Collective Action by Physicians: Beyond Strikes

2000 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 498-503 ◽  
Author(s):  
SUSAN DORR GOOLD
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Patient Care ◽  
House Officer ◽  
The Self ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Airline Pilots ◽  
The Past ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Common Goals

“Collective action” usually brings to mind images of picket signs held by laborers striking for better wages and benefits. Collective action, however, need not be limited to the withholding of labor. Nor need it involve only the working or middle classes, as airline pilots have recently demonstrated. Finally, collective action need not have as its only purpose the self-interest of the group. Collective action does, however, always involve a joining together of individuals united by common goals or interests in order to consolidate power for the purpose of negotiating with another group or entity. Examples of collective action obviously include striking, other withholding labor actions, and slowdowns, but can also include many other activities. “Paper strikes,” for example, have been threatened or used by house officer organizations in the past. In a paper strike, patient care continues but without documentation, and thus, the institution suffers from absent or delayed financial remuneration.

What Makes Rational Peasants Revolutionary? Dilemma, Paradox, and Irony in Peasant Collective Action

1994 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 383-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark I. Lichbach
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
The Self ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Collective Action Problem ◽  
Demand And Supply ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Questions And Answers ◽  
Selective Incentives ◽  
Peasant Resistance ◽  
Peasant Organizations

Peasant upheavals are studied from the perspective offered by the selective incentives solution to Olson's collective action problem. This article presents much evidence from three different forms of peasant struggles—everyday forms of peasant resistance, unorganized rural movements, and organized peasant rebellions—that demonstrates the widespread existence of selective incentives. Questions about the causes and consequences of selective incentives are then examined. First, what are the conditions under which peasant struggles emphasize material selective incentives rather than nonmaterial altruistic appeals? The level of selective incentives in any peasant upheaval is a function of demand and supply considerations. Peasants demand selective incentives. The suppliers include one or more dissident peasant organizations, the authorities, and the allies of both. A political struggle ensues as the suppliers compete and attempt to monopolize the market. Second, what are the conditions under which the pursuit of material self-interest hurts rather than helps the peasantry's collective cause? Selective incentives supplemented by ideology can be effective; selective incentives alone are counterproductive.These questions and answers lead to the conclusion that the selective incentives solution reveals much more about peasant upheavals than simply that peasants will often be concerned with their own material self-interest. It is therefore important to study the following three aspects of peasant collective action: the dilemma peasants face, or how peasant resistance is in the interest of all peasants but in the self-interest of none; the paradox peasants face, or that rational peasants do solve their dilemma (for example, with selective incentives) and participate in collective action; and the irony peasants face, or that self-interest is both at the root of their dilemma and at the foundation of a solution to their paradox.

What's Wrong with Social Norms? An Alternative to Elster's Theory

1997 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-360
Author(s):  
Frans van Zetten
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Social Norms ◽  
Wage Bargaining ◽  
The Self ◽  
Equal Pay ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Collective Wage Bargaining ◽  
Equal Work

Is guidance by social norms compatible with rationality? Jon Elster has argued inThe Cement of Societythat there is a fundamental contrast between rationality and conformity to social norms. The context of study is the problem of collective action, with special emphasis on collective wage bargaining. In such negotiations, the appeal to social norms rather than to self-interest can block agreement. Suppose one union is committed to the norm of equal pay for equal work; another one appeals to the norm of equal pay for everybody, regardless of the type of work. ‘In the presence of competing norms that favor different groups, the self-righteousness conferred by belief in a norm can lead to a bargaining impasse.'In confrontations between individuals, codes of honor can produce similar problems. It is in no one's interest to face a colleague over the barrel of a gun because one has made a nasty remark about his latest book, but if the code demands that one fight it out, the challenge must be accepted.

Empathy and Altruism

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Daniel Batson
Keyword(s):  
Empathic Concern ◽  
The Self ◽  
Altruistic Motivation ◽  
Tentative Conclusion ◽  
The Past ◽  
Self Interest

Do we humans ever, in any degree, care about others for their sakes and not simply for our own? Psychology has long assumed that everything humans do, no matter how nice and noble, is motivated by self-interest. Research over the past four decades suggests this assumption is wrong. The empathy-altruism hypothesis claims that empathic concern produces altruistic motivation. Results of the over 35 experiments designed to test this hypothesis against various egoistic alternatives have proved remarkably supportive, leading to the tentative conclusion that feeling empathic concern for a person in need does indeed evoke altruistic motivation to see that need relieved. This chapter attempts to clarify what role the self plays in empathy-induced altruism.

scholarly journals Turning crowds into communities: The collectives of online citizen science

2021 ◽  
pp. 030631272110587
Author(s):  
Jérôme Baudry ◽  
Élise Tancoigne ◽  
Bruno J Strasser
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Science ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
The Self ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Natural Community ◽  
Defining Moment ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Ideal Types ◽  
The Past ◽  
Self Interest

Over the past two decades, a number of digital platforms have been developed with the aim of engaging citizens in scientific research projects. The success of these platforms depends in no small part on their ability to attract and retain participants, turning diffuse crowds of users into active and productive communities. This article investigates how the collectives of online citizen science are formed and governed, and identifies two ideal-types of government, either based on self-interest or on universal norms of science. Based on an ethnography of three citizen science platforms and a series of interviews with their managers, we show how different technologies – rhetorical, of the self, social, and ontological – can be diversely combined to configure these collectives. We suggest that the shift from individual projects to platforms is a defining moment for online citizen science, during which the technologies that sustain the collectives are standardized and automatized in ways that make the crowd appear to be a natural community.

Don’t rage against the machine: why AI may be the cure for the ‘moral hazard’ of party appointments

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 491-507
Author(s):  
Mel Andrew Schwing
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Moral Hazard ◽  
Dispute Resolution ◽  
Selection Process ◽  
Modern Technology ◽  
The Self ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
International Arbitration ◽  
The Past ◽  
Self Interest

Abstract In 2010, Jan Paulsson decried the use of party-appointed arbitrators in international arbitration as a ‘moral hazard' that threatened the legitimacy of arbitration as an impartial method of dispute resolution. He suggested a series of reforms, most notably allowing arbitral institutions to make all arbitrator appointments. Over the past decade, commentators have debated Paulsson's arguments and whether arbitrators should be chosen by parties or arbitral institutions, relying on an assumption that those two methods are the only ways by which arbitrators can be selected. This essay demonstrates that both approaches are fundamentally flawed, because they are subject to the self-interest and biases of human beings. Moreover, it explains how modern technology has produced a new way by which arbitrators can be selected--specifically, via artificial intelligence (AI)--that allows for parties to have input into the selection process but removes the issues that arise when parties select arbitrators directly. As this essay illustrates, using an AI to select arbitrators will allow arbitrators to truly be independent, ensure that arbitrators are selected for their merit and not for their connections, eliminate incentives for compromise awards and the use of dissents to communicate leanings to future appointing parties, and increase diversity in arbitrator appointments.

Two Feminist Views on the Self, Identity and Collective Action

Hypatia ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 120-125
Author(s):  
Margaret A. McLaren
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Identity

Building Research Teams

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken Peach
Keyword(s):  
Common Goal ◽  
Research Teams ◽  
Building Research ◽  
The Past ◽  
Collective Activity ◽  
Research Administrators ◽  
Working Together ◽  
Common Goals ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Century Science

This chapter discusses the process of building research teams. Increasingly over the past three-quarters of a century, science has become a collective activity, with teams of tens, hundreds or even thousands of scientists, engineers and technicians working together on a common goal. Consequently, almost all research involves building, motivating and maintaining a research team. Even a theoretical group is likely to have one or two postdocs, graduate students and visitors, but research teams will, in addition, have engineers and technicians, as well as, possibly, research administrators. The chapter also addresses the importance of creating and maintaining a good team and team spirit, as large projects are assembled from a large number of small teams working on common goals, usually in a loose federated structure with some overall coordination and leadership.

scholarly journals Self-exciting multifractional processes

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-41
Author(s):  
Fabian A. Harang ◽  
Marc Lagunas-Merino ◽  
Salvador Ortiz-Latorre
Keyword(s):  
Stochastic Process ◽  
Brownian Motion ◽  
Rate Of Convergence ◽  
Existence And Uniqueness ◽  
Volterra Equation ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Past ◽  
Stochastic Volterra Equation ◽  
Multifractional Brownian Motion ◽  
Self Organizing

AbstractWe propose a new multifractional stochastic process which allows for self-exciting behavior, similar to what can be seen for example in earthquakes and other self-organizing phenomena. The process can be seen as an extension of a multifractional Brownian motion, where the Hurst function is dependent on the past of the process. We define this by means of a stochastic Volterra equation, and we prove existence and uniqueness of this equation, as well as giving bounds on the p-order moments, for all $p\geq1$. We show convergence of an Euler–Maruyama scheme for the process, and also give the rate of convergence, which is dependent on the self-exciting dynamics of the process. Moreover, we discuss various applications of this process, and give examples of different functions to model self-exciting behavior.

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