Selective Incentives Research Articles

Understanding gang-recruitment through selective incentives : the case of Honduras.

Since their origins in the 1960s, criminal organizations in Latin America have been responsible for brutal acts of violence in the region. However, very little is known about the specific mechanisms involved in their recruitment tactics. Empirical evidence demonstrates that the use of selective incentives is widespread among gangs to compel membership. This essay considers both the shape and character of Honduran gang members and attempts to highlight the complex phenomenon of gang recruitment. I will advance a twofold approach of the selective incentives theory of rebel recruitment to identify the significant mechanisms at play in the recruitment of citizens to join violent gangs. Understanding the processes of recruitment involved in the Honduran case will potentially contribute to better plan and execute interventions to reduce gang violence in the Northern Triangle countries (Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador) and Latin America at large.

Understanding participation dilemmas in community mobilisation: can collective action theory help?

Community mobilisation interventions have been used to promote health in many low-income and middle-income settings. They frequently involve collective action to address shared determinants of ill-health, which often requires high...

Elección racional y normas sociales: una vuelta más de tuerca

En el presente artículo se explora el posible interés que pueda tener el uso de las recientes investigaciones en acción colectiva, dentro del paradigma de la elección racional, en la explicación intencional de las normas sociales. Tras exponer sintéticamente las premisas de la teoría de la elección racional y el análisis olsoniano de la acción colectiva, se exploran las relaciones entre acción colectiva, micro-estructura social y normas sociales (concebidas como sistemas de incentivos selectivos) empleando el concepto de función de producción. El artículo finaliza con una breve reflexión sobre la conveniencia de refinar dicha herramienta y de combinar distintos modelos de decisión con el fin de explorar la difícil cuestión metateórica del vínculo entre estructura y acción.

Selective incentives and intragroup heterogeneity in collective contests

Selective incentives and intragroup heterogeneity in collective contests

The Rise and Fall of the English Defence League: Self-Governance, Marginal Members and the Far Right

What determines the success or failure of far-right organisations? This article uses new qualitative data to explain the sudden rise and subsequent decline of the English Defence League, an anti-Islamic, street protest organisation established in the UK in 2009. We explain the rise and fall of the English Defence League through the lens of the theory of collective action to show that the English Defence League initially motivated activism by supplying selective incentives that were enhanced by the participation of others. The pursuit of ‘participatory crowding’ led to indiscriminate recruitment into the organisation that enabled numbers to expand into the thousands, but ultimately caused the English Defence League’s downfall because it resulted in the presence of large numbers of ‘marginal members’ with low levels of commitment whose subsequent exit was decisively destructive. Self-governance mechanisms to ensure greater loyalty from members could have prevented the English Defence League’s decline but would also have limited its initial success.

WHY FARMERS INVOLVE THEMSELVES IN CO‐OPERATIVE DISTRICT COUNCILS

ABSTRACTThis study finds that selective incentives induce district council members and chairpersons to work for the collective best of a co‐operative membership. Being the lowest echelon of a co‐operative's internal governance hierarchy, district councils constitute a link between the membership and the board of directors. Previous research indicates that district council members are often driven by a co‐operative conviction and social concerns. The present study challenges this view. On the basis of a survey of all 191 district council members and council chairpersons of a large Swedish agricultural co‐operative, it is found that the elected representatives rank low in terms of co‐operative conviction and social concerns. They involve themselves mainly in order to get personal benefits; they want to gain access to information, mature personally and obtain inputs to develop their farm enterprises. The financial compensation is of limited importance.

Selective incentives and intragroup heterogeneity in collective contests

AbstractA group taking part in a contest has to confront the collective action problem among its members, and devices of selective incentives are possible means of resolution. We argue that heterogeneous prize‐valuations in a competing group normally prevent effective use of such selective incentives. To substantiate this claim, we adopt cost‐sharing as a means of incentivizing the individual group members. We confirm that homogeneous prize valuations within a group result in a cost‐sharing rule inducing the first‐best individual contributions. As long as the cost‐sharing rule is dependent only on the members’ contributions, however, such a first‐best rule does not exist for a group with intragroup heterogeneity. Our main result clarifies how unequal prize valuations affect the cost‐sharing rule and, in particular, the degree of cost‐sharing. If the relative rate of change of the marginal effort costs is decreasing, it is reduced by intragroup heterogeneity. If the rate is increasing, the cost is fully shared, but it cannot induce the first‐best contributions for the group.

Rallying the troops

Is the acquisition of personnel for UN peacekeeping missions susceptible to free-riding by UN member states? If so, what drives this behavior and what impact does this have on obtaining required personnel for the mission? Using data from 21 missions in 13 African countries between 1990 and 2010, this article addresses whether UN peacekeeping missions experience a shortfall in personnel due to incentives to free-ride by contributing states. It argues that as the number of states contributing to a mission increases, contributors have a greater incentive to free-ride and make suboptimal personnel contributions, leading to greater overall shortfall in the mission’s personnel. However, this free-riding behavior can be mitigated by the economic incentives of contributor states. The findings support two central tenets of collective action theory: that free-riding by member states contributing to the mission is more prevalent when the number of contributors is larger, and when selective incentives such as economic gains are lower. These findings have implications for the strategic composition and efficacy of peacekeeping forces. More broadly, the results underscore the struggle of international organizations to obtain compliance from member states in achieving their international objectives.

Reevaluating the Middle-Class Protest Paradigm: A Case-Control Study of Democratic Protest Coalitions in Russia

A large literature expects rising middle classes to promote democracy. However, few studies provide direct evidence on this group in nondemocratic settings. This article focuses on politically important differentiation within the middle classes, arguing that middle-class growth in state-dependent sectors weakens potential coalitions in support of democratization. I test this argument using surveys conducted at mass demonstrations in Russia and detailed population data. I also present a new approach to studying protest based on case-control methods from epidemiology. The results reveal that state-sector professionals were significantly less likely to mobilize against electoral fraud, even after controlling for ideology. If this group had participated at the same rate as middle-class professionals from the private sector, I estimate that another 90,000 protesters would have taken to the streets. I trace these patterns of participation to the interaction of individual resources and selective incentives. These findings have implications for authoritarian stability and democratic transitions.

The Role of Sensation Seeking in Violent Armed Group Participation

ABSTRACTAn important puzzle in the study of political violence is why individuals risk their lives fighting for a public good, when they can free-ride and enjoy the same benefits if others take the risk. This logic is particularly important to rationalist theories, which view risk as an inherent cost to violent armed group participation—which has to be offset by selective incentives, peer pressure, or coercion. This perspective has widely contributed to the understanding of violent conflict, but ignores key insights from psychology. What if risk is not a cost and instead attractive? In this article, I argue that people with a sensation seeking personality—interested in novel and intense experience and willing to accept risk for the sake of it—are more likely to join armed groups. Preliminary survey evidence comparing voluntarily and forcibly recruited members of Colombian armed groups supports my argument. The re-interpretation of a series of existing studies on Colombian guerrilla and paramilitary fighters illustrates the pervasiveness and varying manifestations of sensation seeking. Personality traits are an under-recognized ingredient in the process of joining armed groups and complement our current understanding, which is mainly determined by contextual conditions and situational motivations.

Інституціональне середовище аграрного землекористування: на шляху до адаптаційної та соціальної ефективності

This paper analyses the institutional framework to develop an effective agricultural land use system in Ukraine. The analysis aims to determine the efficiency of the national institutional system and justify the ways to improve it. The methodological approach is based on the principles of structural functionalism. It is proved, that existing institutional system realizes its coordinating function in such a way that leads to institutional gaps between formal and informal property institutions, a backlog of the informal institutions and shadow land relations. As to the distributive function, it leads to structural imbalances, dominance of corporate over private interests, and dominance of agricultural production over rural development. This is an indicator of an institutional dysfunction, which means the failure to adapt, a mismatch between the formal and informal norms and nowadays challenges for sustainable agricultural and rural development. This is also an indicator that the institutional system of land relations is oriented to ensure the allocative efficiency while the adaptive efficiency remains at a low level. To enhance the adaptive efficiency, it is necessary to implement the following policy mechanisms: - In order to overcome institutional gaps, it is necessary to introduce positive selective incentives for the development of informal institutions, and prioritize the development of inter-group social capital with confidence and social interactions between different social groups (officials, rural communities, land users); - In order to overcome the institutional imbalances, it is necessary to prioritize both social and ecological components in the development of the national land use system, and the interests of small landowners and family farms. To ensure that agricultural land use is socially oriented and provide the adaptive efficiency of the institutional environment, it is necessary to harmonize the formal, informal and control institutions.

The rite way: Integrating emotion and rationality in religious participation

This article employs a most-similar case study of two congregations in order to explore the organizational features of congregations that impact religious participation. The congregations were as similar as possible in terms of theology, organizational history, denominational affiliation, market location, and adherent demographics. However, they differed in one key aspect: one was thriving and the other declining. Two key organizational features emerged through field research and subsequent analysis: differential provision of selective incentives and variation in emotional energy through the use of rituals. These findings are considered both for what they add to the understanding of religious participation in Mainline Protestant congregations, as well as a possible way forward to integrating approaches to religious participation that have differing micro-foundations.

An overview of maritime pine private non-industrial forest in the centre of Portugal: A 19-year case study

Abstract Portuguese national policies for forests were developed considering related themes such as climate change, forest health, fire and the protective functions of forests. In Portugal, maritime pine forest is mainly private non-industrial and its area is in decline. Therefore, the aim of this study was two-fold: first, to assess maritime pine forest characteristics over a 19-year period; second, to analyse forest cover change over that period. In the end, the implementation of state policies was explored. A study area highly forested by continuous areas of naturally regenerated maritime pine in the centre of Portugal was used. To assess maritime pine forest characteristics, two sets of inventory data collected in previous studies (1991-1996 and 2007-2010) were used. To analyse forest cover change, the official land cover maps for 1990 and 2007 were used. This study findings highlighted that study area’s trends over the past years were the following: first, the decrease of maritime pine forest areas and its management decline (stands less stable, under-stocked, with large amounts of small-diameter poles and enlarged tree size variability); second, the increase of scrubland areas; third, the increase of eucalyptus afforestation with no regard for protection areas; and fourth, the absence of native oaks or introduction of other broadleaves as recommended by the state policies. Therefore, it is argued that there is a need for effective field monitoring actions with regard to the implementation of state policies. Additionally, selective incentives are key to mobilise private non-industrial forest to achieve the goals of state forest policies.

Discursive Emotional Appeals in Sustaining Violent Social Movements in Iraq, 2003–11

ABSTRACTHow are some rebel leaders able to sustain violent collective action but others not? Most theories focus on leaders' use of selective incentives and efforts to lower their transaction costs and raise those of the government. We argue that a leader's ability to arouse emotions of anger, humiliation, and fear is also critical. Foreign leaders and former exiles typically lack the legitimacy and understanding of local politics necessary to incite such emotions. We test this argument in three case studies in Iraq between 2003 and 2011. In this period, the Sadrist Trend sustained violent collective action and gained lasting political power, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq failed to maintain its influence, and al-Qaeda in Iraq first gained and then lost its ability to mobilize violence.

Why Women Rebel: Greed, Grievance, and Women in Armed Rebel Groups

Many scholars have sought to understand what drives recruitment in armed rebel groups. While theories focused on grievance and selective incentives have been the subject of a robust body of scholarship, large-N work in this area tends to focus primarily on male recruits, and often utilizes measures that fail to account for the differing motivations of male and female rebels. Moreover, existing studies of the motives of female rebels have been regionally focused or concentrated on a single case—calling into question whether the findings are consistent across the global population of females in armed rebel groups. Drawing on a data set measuring women’s participation in seventy-two active rebel groups since 1990, this work seeks to test hypotheses drawn from prior research to explain why women rebel. These tests indicate that some trends noted by previous researchers have explanatory power. Particularly, economic and ethnic or religious grievances are motivating factors that drive women to take up arms. At the same time, though, these findings cast doubt on the salience of other motivating factors, such as selective incentives and a desire for political participation.

Regional Water Cooperation

Shared water has prompted some neighboring countries to form integrated regional institutions and rules. Other neighboring countries have maintained less cooperative policies in managing shared water. When do governments achieve integrated management of regional water? How do they overcome barriers to integrated cooperation? This article contends that the structure of interdependence, not the number of states bordering the water, encourages different international policies. It analyzes original panel data on the agreement histories of seventy-six rivers, lakes, and seas. It also examines the role of selective incentives in promoting mutual water management. Fundamentally, the number of states with access to the water does not determine the fate of water management. Strategies for overcoming divergent preferences can be applied across situations. The key is to provide selective incentives when states are asymmetrically interdependent in using the water, to alter national preferences. Selective incentives are particularly important when few states share the water.

Violence, Self-Worth, Solidarity and Stigma: How a Dissident, Far-Right Group Solves the Collective Action Problem

How do dissident, far-right groups overcome the collective action problem inherent to political organisation in order to recruit sufficient activists willing to bear the costs of participation and not free-ride on the participation of others? An original ethnographic study of the UK anti-Islamic street protest organisation, the English Defence League, shows that it solved the collective action problem by supplying selective incentives to members in the form of the club goods of access to violence, increased self-worth and group solidarity. These benefits were offset against the costs of stigma, time, money and unwanted police attention that also accompanied English Defence League membership. The personal benefits the English Defence League provided to its members enabled it to supply what Mancur Olson has termed the first unit of collective action, but limited its ability to supply the additional units required to build a broader, more mainstream movement.

Digital Social Norm Enforcement: Online Firestorms in Social Media.

Actors of public interest today have to fear the adverse impact that stems from social media platforms. Any controversial behavior may promptly trigger temporal, but potentially devastating storms of emotional and aggressive outrage, so called online firestorms. Popular targets of online firestorms are companies, politicians, celebrities, media, academics and many more. This article introduces social norm theory to understand online aggression in a social-political online setting, challenging the popular assumption that online anonymity is one of the principle factors that promotes aggression. We underpin this social norm view by analyzing a major social media platform concerned with public affairs over a period of three years entailing 532,197 comments on 1,612 online petitions. Results show that in the context of online firestorms, non-anonymous individuals are more aggressive compared to anonymous individuals. This effect is reinforced if selective incentives are present and if aggressors are intrinsically motivated.

The Rationality of Radical Islam

WHY DO ISLAMIST RADICALS ENGAGE in high-cost/risk activism that exposes them to arrest, repression, and even death? At a group level, it appears perfectly rational: zealous contention places enormous pressures on adversar­ies and increases the likelihood that the group will achieve its objective. Robert Pape’s study of suicide terrorism provides some empirical evidence that extreme forms of activism do indeed produce concessions from opponents.1 Yet, although extreme tactics may be deployed as part of a logical, coherent, and rational strategy to maximize group goals, is it “rational” for the individual per­petrators? Why not free-ride off the efforts of others rather than jeopardize personal self-interest? We argue that radical Islamic groups offer spiritual selective incentives to individuals who are concerned with the hereafter. Although some radical Is­lamists are compelled by economic incentives or personal psychological needs that may have nothing to do with religious conviction (the need for revenge against perceived oppressors, a need for a sense of empowerment, or a desire for prestige), religion matters for many. In cases where individuals take spiri­tuality seriously, movement ideologies offer strategies for fulfilling divine duties and maximizing the prospects of salvation on judgment day. In essence, these ideologies serve as heuristic devices or templates that outline the path to salvation. Where individuals believe that the spiritual payoffs outweigh the negative consequences of strategies in the here and now, high-cost/risk activ­ism is intelligible as a rational choice.

Effects of member size and selective incentives of agricultural cooperatives on product quality

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the effects of member size and external incentives (food safety certification and target market) on cooperative’s product quality, using data collected from 135 apple producing cooperatives in China. Design/methodology/approach – Given that different indicator variables were used to measure apple quality, the authors employed a principle component analysis method to reduce the measurement dimension. An ordinary least square regression was employed to analyse the effects of member size and selective incentives of agricultural cooperatives on product quality. Findings – The empirical results show that member size and cooperative’s product quality bear an inverse “U-shape” relationship, and food safety certification and target market variables tend to positively and significantly influence cooperative’s product quality. In particular, the cooperatives with more food safety certificates and targeting supermarkets and export enterprises are more likely to supply high-quality products. Originality/value – This study provides the first attempt to measure apple quality and investigate the factors that influence cooperative’s product quality.