Social and Financial Incentives for Overcoming a Collective Action Problem

This chapter presents a unified model of legislative elections, parties, and roll call voting, built around a party leadership election. First, a legislative caucus selects a party leader who campaigns based on a platform of a disciplinary system. Once elected, that leader runs the legislative session, in which roll call votes occur. Then elections occur, and incumbents face re-election with the positions they incrementally adopted. When the caucus is ideologically homogeneous, electorally diverse, and policy motivated, members will elect a leader who solves the collective action problem of sincere voting with “preference-preserving influence.” That leader will threaten to punish legislators who bow to electoral pressure to vote as centrists. Consequently, legislators vote sincerely as extremists and get slightly lower vote shares, but they offset that lost utility with policy gains that they couldn’t have gotten without party influence. Party leaders will rarely pressure legislators to vote insincerely.

Download Full-text

Climate Change Inaction and Optimism

Philosophies ◽

10.3390/philosophies6030061 ◽

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.

Download Full-text

The collective action problem in primate territory economics

Proceedings of The Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rspb.2013.0081 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 280 (1759) ◽

pp. 20130081 ◽

Cited By ~ 62

Author(s):

Erik P. Willems ◽

Barbara Hellriegel ◽

Carel P. van Schaik

Keyword(s):

Collective Action ◽

Collective Action Problem

Download Full-text

Politikberatung der Öffentlichkeit?

Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik ◽

10.1111/1468-2516.00032 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 61-73 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Hans Pitlik

Keyword(s):

Public Opinion ◽

Collective Action ◽

General Public ◽

Policy Advice ◽

Collective Action Problem ◽

Academic System ◽

Countervailing Power

Abstract Due to the incentives of both suppliers and users of policy advice the influence of economists on government decisions is almost negligible. This paper aims to explore the prospects of policy advice addressed to the general public as a countervailing power. It is argued that in order to have some impact on public opinion economists must rely primarily on propaganda and have to overcome a serious collective action problem. Yet, the organization of the academic system provides no incentives for economists to fulfil the role of general-public-oriented advisers.

Download Full-text

Antimicrobial Footprints, Fairness, and Collective Harm

Ethics and Drug Resistance: Collective Responsibility for Global Public Health - Public Health Ethics Analysis ◽

10.1007/978-3-030-27874-8_23 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 377-387

Author(s):

Anne Schwenkenbecher

Keyword(s):

Antimicrobial Resistance ◽

Collective Action ◽

Carbon Footprint ◽

Moral Obligation ◽

Real Difference ◽

Collective Action Problem ◽

Individual Behaviour ◽

Individual Contributions ◽

Collective Harm ◽

Discernible Difference

Abstract This chapter explores the question of whether or not individual agents are under a moral obligation to reduce their ‘antimicrobial footprint’. An agent’s antimicrobial footprint measures the extent to which her actions are causally linked to the use of antibiotics. As such, it is not necessarily a measure of her contribution to antimicrobial resistance. Talking about people’s antimicrobial footprint in a way we talk about our carbon footprint may be helpful for drawing attention to the global effects of individual behaviour and for highlighting that our choices can collectively make a real difference. But can we be morally obligated to make a contribution to resolving a collective action problem when our individual contributions by themselves make no discernible difference? I will focus on two lines of argument in favour of such obligations: whether a failure to reduce one’s antimicrobial footprint is unfair and whether it constitutes wrongdoing because it is harmful. I conclude by suggesting that the argument from collective harm is ultimately more successful.

Download Full-text