and the women factory workers they seek to mobilize - against strong odds. These are powerful images, and inspiring, when one considers the probable consequences for any worker who expresses an interest in union representation or engages in any kind of collective action. We see a rally of women workers, wearing red banners of protest around their foreheads and responding enthusiastically to their leader as she blasts their employer's likely closing of their plant. But what employer was this? We aren't told. In another segment, we see others protesting outside a government ministry. Why? It wasn't very clear to me. Throughout the video there are excerpts from interviews with several women who have worked in factories in Bangkok and gone on to do labor organizing (though with no explicit background information). They describe abuses: long hours, heavy lifting, repetitious motions that cause injuries. This dialogue is interspersed with scenes of factory work, stock footage, it appears. As the video progresses, the viewer begins to realize that one organizer is talking about a particular workplace: the Kader Toy Company, which burned in 1993, claiming the lives of 188 employees, most of them women who were trapped inside because management had locked doors to fire escapes. Later, another survivor of the fire, surrounded by cutesy Disney stuffed animals, describes the horror of leaping from the building onto the bodies of her friends who had jumped before, and footage is shown of burned and mangled bodies. The video intermingles the stories of the Kader fire and the stories of other unsafe, unpleasant, and unhealthy factory work to paint a bleak picture of oppression. At one point, the daily wage of toy workers ($3 in 1999) is compared to the average price of one doll ($25), leaving the viewer to conclude that surely these workers could be paid more and treated better than they are —while still earning a profit. Mostly, this video is impressionistic. That may be what you want in a video for some situations: setting the stage for a discussion of the ethics of the practices of multinationals who locate production in Thailand and other low-wage countries to export to the U.S. and other wealthy countries, and our ethics in buying things that are made under such conditions. But if you want more information, you will have to turn elsewhere. You do not learn what U.S. corporations are doing business there, what the status of labor law in Thailand is, whether there are Thai labor unions that are making headway, or whether any progress at all is evident since Thailand emerged in 1996 from four years of military rule. You do not learn who to contact if [End Page 100] you want to learn more or what organizations are involved in international solidarity actions to pressure the Thai government to adopt internationally recognized labor standards. There is insufficient history and analysis provided by the video. Because of these limitations, this video, in my opinion, despite its powerful images, is not nearly as good as it could have been. If you have a limited budget for videos, you might look elsewhere for videos that teach about the effects of globalization and women in the global economy. Made in Thailand, videotape by Eve-Laure Moros and Linzy Emery, may be ordered for $195 from Women Make Movies, 462 Broadway, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10013, 212.925.0606, www.wmm.com Jane Kiser Division of Labor Studies Indiana University Northwest at Gary Copyright © 2006 the West Virginia University Press, for the United Association for Labor Studies

Class, Race, and Power: Interest Group Politics and Education

Literature review focuses on what theory and research primarily from political science and sociology of education have to say about families and communities working for change in education. Questions: (1) Do low-income minority families have the power to create positive and lasting change in school and/or district organization and policy? (2) Is such change possible and can it serve as a foundation for state and national education policy change? The families and communities in question are ‘the truly disadvantaged’ or ‘underclass’ in America’s urban centers. Largely black and Latino, the communities share the characteristics of developing nations: low economic development, high infant mortality rates, short life spans, and low levels of educational attainment. Social capital, collective action/social movement, and democracy theory are used. A typology of the policymaking process as described in the research is described. Local successes are treated laying the groundwork for answering the question about whether local successes can lead to state and federal reforms. Theories, typology, and stories of success are put into the context of school organization because the way that schools are organized may dictate what kinds of collective action are likely to succeed.

Toward a More Comprehensive Typology and Theoretical Foundations of the Logic of Collective Action

Current theories on the logic of collective action have two problems in common. First, with some exceptions, authors are not very careful about specifying what kind of collective action or goods they are deal with. Secondly, current theories of interest groups have not been specific about the theoretical foundations on which their arguments are standing. Given these theoretical problems, this paper has three purposes. The purposes will be elaborated in three subsequent sections. section II will investigate a more comprehensive multi-dimensional typology of collective action problems. Section III will discuss the relevance of the theory of public goods and game theory to the analysis of collective action problems. In Section IV, by picking up two representative examples, we will demonstrate the conditions under which two major analytical frameworks can be best applied.

Pharmaceutical R&D in the Setting of Incomplete European Integration

The article analyzes the consequences of national price regulation for newly developed medicines in the setting of a partially integrated EU-wide market for pharmaceuticals and strategic entry-decisions by pharmaceutical enterprises. EU member states can be seen as jointly contributing to financing R&D conducted by the pharmaceutical industry. The article derives and compares the welfare implications of three regimes to organize this kind of collective action. First, a situation in which each government of a EU member state grants the price for a medicine it thinks appropriate, oriented solely at domestic considerations, but there is no spill over of prices among national markets. Second, the current situation in the EU of introduced tradability for medicines while price setting remained a national competence. Third, the possible situation of a centralized price setting procedure leading to a single price with compensations for those member states unable to pay this European price. The article argues that the process of EU integration in pharmaceuticals has left an optimal state without reaching another optimal one, but is instead stuck in a state of diminished welfare for all parties concerned.

Constitutions for Local Collective Action and Institutional Interdependence

Collective action can take place at a plurality of levels. It has to be based on a constitution which defines the basic rules of interaction. Here, we are concerned with the problem of the constitutional setting of “bottom-up” formal institutions with a “club” nature. The pressure to improve the efficiency of services pushes local administrations to co-ordinate to produce public goods. This process has stimulated the birth of different forms of agencies or private companies with a “club” nature. The aim of this paper is to discuss the effects of institutional interdependence on the efficiency of this kind of collective action. In order to shed some light on this problem, the paper first discusses the problem of the relativity of efficiency to the institutional setting. A framework of analysis is then discussed to identify the main factors affecting collective action. Finally some evidence will be provided by a comparative institutional analysis performed on some case studies concerning local associational forms among communes in north-eastern Italy.

Political Consequences of Minority Group Formation

Given the global trend of increasing ethnocultural diversity and the outbreak of nationalist movements based on cultural, linguistic, and territorial identities, this review focuses on social and political mechanisms that lead to the emergence of minority group collective action. This kind of collective action is seen as a function of three necessary conditions: the formation of distinctive social identities, the overcoming of free riding, and the development of institutional structures promoting the demand for greater autonomy. The article examines the debates, theories, and empirical evidence concerning these three conditions. We conclude by noting that the most important impediment to progress in this field is the relative paucity of historical and cross-national databases that are required to test many of the theories in the literature.

Recuperating from Market Failure: Planning for Biodiversity and Technological Competitiveness

In discussions of policy analysis and collective action, market-failure theory is the ruling orthodoxy. In public finance, policy analysis, and urban planning, this theoretical construct is applied to subjects ranging from airport noise to fisheries management. Through painstaking deductive reasoning and numbing repetition, the textbooks have instilled in generations of students the rigors of negative externalities and public goods (Musgrave and Musgrave, 1979; Stiglitz, 1988; and Weimer and Vining, 1989). In this article, I argue that the market-failure diagnosis is a misleading conceptual foundation for public policy making and other kinds of collective action.[1] It is misleading because it assumes that collective resources can be sufficiently understood through analyses of transactions between individual actors. To make this argument, I use two examples to which market failure theory is commonly applied. The first, the decline of regional species diversity, exemplifies the general topic of environmental deterioration, which is ordinarily attributed to the negative externalities of individual land-use acts. The second, declining U.S. industrial strength in optoelectronics, represents the general issue of insufficient technological progress, which is conventionally understood as the result of the market's failure to compensate innovators for the social benefits of RD they are integral realms composed of multiple human, cultural, and biological relationships. Technological paradigms are not discrete pieces of intellectual property but integral bodies of knowledge, skill, and instrumentation. After elaborating on these two examples, I conclude by calling for the reinvigoration of those planning disciplines that respect the economy's environmental and intellectual integrity. Ambiguities in Externalities There is a peculiarity to the literature on external effects that arises from the ways that negative externalities and collective goods are conventionally treated. The negative externality is defined in terms of exchanges among economic agents and their inability or unwillingness to recompense for harms (or benefits) they cause. …

Exchange relations between lords and peasants

The purposes of this article are, first, to present a theoretical discussion of peasant revolts that develops an exchange model of relations between lords and peasants and second, to use this discussion as a framework for a review of some of the work on peasant activity in eighteenth-century France. The argument, therefore, begins from social exchange; it does not privilege structures at the theoretical origin. Any analysis should specify three features of exchange: what is exchanged and the terms of trade, the potential kinds of coordinated activity present in the exchange (the relationship between hierarchy and reciprocity), and the meaning of the exchange relationship to its participants. These three features are interconnected so that, for example, specifying the kind of collective action is also to specify terms of trade and meaning.