Organization Of Collective Action Research Articles

The Comparative Governance of Collective Action

We examine the question of how collective action is best organized. Adopting a comparative institutional approach, we contend that the organization of collective action will incur transaction costs of discovery, bounding, adoption, enforcement, and probity, and discuss the antecedents of these costs. We then consider the relative efficacy of alternate governance forms in minimizing these costs, arguing that discovery costs are lowest under for-profits, probity costs under non-profits, adoption costs under collectives, and bounding and enforcement costs under the state. These arguments are used to develop a theoretical framework defining the optimal governance arrangement for any collective action situation. Our study thus extends institutional economics theory to the governance of collective action, and has implications for both social welfare and the non-market strategies of firms.

Participación social en la gestión ambiental: estudio de caso en una unidad de conservación urbana en el municipio de São Paulo, Brasil

El presente artículo trata de una inmersión en la realidad social de la comunidad del entorno del Parque Estatal de las Fuentes de Ipiranga, una unidad de conservación urbana de la ciudad de Sno Paulo, el tercer remanente más importante de la Mata Atlántica del municipio. El estudio de caso aquí presentado describe el proceso de gestión participativa que incluyó a los grupos interesados en la acción: el poder público del municipio (prefectura de la ciudad de Diadema), el poder estatal (Instituto de Botánica) y la comunidad local. En el campo de la investigación y la acción se utilizaron técnicas de grupo focal para detectar los principales conflictos ambientales del área; se realizaron entrevistas con los moradores para entender su percepción sobre los problemas ambientales, y se hicieron reuniones periódicas para planear las acciones a seguir. Los resultados nos proporcionaron elementos para afirmar que hubo un proceso de capacitación de los ciudadanos en relación con la organización de las acciones colectivas; éstas arrojaron resultados significativos que mejoraron la calidad social y ambiental del área.

From targets to recruits: the status of consumers within the political consumption movement

AbstractIn recent years, various social movement organizations have urged consumers to become more responsible for defending causes such as environmentalism and social justice, calling for boycotts, using labels to steer consumers towards more ethical products, or developing new types of exchange systems, consumption habits or lifestyles. Changing modes of consumption or lifestyles therefore seems to be a key objective in this consumer‐targeted, collective action framework. However, the article shows that rather than trying to change mass consumer consumption patterns, these organizations actually seek to recruit consumers who support their causes into collective actions targeting companies and governments. It discusses the notion of political consumerism, which leads to deadlock, as it is impossible to demonstrate such shifts in consumption or even attribute them to the social movement actions. The article asserts that political consumption movements rely less on the occurrence of a hypothetical political consumerism among mass consumers and more on the organization of collective action among politicized consumers committed to targeting companies and governments for change.

Pursuing Urban Commons: Politics and Alliances in Community Land Trust Activism in East London

AbstractCommunity land trust (CLT) practices contribute to analyses of the commons in both conceptual and on‐the‐ground ways. As collective action organizations, CLTs emphasize common land stewardship and resist traditional land speculation and development practices through the mitigation or halting of land value inflation. This paper traces the activist efforts of the East London CLT organization, one of Britain's first urban CLTs, in securing common land in the East London borough of Tower Hamlets, and examines their navigation of political decisions and creation of alliances. Although this process has been challenging as a result of neoliberal governance and private development interests, the East London CLT's trajectory demonstrates the frustrations of activism within these contexts but also the small successes in the pursuit and establishment of urban commons.

From social movements to cloud protesting: the evolution of collective identity

This article develops a conceptual framework for understanding collective action in the age of social media, focusing on the role of collective identity and the process of its making. It is grounded on an interactionist approach that considers organized collective action as a social construct with communicative action at its core [Melucci, A. 1996. Challenging codes: Collective action in the information age. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press]. It explains how micromobilization is mediated by social media, and argues that social media play a novel broker role in the activists' meaning construction processes. Social media impose precise material constraints on their social affordances, which have profound implications in both the symbolic production and organizational dynamics of social action. The materiality of social media deeply affects identity building, in two ways: firstly, it amplifies the ‘interactive and shared’ elements of collective identity (Melucci, 1996), and secondly, it sets in motion a politics of visibility characterized by individuality, performance, visibility, and juxtaposition. The politics of visibility, at the heart of what I call ‘cloud protesting’, exacerbates the centrality of the subjective and private experience of the individual in contemporary mobilizations, and has partially replaced the politics of identity typical of social movements. The politics of visibility creates individuals-in-the-group, whereby the ‘collective’ is experienced through the ‘individual’ and the group is the means of collective action, rather than its end.

Government Surveillance and Counter-Surveillance on Social and Mobile Media: The Case of Iran (2009)

Government Surveillance and Counter-Surveillance on Social and Mobile Media: The Case of Iran (2009)

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.

African Pastoral Development Policy Frame Work Principles and Strategies: Implication for National Development Policies and Research

Africa has nearly 270 million (FAO, 2012) people (41 percent percentages) living in dry lands. Pastoral systems in Africa’s are found in the vast arid and semi-arid areas. African pastoralists and pastoral culture is a core part of Africa’s culture, history and heritage. The livestock and natural resource management practices used by pastoralists require well organized collective action, especially in the harsh environments in which they live. Pastoralists organize themselves to split herds and move animals to distant grazing areas, to control access to communal grazing areas, to manage the watering of livestock, and to provide security. Partly for these reasons, pastoralists have very strong social organizations and leadership. The Policy Framework for Pastoralism in Africa arises from the need for a continent-wide platform to effectively address, in a holistic manner, the many challenges confronting pastoral communities. The framework defined the guidelines, principles and modalities for combining all the essential elements needed for a better understanding of pastoral issues, and for the development and implementation of interventions to address these issues. While facilitating engagement with regional and country-level planning processes, the policy framework can play a catalytic role in promoting development in pastoral communities by providing the African platform tool for harnessing the economic and technical resources needed to empower pastoral communities to better manage their resources, for their own long-term benefit. The Policy Framework for Pastoralism in Africa is the first continent-wide policy initiative Aims to secure, protect and improve the lives, livelihoods and rights of African pastoralists. The policy framework is taken as a platform for mobilizing and coordinating political commitment to pastoral development in Africa. This presentation is based on the review of African policy frame work recently indorsed by the African Head of States in Addis Ababa. (2010). Outcome of the consultative workshop by Ethiopian Pastoral Research and Development Network (EPRDN). The objective of the presentation is to familiarize the participants with the African policy frame work and indicate its implication to the higher education and research.

Aristophanic comedy and the challenge of democratic citizenship

Aristophanic Comedy and the Challenge of Democratic Citizenship finds in Aristophanes' comedies a complex comic disposition necessary for meeting the fundamental challenge of ordinary citizenship. That challenge, Zumbrunnen argues, emerges from the tension between two democratic impulses: a rebelliousness that resists all attempts to impose any form of institutionalized rule; and an inclination toward collective action taken through institutions of popular rule. Democracy demands that ordinary citizens negotiate the tension between these often conflicting impulses. Aristophanes' comedies rest upon and seek to instill in spectators a complex comic disposition that holds a simple celebration of rebellion in tension with an appreciation for the organized collective action necessary to bring about real change. John Zumbrunnen is associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the author of Silence and Democracy: Athenian Politics in Thucydides' History as well as numerous articles and essays.

Social cohesion in distributive policies and the role of knowledge

This paper discusses the different meanings of the concept of social cohesion, within the framework of sociology and of public policies related to strategies for development. The aim is to explore the relationship between social cohesion and the decrease in inequity and social inequality on one hand, and the role of knowledge in those strategies on the other, aiming to find alternative models for social development. The meaning of concepts parallel to that of social cohesion in the sociological literature, such as social capital, organized collective action and social networks, is reviewed. The paper systematizes the arguments of international organizations about social cohesion, in particular the approaches of the Economic Commission for Latin America. Finally, some arguments are built on the relationship between knowledge, social cohesion and social development.

Status Hierarchies and the Organization of Collective Action

Most work on collective action assumes that group members are undifferentiated by status, or standing, in the group. Yet such undifferentiated groups are rare, if they exist at all. Here we extend an existing sociological research program to address how extant status hierarchies help organize collective actions by coordinating how much and when group members should contribute to group efforts. We outline three theoretically derived predictions of how status hierarchies organize patterns of behavior to produce larger public goods. We review existing evidence relevant to two of the three hypotheses and present results from a preliminary experimental test of the third. Findings are consistent with the model. The tendency of these dynamics to lead status-differentiated groups to produce larger public goods may help explain the ubiquity of hierarchy in groups, despite the often negative effects of status inequalities for many group members.

Whose Liberation? A Partly-Forgotten Left Critique of ANC Strategy and Its Contemporary Implications

At the beginning of the 1980s, a group of left intellectuals and activists sought to press the then-exiled African National Congress (ANC) to adopt a change of strategy which would have given priority to the organized collective action of workers and the poor: they were expelled and their proposed remedies ignored. But, while it had little impact on political practice at the time, the implied debate between the dissidents and the ANC raised issues crucial to understanding the challenges which face South African democracy today. Although the dissidents’ approach was based on a flawed analysis of the processes which produce social change, it did highlight an aspect of anti-apartheid resistance strategy which has made achieving a more egalitarian and democratic South African more difficult.

Social Media and the Organization of Collective Action: Using Twitter to Explore the Ecologies of Two Climate Change Protests

The Twitter Revolutions of 2009 reinvigorated the question of whether new social media have any real effect on contentious politics. In this article, the authors argue that evaluating the relation between transforming communication technologies and collective action demands recognizing how such technologies infuse specific protest ecologies. This includes looking beyond informational functions to the role of social media as organizing mechanisms and recognizing that traces of these media may reflect larger organizational schemes. Three points become salient in the case of Twitter against this background: (a) Twitter streams represent crosscutting networking mechanisms in a protest ecology, (b) they embed and are embedded in various kinds of gatekeeping processes, and (c) they reflect changing dynamics in the ecology over time. The authors illustrate their argument with reference to two hashtags used in the protests around the 2009 United Nations Climate Summit in Copenhagen.

The Representation of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: Yet Another Two Logics of Collective Action?

The internationalization of markets and the Europeanization of politics both have a number of implications for business and their associations in most of the EU Member States. While the size of firms has always been a dividing line within specific associations, this division is now becoming accentuated. This has to do with the differential salience the two major logics of organized collective action possess for both types of firms and their associations in a world of increasing complexity. The hypothesis raised in this contribution is as follows. Large firms are primarily challenged from the part of the LOGIC OF MEMBERSHIP. The INTERNATIONALIZATION OF MARKETS entails significant restructuring among larger companies. This often materializes in form of M&A activity, buy-outs and take-over and, subsequently, membership losses. Since dues paid by large firms represent a major source of income for business associations, organizational tasks located at the membership side of associative action (services, etc.) are increasingly more important. Small firms and their associations are less concerned by the internationalization of markets but meet significant pressure with respect to the REGULATION OF MARKETS by the EU. They are challenged, first of all, by developments within the LOGIC OF INFLUENCE dimension where they have always been in a disadvantaged position compared to larger companies. Moreover, large firms increasingly act on their own (direct lobbying) and often support EU-induced deregulation and liberalization. This creates an additional division both within and across business associations which, in a number of cases, has already resulted in the break-away of branch associations, the exit by members, and a declining loyalty vis-a-vis the organizational leadership. This paper seeks to present empirical evidence for these developments by drawing from research on large chemical and ICT interest associations in Britain, Germany and the US.

Determinants and efficacy of social capital in lake associations

The hundreds of lake associations in Minnesota are examples of voluntary collective action organizations. Although these groups are organized for several purposes, their main concern is environmental management and specifically the improvement or preservation of lake water quality. Social capital probably affects organizational effectiveness. Survey and biophysical data were used to examine the determinants and efficacy of social capital in lake associations. Social capital production in lake associations was associated with water quality, lake size, recreational preferences, seasonality of residents, location, information sharing, per caput budget and relations with local government. Social capital also had a significant but small positive relationship with lake water clarity. Natural resource policy makers might consider investments in social capital as part of their strategy portfolio. Although statistical analyses of the role of social capital in local environmental management using large sample sizes are promising, several measurement and methodological difficulties remain.

From conflict to co‐operation: some design issues for local collective action institutions in cities

AbstractThis paper presents a discussion on some design principles of local collective action institutions, using a case study from India. Various potential conflicts in the functioning of such institutions are explored. Does group homogeneity and social capital foster collective action? This is explored using female literacy rate in the neighbourhood. The regression results suggest that individual characteristics may be more important than group homogeneity to explain whether an individual joins a collective action organization. An exploration of conjectures from Koremanos et al. study of design of international organizations to the context of local collective action suggests some differences and a need for further exploration. It appears that local collective action institutions can be better designed by ‘thinking globally’. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Introduction: Analyzing Change in Latin America - Missed Opportunities and False Trails

This paper identifies and examines critically the theoretical changes enclosed in recent research on transition from authoritarian rule, democratization and democratic consolidation in Latin America. Three broad dimensions of democracy - political, legal-organizational and participatory - are inferred from these debates. The first, and by far most widely used, is a conglomerate of individual rights (of expression, association, suffrage, etc.) and competitive elections. The second adds to the first the conditions necessary to guarantee the exercise of citizenship (e.g. limitation of military prerogatives or equal implementation of the law); the third focuses on the process of citizen empowerment via organized collective action. After culling from this literature a number of theoretical innovations (such as the critical reappraisal of authoritarian rule; the reconceptualization of the state; the shift in emphasis from structure to process; or the reconceptualization of the relation between politics and society and between capitalism and democracy), the paper shows how these innovative elements and the three conceptions of democracy defined above are interwoven in analyses of democratic transition and consolidation, and what balance between gains and unresolved problems this research effort represents. The paper concludes on a note of caution, arguing that too many analysts have assumed that, with time, democratic electoral procedures would have a domino effect on non-democratic practices in other realms, which by and large has not been the case. As a result, we lack a theory of the transition from military guardianship to autonomous civilian rule; from the corporatist, clientelistic, corrupt and despotic state to the law abiding and accountable state; and from incomplete and ineffective to full and effective citizenship. To overcome this lacuna, we need to problematize the relationship between the different dimensions of democracy.

Incentives in Collective Action Organizations

The effects of members' interests in incentives offered by collective-action organizations are examined with data from a national sample of American associations. Members expressed interests in six distinct dimensions underlying organizational-incentive systems, and these different aspects are specifically related to different types of member involvement, controlling for other personal and organizational attributes. Members with higher interests in normative and social inducements offered by their organizations are more likely to contribute time, money, and psychological commitment and to engage in internal participatory actions. Lobbying incentives are strongly related to external participation. Overtly utilitarian incentives such as material benefits, occupational rewards, and informational incentives are either unrelated to involvement or actually attract members unwilling to participate. The implications of these results for Olson's by-product or selective-incentive explanation of collective action are discussed.

Politics and the organization of collective action: The case of Nigeria, 1960?1975

The case of Nigeria provides support for an organizational conception of collective action. Such a conception rests on the notion that collective events—riots, demonstrations, strikes, marches, and violent confrontations—are the accompanying manifestations of routine politics and are instigated by many of the same organizations that sponsor nonviolent, ordinary political and economic activity. It is argued that collective action is organized action; its vehicles are mainly preexisting organizations that determine the location and timing of collective action, select the forms of contention, articulate the issues, and choose the targets of collective protest. It is further argued that insofar as a society's organizational base determines the shape of collective action, then political policies that affect the society's organizational composition will have a corresponding effect on the shape of collective action. That is, policies of organizational repression and facilitation will decrease or increase associated forms of collective action.