Sociological Theory IIWeek 5: Collective Action

Hilary 2019

Dr Anna Krausovahttp://users.ox.ac.uk/~sant3223/

Recall last weeks:

▪ Prisoner’s dilemma, the stag hunt and dictator game

▪ Social norms

▪ Interaction dynamics

▪ Is it clear yet why we sometimes cooperate, even when it isn’t (doesn’t seem to be) in our individual rational interest?

➔The persistent puzzle of collective action

Collective action

“The notion of collective action comprises the broad range of social phenomena in which social actors engage in common activities for demanding and/or providing collective goods.”

(Baldassarri, p. 391).

▪ puzzle of collective action as the free rider problem (Olson)

▪ puzzle of the tragedy of the commons (Ostrom)

▪ puzzle of altruism in general

▪ puzzle of contentious collective action

Collective action

▪ Some examples:▪ Voting in elections, protecting the environment, participating in protest,

vaccinating your children, donating blood, rioting

▪ Common (everyday) v. rare (extraordinary)

▪ Institutionalised v. non-institutionalised (contentious) settings

▪Firms▪Unions▪Elections▪NGOs

▪Activism▪Social protest▪Ethnic violence▪Revolutions

Free rider problem (Olson, 1971)

▪ Common good problem for ‘large groups’

“It does not follow, because all of the individuals in a group would gain if

they achieved their group objective, that they would act to achieve that

objective, even if they were all rational and self-interested. (Olson, 1971: 2)

▪ Need for:

▪ External coercion and/or ▪ Separate incentives

How much of a problem is the ‘free rider problem’?

▪ Empirical evidence for cooperation abundant (Baldassarri, 2011), even when no external constraint (Ostrom, Governing the Commons, 1990) or separate incentives (Piliavin, 2009)

▪ Does altruistic action need to be explained by rational egoistic motives? (Piliavin & Charng, 1990)

▪ Question of ‘negligibility’ and imperceptible differences central for Olson

▪ However, questionable (Brennan, 2015; Tuck, 2008)

▪ Imperceptibility of individual contribution on aggregate output ≠ imperceptibility of action - e.g. social norm of contributing (Brennan, 2015)

➔

How much of a problem is the ‘free rider problem’?

▪ Still, real empirical problems requiring inquiry

▪ Vaccinations – negligible & imperceptible effect of one decision (in Olson’s terms)

➔ But, anti-vax movement

▪ UK, 87% of children vaccinated against measles – 95% for ‘herd immunity’ ➔ increase in cases

(~1000 in 2018, 259 in 2017)

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/anti-vaccine-movement-world-health-organisation-who-diseases-mmr-antivax-a8732621.html

• Decentralized, one-shot collective action situations ≠ collective cooperation (if agents rational & self-interested)

• Cf. Bowles & Gintis’ cooperation as evolutionary advantage (last week)

• Neither explains why individuals sometimes cooperate

➔Mixed motivations

▪ Unconditional co-operators ▪ ‘saints, heroes, fanatics’ (Elster, p.398)

▪ Fairness norms

▪ Emotions (shame, empathy, etc.)

▪ Conditional co-operators ▪ ‘if and only if my contribution increases average benefit’

▪ if a certain number if people cooperate (dictator game)

▪ if separate incentives are available (Olson)

▪ ‘tit for tat’ (Axelrod, 1984)

Overcoming the free rider problem: Motivations

Overcoming the free riding problem: Situational factors

▪Motivations may be necessary, but not sufficient

▪Context and situational dynamics

▪ Two examples: ▪ The murder of Kitty Genovese

▪ The rescue of Jews during WWII

The Kitty Genovese Case

▪ Kitty Genovese stabbed to death in 1964 in a middle-class neighborhood in Queens

▪ According to NYT (1964), murder continued for half an hour while 38 bystanders watched without intervening or notifying the police

▪ Why did no one help? (http://www.nytimes.com/1964/03/27/37-who-saw-murder-

didnt-call-the-police.html?_r=0 )

Bystander intervention & diffusion of responsibility (Darley & Latané, 1968)

▪ More bystanders in an emergency, more likely somebody will intervene?

▪ Instead: diffusion of responsibility

▪ Experiment: help during simulated seizure?▪ 85% of only witness to emergency

helped, versus 62% when another person present, and 31% when four other bystanders also present

▪ The more people, the longer it takes for someone to intervene

Diffusion of responsibility?

▪ Not so simple; exceptions to this ‘rule’ (Piliavin, 2009)

▪ Clarity of emergencies – cues ➔

▪ Victim characteristics

▪ Bystander characteristics (training, confidence, etc.)

▪ Attribution of helpfulness also important

▪ Empathy ‘feels good’

(Piliavin, 2009)

Clarity of emergencies & cues 1

➔cont.:▪ Kitty Genovese story quite

different in fact

▪ Stabbed in lungs – difficult to scream for help

▪ Many interpreted as domestic dispute or drunk squabble

▪ One did rush to help

(https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/11/us/remembering-kitty-genovese.html

Clarity of emergencies & cues 2

▪ Famous Czech architect Jan Kaplicky – died

after collapsing in busy Prague street aged

72

▪ Seen as drunk - ambulance called after 15 minutes –

heart failure

▪ Everyone kept thinking that Mr Kaplicky is drunk.

Even the officers, who called the ambulance…” She

recalls, however, that he had ‘clean shoes, clothes

and a carefully wrapped scarf’. “That is not what a

drunk looks like.” (Selfridges building in Birmingham)

▪ Role of prejudice? How do we react to visual (not only verbal) cues?

▪ Recall high calculation costs! (esp. in emergencies)

‘The importance of being asked’ (Varese & Yaish, 2000)

▪Why did certain individuals help Jews during WWII?

▪ Altruistic Personality?: ▪ rescuers ‘stronger sense of attachment to others and their feeling of

responsibility for the welfare of others, including those outside their immediate familial or communal circle’ (Oliner and Oliner 1988: 249).

▪ But, individuals are more likely (17 times!) to help when asked (also evidence for situations ranging from charity giving to blood donations) (Varese & Yaish, 2000)

▪ Being asked as trigger ▪ Only 4% of those asked did not help▪ Selection mechanism: prior acquaintance & signals

Overcoming the free rider problem: coercion

▪ Cooperation in the ‘underworld’?: Varese & Campana (2013)

▪ Trust low, no external enforcement

▪ But, co-offending and cooperation

➔ Coercion mechanisms:

▪ ‘Hostage taking’

▪ Kinship-ties

▪ Violence

▪ Cutting off options

▪ Cost of exit (also Ahlquist & Levi, 2013) (Yakuza member, finger missing)

What about social movements?

▪ Collective action puzzle par excellance (at least for social movement scholars!)▪ No external enforcement (usually)▪ Less common than everyday cooperation▪ Also, general interest in social change

Did you think of social movements and protest as examples of collective action first?

Clear parallels and similar, if not the same puzzles, but often studied separately▪ Cooperation / altruism – social psychology▪ Social movements – political sociology

▪ But, need for more scholarly dialogue (Piliavin, 2009)

▪ Analytical sociology potentially integrating (Baldassarri, 2011)

How do social movements mobilise?

▪ Interests/grievances alone not enough (agree with Olson!)

▪ Social movement scholarship: ▪ Political opportunities + resource mobilisation + framing processes

(McAdam et al, 1996)▪ Return of emotions (Jasper, 2011)

▪ Neither individual motivations nor structural factors alone:▪ Dynamics of interest formation - social interactions

“Individual interest cannot be disentangled from group interest and is partly defined by group expectations.”(Baldassarri, p. 411)

➔ Social movements also work to define ‘public good’

Collective action ≠ collective outcomes

▪ So far, explaining cooperation ▪ But, not outcomes of that

cooperation (sometimes conflated)

▪ Intended consequences

▪Unintended consequences▪ Recall, e.g., Boudon’s perverse effects

What helps explain the efficacy of collective action?

Puzzle of social movement impact

“And even then, when the protesters succeed in forcing governments to respond, they do not dictate the content of those responses. As to the variety of specific

circumstances which determine how much the protesters will gain and how much they will lose, we still have a great deal to learn”

(Piven & Cloward, 1979: 32)

"When and how does mobilisation make a difference? When and how do activists achieve their goals? Is protest a necessary and/or sufficient condition for

producing social and political change?"

(Bosi et al., 2016)

What is social movement impact?

• Little consensus on how to define or measure outcomes• legislative change; organisational impact; biographical

consequences (Amenta & Caren, 2004, McAdam et al, 2001)

• Gamson’s (1975) typology of social movement outcomes based on (1) acceptance and (2) advantages they receive:

OUTCOMES ADVANTAGES

ACCEPTANCE Yes No

Yes Full response Co-optation

No Pre-emption Collapse

Theories of social movement impact

▪Direct, in-direct or joint effects of protest activity ▪ Direct influence of overt protest minimal, if not counterproductive (Giugni, 2007)

▪ Disruptive protest: direct impact in certain contexts (Biggs & Andrews, 2015)

▪ Still, most prominent models: either indirect or joint effects (Amenta et al, 2010)

▪ Increasing focus on the intricacies of (US) policy processes (esp. quant. social movement research)

▪Need to refocus on movement-level dynamics

The mechanisms turn:

▪ Five mechanisms of social movement impact (Kolb & Tarrow, 2007):▪ Disruption ▪ Public preference ▪ Political access

▪ Judicial politics ▪ International politics

▪ Disruption as most commonly cited mechanism▪ “threatening established actors” (Biggs & Andrews, 2015: 1)

▪ Economic cost of disruption v. the economic cost of concession (Luders, 2006)

▪ But also framing:▪ E.g. frame resonance (Benford & Snow, 2000)

▪ “movement discursive tactics” (McCammon et al., 2007: 731)

▪ Above approaches unintegrated, however:▪ Cost imposition mechanisms (Biggs, 2014: When Costs are Benefits)

➔Material and symbolic cost imposition

Collective action ➔ collective identities

▪How important are collective identities?

➔Collective groups next week

Essay questions:

▪ How can individuals overcome the problem of collective action?

▪ ‘Unless the number of individuals in a group is quite small, or unless there is coercion or some other special device to make individuals act in their common interest, rational, self-interested individuals will not act to achieve their common or group interests.’ (Olson). Discuss.

Further revision questions:

▪ Are social norms always functional for solving problems of collective action?

▪ Does cooperation emerge from repeated interactions?

Any questions?

anna.krausova@sociology.ox.ac.uk

References

Core readings:

▪ Baldassarri, D. (2011). ‘Collective Action’, Peter Hedström and Peter Bearman (eds), Oxford Handbook of Analytical Sociology. Oxford: OUP.

▪ Biggs, M. (2014). When Costs are Benefits: Communicative Suffering as Political Protest. http://users.ox.ac.uk/~sfos0060/beneficialcosts.pdf.

▪ Campana, P., & Varese, F. (2013). Cooperation in criminal organizations: Kinship and violence as credible commitments. Rationality and Society, 25(3), 263-289.

▪ Darley, J. M., & Latane, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8(4, Pt.1),

▪ Kolb, F., & Tarrow, S. G. (2007). Protest and opportunities : the political outcomes of social movements. Frankfurt: Campus.

▪ McAdam, D., Tarrow, S. G., & Tilly, C. (2001). Dynamics of contention. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press.

▪ Olson, M. (1971). The logic of collective action : public goods and the theory of groups. Cambridge, Mass. ; London: Harvard University Press.

▪ Piliavin, J. A. (2009). Altruism and Helping: The Evolution of a Field: The 2008 Cooley-Mead Presentation. Social Psychology Quarterly, 72(3), 209-225.

▪ Varese, F., & Yaish, M. (2000). The Importance of Being Asked: The Rescue of Jews in Nazi Europe. Rationality and Society, 12(3), 307-334.

Extra resources:

▪ Ahlquist, J. S., & Levi, M. (2013). In the interest of others : organizations and social activism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

▪ Benford, R. D., & Snow, D. A. (2000). Framing Processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 611-639.

▪ Biggs, M., & Andrews, K. (2015). Protest Campaigns and Movement Success: Desegregating the South, 1960-61. American Sociological Review, 80(2), 416-443.

▪ Bosi, L., Giugni, M., & Uba, K. (2016). The consequences of social movements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

▪ Brennan, G. (2015). Olson and imperceptible differences: the Tuck critique. Public Choice, 164(3), 235-250.

▪ Gamson, W. A. (1975). The strategy of social protest (2nd ed.). Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Pub.

▪ Giugni, M. (2007). Useless Protest? A Time-Series Analysis of the Policy Outcomes of Ecology, Antinuclear, and Peace Movements in the United States, 1977-1995. Mobilization, 12(1), 53-77.

▪ Jasper, J. (2011). Emotions and Social Movements: Twenty Years of Theory and Research. Annual Review of Sociology. 37, 285-303.

▪ Luders, J. (2006). The Economics of Movement Success: Business Responses to Civil Rights Mobilization. American Journal of Sociology, 111(4), 963-998.

▪ McAdam, D., McCarthy, J. D., & Zald, M. N. (1996). Comparative perspectives on social movements : political opportunities, mobilizing structures, and cultural framings. Cambridge: CUP.

▪ McCammon, et al. (2007). Movement Framing and Discursive Opportunity Structures: The Political Success of the U.S. Women's Jury Movement. American Sociological Review, 72(5).

▪ Piliavin, J. A., & Charng, H.-W. (1990). Altruism: A Review of Recent Theory and Research. Annual Review of Sociology, 16, 27-65.

▪ Piven, F. F., & Cloward, R. A. (1979). Poor people's movements : why they succeed, how they fail. New York: Vintage books.

▪ Tuck, R. (2008). Free riding. Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press.

The lectures slides were also informed by previous lectures notes by Prof. Federico Varese.