PO 326 Introduction to Political Science Week 10: Formal Methods Rational choice Instrumentalism Game Theory

Collective Action Collective Action individuals working together to achieve something that each benefits from The goal is often considered a “public good” available to all, group benefits are inherently shared it is difficult or impossible to privatize the benefit National Defence

Collective Action Problem Collective Action Problem / Free Rider Problem a situation in which some individuals would benefit from a certain action without contribution to its provision if something is nonexcludeable and nonrivalrous, everyone has an incentive to "free ride" on the efforts of others: to let others pay the price of the good

Collective Action Problem Mancur Olson The Logic of Collective Action, 1965 rational choice as solution to the problem of collective action collective action can be achieved by introducing the notion of selective ( individual) incentives

Collective Action Problem Olson argued that individuals participation depends on: whether one’s action would make a noticeable difference in the collective good (in achieving the outcome) OR whether one’s action is not enough to make a difference (i.e. not benefit) -> the probability of "making a difference" in the outcome is the ‘calculus’ of individual rational action

Collective Action Problem Olson predicts that it will be more difficult to organise groups for broad, general purposes (or often simply, large groups) than for narrow, special purposes individuals will be more likely to join small groups organised for narrow purposes than those organised for broad purposes (because, he argued, smaller groups were more likely to achieve their stated goals)

Collective Action Are individuals’ choices, when aggregated, perfectly equal to collective choices? How does this thinking inform our understanding of participation in Social Movements?

Collective Action Have you ever participated in a social movement? Why? Why did others? Did the incentive of achieving your goal play an important part of you activity? What contributes to the thinking about participating in a movement? e.g. Occupy? What about regular voting?

Collective Action What if students wanted to organise a protest to advocate lower tuition fees or lecturers going on strike to secure better pension benefits All students (lecturers) will benefit from lower fees (better pensions) but not everyone will participate Why?