Brothers or others in arms? Civilian constituencies and rebel fragmentation in civil war

2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric S Mosinger
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Regression Analysis ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Diffusion Model ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Quantitative Evidence ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Cross National

Why do united rebel fronts emerge in some insurgencies, while in other insurgencies multiple rebel groups mobilize independently to challenge the state, and often, each other? I develop a diffusion model of rebel fragmentation in which participation in rebellion spreads, completely or incompletely, through networks of civilians and dissidents. Using this theoretical framework I hypothesize that two factors jointly determine whether a rebel movement remains unified or fragments: the rebels’ investment in civilian mobilization, and the overall level of civilian grievances. The theory predicts that widely shared grievances motivate the formation of many small dissident groups willing to challenge the regime. Given the difficulty of collective action between disparate opposition actors, an emerging rebel movement will tend towards fragmentation when popular grievances are high. Yet extremely high civilian grievances can also help rebels activate broad, overlapping civilian social networks that serve to bridge together dissident groups. Mass-mobilizing rebel groups, benefiting from the participation of broad civilian networks, are most likely to forge and maintain a unified rebel front. I test this theory alongside several alternatives drawn from cross-national studies of conflict using regression analysis. The quantitative evidence lends considerable credence to the role of rebel constituencies in preventing or fomenting rebel fragmentation.

EIMECA: A Proposal for a Model of Collective Environmental Actions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beatriz Carmona-Moya ◽  
Antonia Calvo-Salguero ◽  
M.Carmen Aguilar-Luzón
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Psychosocial Factors ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Environmental Action ◽  
Environmental Identity ◽  
Group Efficacy ◽  
Negative Affects ◽  
Environmental Actions

The deterioration and destruction of the environment is becoming more and more considerable and greater efforts are needed to stop it. To accomplish this feat, all members of society must identify with environmental problems, with collective environmental action being one of the most relevant means of doing so. From this perspective, the analysis of the psychosocial factors that lead to participation in environmental collective action emerges as a priority objective in the research agenda. Thus, the aim of this study is to examine the role of "environmental identity" as conceptualized by Clayton, as a central axis for explaining environmental collective action. The inclusion of the latter in the theoretical framework of the SIMCA model gives rise to the model that we have called EIMECA. Two studies were conducted, and the results reveal that environmental identity, a variety of negative affects, as well as group efficacy accompanied by hope for a simultaneous additive effect, are critical when it comes to predicting environmental collective action.

18. Political Participation

2020 ◽  
pp. 318-335
Author(s):  
Herbert Kitschelt ◽  
Philipp Rehm
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Politically Active

This chapter examines four fundamental questions relating to political participation. First, it considers different modes of political participation such as social movements, interest groups, and political parties. Second, it analyses the determinants of political participation, focusing in particular on the paradox of collective action. Third, it explains political participation at the macro-level in order to identify which contextual conditions are conducive to participation and the role of economic affluence in political participation. Finally, the chapter discusses political participation at the micro-level. It shows that both formal associations and informal social networks, configured around family and friendship ties, supplement individual capacities to engage in political participation or compensate for weak capacities, so as to boost an individual’s probability to become politically active.

18. Political participation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herbert Kitschelt ◽  
Philipp Rehm
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Politically Active

This chapter examines four fundamental questions relating to political participation. First, it considers different modes of political participation such as social movements, interest groups, and political parties. Second, it analyses the determinants of political participation, focusing in particular on the paradox of collective action. Third, it explains political participation at the macro-level in order to identify which contextual conditions are conducive to participation and the role of economic affluence in political participation. Finally, the chapter discusses political participation at the micro-level. It shows that both formal associations and informal social networks, configured around family and friendship ties, supplement individual capacities to engage in political participation or compensate for weak capacities, so as to boost an individual's probability to become politically active.

scholarly journals Persuasive Gaming: Identifying the different types of persuasion through games

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresa De la Hera Conde-Pumpido
Keyword(s):  
Serious Games ◽  
Digital Games ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Focus Of Attention ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Persuasive Games ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Academic Study

The academic study of persuasion through digital games started from a game-centric approach by trying to understand how persuasiveness can be structured within digital games. However, players' performances and the context in which games are played also have an important role in the process of persuasion. The role of these two factors has been the focus of attention in recent research on persuasive games through studies that try to find a balance between players’ preferences and needs and persuasive goals. The objective of this paper is to broaden the understanding of the potential of persuasive gaming practices by providing a theoretical framework that serves to structure previous theoretical approaches on how digital games can be used to persuade players. This theoretical framework serves to explain the different types of persuasion that can be established through digital games, which contributes to better understand how serious games should be designed to respond to different types of serious goals. The three types of persuasion proposed here are: exocentric persuasion, as a game-centric approach for persuasion; endocentric persuasion, as a player-centric approach for persuasion; and game-mediated persuasion, as a context-centric approach for persuasion.

Environmental Protest Cases: The City, The Countryside, and The Grassroots in Southern Europe

1999 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Kousis
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Case Analysis ◽  
Environmental Activism ◽  
Southern Europe ◽  
Environmental Protest ◽  
National Analysis ◽  
The City ◽  
Cross National

Systematic cross-national analysis of environmental activism in urban and rural communities is nonexistent for Southern Europe. This article uses protest-case analysis to trace local environmental protest cases (not events) of urban and rural communities in Greece, Spain, and Portugal from the end of their dictatorial periods in the 1970s until 1994. The findings show a convergence between urban and rural environmental claims and protest actions, especially in the later period. Rural groups are more limited in terms of their social networks, and are less numerous than urban ones. A critical development during the twenty-year period is the emergence of a small but potent minority of urban and rural protesters. Findings show that they are (1) extensive and heterogeneous in terms of networks and claims, and (2) numerous and intensive in terms of collective action participation.

Embedding Digital Communications Within Collective Action Networks: A Multidimensional Network Approach

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 441-455 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Pavan
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Digital Communications ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Network Approach ◽  
Relational Approach ◽  
Online Communications ◽  
Action Networks

In this article, we conceive of digital media as embedded within social networks, and use this perspective to examine the role of online communications in collective action. We claim that the adoption of this perspective requires two shifts: first, rethinking the ontological separation between media and social networks of action that has, so far, characterized research in this domain; second, the adoption of flexible tools that enable us to account, simultaneously, for the multiplicity of relations underpinning collective efforts and the hybrid interplay between direct and technology-mediated interactions. After discussing the necessity and the implications of considering communication technologies as endogenous to social networks of collective action, we introduce multidimensional networks (MDNs) as a suitable perspective to advance the application of a relational approach to the study of collective action, thus meeting the challenges posed by the diffusion of interactive and networking digital media.

Do Term Limits “Limit” the Speaker? Examining the Effects of Legislative Term Limits on State Speaker Power

2020 ◽  
pp. 153244002094764
Author(s):  
Laine P. Shay
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Term Limits ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Collective Action Problem ◽  
Lower Chamber ◽  
Legislative Institutions

What is the role of legislative term limits in the structure of legislative institutions? Using Mooney’s collective action problem theoretical framework on legislative leadership power, I claim that legislative term limits should be a key determinant in a state Speaker’s power via the delegation of institutional tools that control the lawmaking process. Speakers can use these tools to influence policy outcomes and their colleagues. I test this expectation in an analysis of lower chamber rules in nearly all states between 1981 and 2015. The results indicate that states with implemented term limits are associated with a more powerful Speaker. These findings suggest that a more nuanced relationship between legislative term limits and leadership power exist than previously thought.

The Conceptual Framework: Collective Action, Trust, Culture, and Ideas

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Lorenzo Capussela
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Social Norms ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Institutional Economics ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Collective Action Problem ◽  
Personal Trust

This chapter completes the theoretical framework of the book by juxtaposing institutional economics with the literature on the collective action problem, social norms, culture, and ideas. It discusses the foundations of the collective action problem and the role of institutions—formal (laws) and informal (social norms)—in overcoming it. It links these studies with those on social capital, civicness, and the origins of generalized inter-personal trust. It criticizes the view—frequent in analyses of Italy—that a society’s culture is an independent obstacle to its development, and argues conversely that institutions, civicness, trust, and culture are part of the extant social order, and co-evolve. It ends with a discussion of the role of ideas, which are freer from the grip of the extant equilibrium and can lead elites, distributional coalitions, and ordinary citizens and firms to revise their assessment of their own interests and support efficiency-enhancing reforms.

Conversion Processes and Social Networks in Latin America

2020 ◽  
pp. 307-327
Author(s):  
Henri Gooren
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Life History ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Central American ◽  
Institutional Factors ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Santiago De Chile ◽  
Main Growth

Different varieties of Pentecostalism are successful in Latin America, where Chile, Brazil, and the Central American countries are now 20 to 30 percent Protestant. This chapter analyzes conversion processes and social networks in Latin America by comparing the two extremes of Pentecostal growth. Paraguay is arguably the least Pentecostalized country in the region, whereas Chile is one of the most Pentecostal. Based on recent ethnographic fieldwork research in Asunción and Santiago de Chile, the chapter first reviews the literature on Pentecostal growth in Latin America and establishes the main growth periods of Pentecostalism in both countries, identifying some of the most successful churches. Next, it analyzes the role of conversion in these churches by drawing on the conversion career approach, using quotes from life history interviews. Individual, contextual, and institutional factors (like doctrine, ritual, organization, and evangelization methods) are explored, as well as the role of the new converts’ social networks. The conclusion offers a new theoretical framework for analyzing the role of social networks in Pentecostal conversion for the Chile and Paraguay cases and for Latin America in general.

scholarly journals The Role of Online Media in Mobilizing Large-Scale Collective Action

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 205630512110338
Author(s):  
Zhuo Chen ◽  
Poong Oh ◽  
Anfan Chen
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Online Media ◽  
Twitter Data ◽  
Networks Analysis ◽  
Organizing Process

This study investigates the role of online media in mobilizing large-scale collective action. Adopting the theoretical framework of collective action space, we formulated the organizing process of collective action into a model with two dimensions—hierarchy and closure—and analyzed how they influence mobilization. The model was tested against Twitter data collected during the 2020 Hong Kong protest, including a total of 54,365 tweets posted by 14,706 distinct users between 1 May and 31 May 2020. Social networks analysis metrics— k-coreness and brokerage of individual users in their following networks—were employed to quantify the organizing process of the protest and estimate their effects on message virality. The results showed that messages generated by users who occupied peripheral positions (i.e., lower k-coreness) and by those connecting others within closed communities (i.e., lower brokerage) were more likely to diffuse than those generated by central users or those who bridged different communities. That is, online media facilitate mobilization in a decentralized yet fragmented fashion. This article concludes with a discussion of the theoretical implications of the current findings and suggests the directions for future research on collective action on online media.

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