Collective action refers to action taken together by a group of people whose goal is to enhance their status and achieve a common objective.
It is a term that has formulations and theories in many areas of the
social sciences including psychology, sociology, anthropology, political
science and economics.
The social identity model
Researchers
Martijn van Zomeren, Tom Postmes, and Russell Spears conducted a
meta-analysis of over 180 studies of collective action, in an attempt to
integrate three dominant socio-psychological perspectives explaining
antecedent conditions to this phenomenon – injustice, efficacy, and
identity.
In their resultant 2008 review article, an integrative Social Identity
Model of Collective Action (SIMCA) was proposed which accounts for
interrelationships among the three predictors as well as their
predictive capacities for collective action.
An important assumption of this approach is that people tend to respond
to subjective states of disadvantage, which may or may not flow from
objective physical and social reality.
Perceived injustice
Examining collective action through perceived injustice was initially guided by relative deprivation theory (RDT).
RDT focuses on a subjective state of unjust disadvantage, proposing
that engaging in fraternal (group-based) social comparisons with others
may result in feelings of relative deprivation that foster collective
action. Group-based emotions resulting from perceived injustice, such as
anger, are thought to motivate collective action in an attempt to
rectify the state of unfair deprivation.
The extent to which individuals respond to this deprivation involves
several different factors and varies from extremely high to extremely
low across different settings.
Meta-analysis results confirm that effects of injustice causally
predict collective action, highlighting the theoretical importance of
this variable.
Perceived efficacy
Moving
beyond RDT, scholars suggested that in addition to a sense of
injustice, people must also have the objective, structural resources
necessary to mobilize change
through social protest. An important psychological development saw this
research instead directed towards subjective expectations and beliefs
that unified effort (collective action) is a viable option for achieving
group-based goals – this is referred to as perceived collective
efficacy. Empirically, collective efficacy is shown to causally affect
collective action among a number of populations across varied contexts.
Social identity
Social identity theory (SIT) suggests that people strive to achieve and maintain positive social identities associated with their group memberships.
Where a group membership is disadvantaged (for example, low status),
SIT implicates three variables in the evocation of collective action to
improve conditions for the group – permeability of group boundaries,
legitimacy of the intergroup structures, and the stability of these
relationships. For example, when disadvantaged groups perceive
intergroup status relationships as illegitimate and unstable, collective
action is predicted to occur, in an attempt to change status structures
for the betterment of the disadvantaged group.
Meta-analysis results also confirm that social identity causally
predicts collective action across a number of diverse contexts.
Additionally, the integrated SIMCA affords another important role to
social identity – that of a psychological bridge forming the collective
base from which both collective efficacy and group injustice may be
conceived.
Model refinement
While there is sound empirical support for the causal importance of SIMCA’s key theoretical variables on collective action,
more recent literature has addressed the issue of reverse causation,
finding support for a related, yet distinct, encapsulation model of
social identity in collective action (EMSICA).
This model suggests that perceived group efficacy and perceived
injustice provide the basis from which social identity emerges,
highlighting an alternative causal pathway to collective action. Recent
research has sought to integrate SIMCA with intergroup contact theory (see Cakal, Hewstone, Schwär, & Heath)
and others have extended SIMCA through bridging morality research with
the collective action literature (see van Zomeren, Postmes, & Spears for a review).
Public good
The economic theory of collective action is concerned with the provision of public goods (and other collective consumption) through the collaboration of two or more individuals, and the impact of externalities on group behavior. It is more commonly referred to as Public Choice. Mancur Olson's 1965 book The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups, is an important early analysis of the problems of public good cost.
Besides economics, the theory has found many applications in political science, sociology, communication, anthropology and environmentalism.
Collective action problem
The term collective action problem describes the situation in which
multiple individuals would all benefit from a certain action, but has an
associated cost making it implausible that any individual can or will
undertake and solve it alone. The ideal solution is then to undertake
this as a collective action, the cost of which is shared. Situations
like this include the prisoner's dilemma, a collective action problem in which no communication is allowed, the free rider problem, and the tragedy of the commons, also known as the problem with open access. An allegorical metaphor often used to describe the problem is "belling the cat".
Solutions to collective action problems include mutually binding agreements, government regulation, privatization, and assurance contracts, also known as crowd acting.
Exploitation of the great by the small
Mancur Olson made the claim that individual rational choice
leads to situations where individuals with more resources will carry a
higher burden in the provision of the public good than poorer ones. Poorer individuals will usually have little choice but to opt for the free rider
strategy, i.e., they will attempt to benefit from the public good
without contributing to its provision. This may also encourage the
under-production (inefficient production) of the public good.
Institutional design
While
public goods are often provided by governments, this is not always the
case. Various institutional designs have been studied with the aim of
reducing the collaborative failure. The best design for a given
situation depends on the production costs, the utility function, and the
collaborative effects, among other things. Here are only some
examples:
Joint products
A
joint-product model analyzes the collaborative effect of joining a
private good to a public good. For example, a tax deduction (private
good) can be tied to a donation to a charity (public good).
It can be shown that the provision of the public good increases
when tied to the private good, as long as the private good is provided
by a monopoly (otherwise the private good would be provided by
competitors without the link to the public good).
Clubs
Some institutional design, e.g., intellectual property rights, can introduce an exclusion mechanism and turn a pure public good into an impure public good artificially.
If the costs of the exclusion mechanism are not higher than the gain from the collaboration, clubs can emerge. James M. Buchanan showed in his seminal paper that clubs can be an efficient alternative to government interventions.
A nation can be seen as a club whose members are its citizens. Government would then be the manager of this club.
Federated structure
In some cases, theory shows that collaboration emerges spontaneously in smaller groups rather than in large ones. This explains why labor unions or charities often have a federated structure.
In philosophy
Since
the late 20th century, analytic philosophers have been exploring the
nature of collective action in the sense of acting together, as when
people paint a house together, go for a walk together, or together
execute a pass play. These particular examples have been central for
three of the philosophers who have made well known contributions to this
literature: Michael Bratman, Margaret Gilbert, and John Searle, respectively.
In (Gilbert 1989)
and subsequent articles and book chapters including Gilbert (2006,
chapter 7) Gilbert argues for an account of collective action according
to which this rests on a special kind of interpersonal commitment, what
Gilbert calls a "joint commitment". A joint commitment in Gilbert's
sense is not a matter of a set of personal commitments independently
created by each of the participants, as when each makes a personal
decision to do something. Rather, it is a single commitment to whose
creation each participant makes a contribution. Thus suppose that one
person says "Shall we go for a walk?" and the other says "Yes, let's".
Gilbert proposes that as a result of this exchange the parties are
jointly committed to go for a walk, and thereby obligated to one another
to act as if they were parts of a single person taking a walk. Joint
commitments can be created less explicitly and through processes that
are more extended in time. One merit of a joint commitment account of
collective action, in Gilbert's view, is that it explains the fact that
those who are out on a walk together, for instance, understand that each
of them is in a position to demand corrective action of the other if he
or she acts in ways that affect negatively the completion of their
walk. In (Gilbert 2006a) she discusses the pertinence of joint commitment to collective actions in the sense of the theory of rational choice.
In Searle (1990) Searle argues that what lies at the heart of a
collective action is the presence in the mind of each participant of a
"we-intention". Searle does not give an account of we-intentions or, as
he also puts it, "collective intentionality", but insists that they are distinct from the "I-intentions" that animate the actions of persons acting alone.
In Bratman (1993) Bratman proposed that, roughly, two people
"share an intention" to paint a house together when each intends that
the house is painted by virtue of the activity of each, and also intends
that it is so painted by virtue of the intention of each that it is so
painted. That these conditions obtain must also be "common knowledge"
between the participants.
Discussion in this area continues to expand, and has influenced
discussions in other disciplines including anthropology, developmental
psychology, and economics. One general question is whether it is
necessary to think in terms that go beyond the personal intentions of
individual human beings properly to characterize what it is to act
together. Bratman's account does not go beyond such personal intentions.
Gilbert's account, with its invocation of joint commitment, does go
beyond them. Searle's account does also, with its invocation of collective intentionality.
The question of whether and how one must account for the existence of
mutual obligations when there is a collective intention is another of
the issues in this area of inquiry.
Spontaneous consensus
In addition to the psychological mechanisms of collective action as explained by the social identity model,
researchers have developed sociological models of why collective action
exists and have studied under what conditions collective action
emerges.
Along this social dimension, a special case of the general collective
action problem is one of collective agreement: how does a group of
agents (humans, animals, robots, etc.) reach consensus about a decision
or belief in the absence of central organization? Common examples can be
found from domains as diverse as biology (flocking, shoaling and schooling, and general collective animal behavior), economics (stock market bubbles), and sociology (social conventions and norms) among others.
Consensus is distinct from the collective action problem in that there often is not an explicit goal, benefit, or cost of action but rather it concerns itself with a social equilibrium of the individuals involved (and their beliefs). And it can be considered spontaneous when it emerges without the presence of a centralized institution among self-interested individuals.
Dimensions
Spontaneous
consensus can be considered along 4 dimensions involving the social
structure of the individuals participating (local versus global) in the
consensus as well as the processes (competitive vs cooperative) involved
in reaching consensus:
- Competitive
- Cooperative
- Local
- Global
Competitive versus cooperative
The underlying processes of spontaneous consensus can be viewed either as cooperation among individuals trying to coordinate themselves through their interactions or as competition between the alternatives or choices to be decided upon.
Depending on the dynamics of the individuals involved as well as the
context of the alternatives considered for consensus, the process can be
wholly cooperative, wholly competitive, or a mix of the two.
Local versus global
The
distinction between local and global consensus can be viewed in terms
of the social structure underlying the network of individuals
participating in the consensus making process. Local consensus occurs when there is agreement between groups of neighboring nodes while global consensus refers to the state in which most of the population has reached an agreement.
How and why consensus is reached is dependent on both the structure of
the social network of individuals as well as the presence (or lack) of
centralized institutions.
Equilibrium mechanisms
There are many mechanisms (social and psychological) that have been identified to underlie the consensus making process.
They have been used to both explain the emergence of spontaneous
consensus and understand how to facilitate an equilibrium between
individuals and can be grouped according to their role in the process.
- Facilitation of Equilibrium
- Communication
- Punishment of Deviants
- Positive Payoffs
- Conformity Bias
- Selection of Alternatives
- Logical Reflection
- Psychological and shared biases
- Chance (when all alternatives are equivalent)
Methods and techniques
Due
to the interdisciplinary nature of both the mechanisms as well as the
applications of spontaneous consensus, a variety of techniques have been
developed to study the emergence and evolution of spontaneous
cooperation. Two of the most widely used are game theory and social network analysis.
Game theory
Traditionally game theory has been used to study zero-sum games but has been extended to many different types of games. Relevant to the study of spontaneous consensus are cooperative and non-cooperative
games. Since a consensus must be reached without the presence of any
external authoritative institution for it to be considered spontaneous, non-cooperative games and nash equilibrium have been the dominant paradigm for which to study its emergence.
In the context of non-cooperative games, a consensus is a formal nash equilibrium that all players tend towards through self-enforcing alliances or agreements.
Social network analysis
An
alternative approach to studying the emergence of spontaneous
consensus—that avoids many of the unnatural or overly constrained
assumptions of game theoretic models—is the use of network based methods
and social network analysis (SNA). These SNA models are theoretically
grounded in the communication mechanism of facilitating consensus and describe its emergence through the information propagation processes of the network (behavioral contagion).
Through the spread of influence (and ideas) between agents
participating in the consensus, local and global consensus can emerge if
the agents in the network achieve a shared equilibrium state.
Leveraging this model of consensus, researchers have shown that local
peer influence can be used to reach a global consensus and cooperation
across the entire network.
While this model of consensus and cooperation has been shown to be
successful in certain contexts, research suggest that communication and
social influence cannot be fully captured by simple contagion models and as such a pure contagion based model of consensus may have limits.
