scholarly journals How “Free” is Free Riding in Civil Wars?: Violence, Insurgency, and the Collective Action Problem

2007 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stathis N. Kalyvas ◽  
Matthew Adam Kocher
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Collective Action Problem ◽  
The Public ◽  
Individual Participation

That rebels face a collective action problem is one of the most widely shared assumptions in the literature on civil wars. The authors argue that the collective action paradigm can be both descriptively inaccurate and analytically misleading when it comes to civil wars. They question both pillars of the paradigm as applied to the study of civil wars, namely, the free-riding incentive generated by the public goods dimension of insurgency and the risks of individual participation in insurgent collective action. The authors argue, instead, that although insurgent collective action may entail the expectation of future collective benefits, public (rather than just private) costs tend to predominate in the short term. Moreover, the costs of nonparticipation and free riding may equal or even exceed those of participation. The authors support these claims by triangulating three types of evidence: historical evidence from counterinsurgency operations in several civil wars; data from the Vietnam War's Phoenix Program; and regional evidence from the Greek Civil War. They conclude by drawing implications for the study of civil wars.

scholarly journals Climate Change Inaction and Optimism

Philosophies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Philip J. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Economic Growth ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Collective Action Problem ◽  
The Public ◽  
Policy Context ◽  
Positive Action ◽  
Ideological Fantasy

The problem of climate change inaction is sometimes said to be ‘wicked’, or essentially insoluble, and it has also been seen as a collective action problem, which is correct but inconsequential. In the absence of progress, much is made of various frailties of the public, hence the need for an optimistic tone in public discourse to overcome fatalism and encourage positive action. This argument is immaterial without meaningful action in the first place, and to favour what amounts to the suppression of truth over intellectual openness is in any case disreputable. ‘Optimism’ is also vexed in this context, often having been opposed to the sombre mood of environmentalists by advocates of economic growth. The greater mental impediments are ideological fantasy, which is blind to the contradictions in public discourse, and the misapprehension that if optimism is appropriate in one social or policy context it must be appropriate in others. Optimism, far from spurring climate change action, fosters inaction.

The Effect of Incentives: Diffusion of Responsibility

2021 ◽  
pp. 166-182
Author(s):  
Jason Brennan ◽  
William English ◽  
John Hasnas ◽  
Peter Jaworski
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Tragedy Of The Commons ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Collective Action Problem ◽  
P Diffusion ◽  
Perverse Incentives ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Diffusion Of Responsibility

Diffusion of responsibility refers to the problem that when something is everyone’s job, it in effect ends up being nobody’s job. This explains why many collective problems arise. People face perverse incentives to free ride on others’ actions and not to do their part. As a result, agents often think in short-term rather than long-term ways. Problems such as climate change can be modeled as instances of the tragedy of the commons, one form of a collective action problem that arises due to perverse incentives created by the diffusion of responsibility.

Political Solutions to the Collective Action Problem

1980 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Laver
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Goods Provision ◽  
Collective Action Problem ◽  
The Core ◽  
Political Entrepreneurs ◽  
Production Problems

This paper juxtaposes two important political solutions to the collective action problem in the context of a common set of core assumptions. Once the core assumptions have been discussed, the distinction between the consumption and the production problems associated with public goods provision is elaborated. These assumptions and this distinction are applied to a comparison between a theory of individualistic anarchy, and a theory of competitive political entrepreneurs. Revisions of both are required to enable them to be placed within this framework. While the two theories are neither exclusive nor exhaustive they can, between them, be used to understand public goods provision in a number of different circumstances.

Informal Institutions, Collective Action, and Public Investment in Rural China

2015 ◽  
Vol 109 (2) ◽  
pp. 371-391 ◽  
Author(s):  
YIQING XU ◽  
YANG YAO
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Rural China ◽  
Public Investment ◽  
Informal Institutions ◽  
Causal Effects ◽  
Collective Action Problem ◽  
Bureaucratic Institutions ◽  
Local Leaders

Do informal institutions, rules, and norms created and enforced by social groups promote good local governance in environments of weak democratic or bureaucratic institutions? This question is difficult to answer because of challenges in defining and measuring informal institutions and identifying their causal effects. In the article, we investigate the effect of lineage groups, one of the most important vehicles of informal institutions in rural China, on local public goods expenditure. Using a panel dataset of 220 Chinese villages from 1986 to 2005, we find that village leaders from the two largest family clans in a village increased local public investment considerably. This association is stronger when the clans appeared to be more cohesive. We also find that clans helped local leaders overcome the collective action problem of financing public goods, but there is little evidence suggesting that they held local leaders accountable.

Rebellious Collective Action Revisited

1987 ◽  
Vol 81 (2) ◽  
pp. 557-564 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Klosko ◽  
Edward N. Muller ◽  
Karl Dieter Opp
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
York City ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
The Public

Why does it happen that ordinary people can come to participate in rebellious collective action? In the June 1986 issue of this Review, Edward N. Muller and Karl-Dieter Opp argued a public-goods model to account for why rational citizens may become rebels. They offered empirical data drawn from samples in New York City and Hamburg, Germany in support of the public-goods model. George Kolsko takes issue with the rationale of Muller and Opp, arguing that their public-goods model is not a rational-choice explanation of rebellious collective action. In response, Muller and Opp clarify their theory and further elaborate its assumptions.

scholarly journals Modes of Collective Action in Village Economies: Evidence from Natural and Artefactual Field Experiments in a Developing Country

2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasuyuki Sawada ◽  
Ryuji Kasahara ◽  
Keitaro Aoyagi ◽  
Masahiro Shoji ◽  
Mika Ueyama
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Size Effect ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Group Size ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
Free Rider ◽  
Individual Contribution ◽  
Free Rider Problem ◽  
Group Size Effect

In a canonical model of collective action, individual contribution to collective action is negatively correlated with group size. Yet, empirical evidence on the group size effect has been mixed, partly due to heterogeneities in group activities. In this paper, we first construct a simple model of collective action with the free rider problem, altruism, public goods, and positive externalities of social networks. We then empirically test the theoretical implications of the group size effect on individual contribution to four different types of collective action, i.e., monetary or nonmonetary contribution to directly or indirectly productive activities. To achieve this, we collect and employ artefactual field experimental data such as public goods and dictator games conducted in southern Sri Lanka under a natural experimental situation where the majority of farmers were relocated to randomly selected communities based on the government lottery. This unique situation enables us to identify the causal effects of community size on collective action. We find that the levels of collective action can be explained by the social preferences of farmers. We also show evidence of free riding by self-interested households with no landholdings. The pattern of collective action, however, differs significantly by mode of activity—collective action that is directly rather than indirectly related to production is less likely to suffer from the free rider problem. Also, monetary contribution is less likely to cause free riding than nonmonetary labor contribution. Unlike labor contributions, monetary contributions involve collection of fees which can be easily tracked and verified, possibly leading to better enforcement of collective action.

The Logic of Logic, and Beyond

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Cronk ◽  
Beth L. Leech
Keyword(s):  
Social Behavior ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Small Groups ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Social Behavior

This chapter examines Mancur Olson's arguments, which he articulated in The Logic of Collective Action, and compares them with those of his supporters and detractors. It also reviews the social science literature on cooperation, focusing primarily on the theoretical and empirical research on collective action that grew out of Olson's challenge. According to Olson, the members of a group have interests in common. His logic was an economic logic, based on the behavior of firms in the marketplace in their quest for profits. Olson extended this logic of the market to human social behavior. The chapter considers Olson's solutions to the problem of free riding and the possibility that no group would ever form, including coercion, small groups, selective benefits, and the by-product theory of public goods provisioning. Finally, it describes some major extensions of and challenges to Olson's path-breaking model.

Pathways to Violence in Civil Wars: Combatant Socialization and the Drivers of Participation in Civilian Targeting

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc-Olivier Cantin
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Social Needs ◽  
Civil War Literature ◽  
Violence Against Civilians ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Key Pathways ◽  
Individual Participation

Abstract Recent research has drawn attention to the role of socialization in shaping the behaviors of rebel combatants during civil wars. In particular, scholars have highlighted how vertical and horizontal socialization dynamics can bring combatants to engage in a range of wartime practices, including the use of violence against civilians. This article synthesizes existing theories of combatant socialization and combines them into an integrated framework, which casts the focus on individual pathways toward civilian targeting and specifies the underlying sociopsychological mechanisms through which socializing influences motivate participation in violence. Specifically, the article charts five key pathways that operate through different mechanisms and that are based upon varying degrees of internalization regarding the legitimacy of civilian targeting. In each case, I also identify a number of unit-level factors that are likely to make a given pathway particularly prevalent among combatants. The article then illustrates how these pathways map onto the actual experiences of civil war combatants by examining the drivers of individual participation in violence against civilians among low-ranking members of the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone. The case study evidence highlights the equifinal nature of violence perpetration during civil wars, shedding light on the different social needs, influences, sanctions, and constraints that may motivate involvement in violence. By analyzing rebel behavior through the prism of perpetrator studies, this article thus seeks to establish the civil war literature on firmer theoretical grounds, providing a synthetic account of the individual experiences, motives, and trajectories that are often left unaddressed in this body of research.

Representations of Wales and the Welsh during the civil wars and Interregnum

2004 ◽  
Vol 77 (197) ◽  
pp. 358-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lloyd Bowen
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
The State ◽  
The Public ◽  
Charles I ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
High Politics

Abstract This article examines how Wales and the Welsh were represented in the pamphlet literature of the civil war and early Interregnum. It considers the historical construction of the Welsh image in English minds, and traces how this image came to be politicized by Welsh support for Charles I during the sixteen-forties. An examination of the public controversies surrounding the state-sponsored evangelization programme in Wales during the early sixteen-fifties shows how the contested image of Wales in the public sphere interacted with high politics at the centre. This study contributes to our understanding of the interplay between ethnicity, identity and politics during the sixteen-forties and fifties, and demonstrates how imagery and representation informed political discourse in the mid seventeenth century.

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