Collective Action Flashcards
(48 cards)
1
Q
Which two theorists deal with multidimensionality?
A
- Plott
- McKelvey
2
Q
Charles Plott facts
A
- American economist (born 1938)
- Plott (1967) generalized Black’s Median Voter Theorem to account for multiple dimensions
3
Q
Plott’s theorem
A
- If members of a group have circular indifference curves (ie. possess “distance-based” spatial preferences), and if their ideal points are distributed in radially symmetric fashion around the ideal point x, then the winset of x is empty (ie. x* is a Condorcet winner)
- If voters possess distance-based spatial preferences, and if their ideal points are distributed in a radially symmetric fashion with x, the ideal point of the voters, and the number of voters is odd, then x cannot be defeated in pairwise majority voting (x has an empty winset)
4
Q
Plott’s theorem basic parameters
A
- Circular indifference curves
- These round circles are indifferent curves ie. it is a locus of policy outcomes among which an individual is indifferent (qua utility)
- The smaller the circule the higher the utility
- The ideal point is in the middle; that is the most preferred outcome
- If an individual’s indifference curves are circular, then she always prefers points that are closer to those further away (ie. she has “distance-based” spatial preferences)
- All points inside the circle, being closer to the ideal, are actually preferred by him or her to the one on the line
5
Q
Radially symmetric fashion
A
- Another element of Plott: radially symmetric fashion
- Radially symmetric fashion means that the policy space is effectively one-dimensional
- The voters on each side of the median have directly opposing interests which cancel them out
- A multidimensional space becomes one dimensional
- Radially symmetric does not require that the points must be equidistant from each other: “they must simply line up”
6
Q
Under what condition can we discover multidimensional medians?
A
If ideal points are distributed symmetrically around the (multidimensional) median
7
Q
Richard McKelvey facts
A
- Political scientist (1944-2002), specializing in the mathematical theories of voting
- McKelvey wanted to solve Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem and find the majority winner
- Restricts condition U to see if majority rule worked “tolerably”
- One-dimensional: single peakedness
- Multi-dimensional: radially symmetric distribution of ideal points (Plott); but very unstable
8
Q
McKelvey’s chaos theorem
A
In multi-dimensional policy spaces, using paired comparisons and majority rule, winning alternatives will rarely exist, and if they do not exist, any policy can be chosen with the appropriate agenda
9
Q
What does McKelvey’s chaos theorem assert?
A
When there are more than one dimensions to a policy, the social preference ordering is likely to be intransitive, and by manipulating he agenda, the polity can choose anything
- Multidimensionality can produce chaos
- Things that look good when we are dealing with only one dimension, but very bad when we are dealing with multiple dimensions
10
Q
Summary of McKelvey
A
- McKelvey theorem indicates that almost every possible outcome can be realized through democratic decision-making in a multidimensional space
- The desired result is established by ensuring that in each stage another composition of the majority determines the outcome of that part of the decision-making procedure
- The person who designs the decision-making procedure needs to know the preferences of the participants to achieve the most desirable outcome by shifting majorities
11
Q
Anthony Downs facts
A
- Anthony Downs (1930-2021)
- American economist
- Book: An Economic Theory of Voting (1957)
- Uses the Hotelling’s model for his spatial model of electoral competition
- He is also known for positing the Voting Paradox
12
Q
What is the set up for Downs’ spatial model of electoral competition
A
- There is one ideological (economical) dimension
- Democracy
- Two parties/candidates
13
Q
What are the goals of parties and voters in Downs’ model of electoral competition?
A
Goal for parties: Maximize political support (votes)
- Control government
Goal for voters: Policy
- As close as possible to ideal point
14
Q
Other assumptions (apart from goals of parties + voters) of Downs’ model of electoral competition
A
- Policy is unidimensional on a scale from 0 (left-wing) to 1 (right-wing)
- Voters vote for party that is closest to their ideological preference
- Party who wins majority forms government
- No uncertainty in the baseline model
- Party cannot deviate from proposed policy once elected
15
Q
How will parties/candidates position themselves in Downs’ model?
A
- Based on the distribution of voters, parties and/or candidates will position themselves
- If we fix one candidate’s position first, the second candidate will be very close to this one (think about the Hotelling’s model)
- Candidates should choose the position equal to the ideal point of the median voter (groups will then be of equal size)
- In other words, there is a centripetal tendency to the median voter (as was also already suggested by Black)
16
Q
Interesting questions for looking at collective action
A
- Why do some individuals in a community seem to follow conventions?
– Why do we drive on the right side of the road? - How are large numbers of people able to coordinate their behavior?
– Why do we participate in protests or armed groups? - How do we make sure that people do their fair share of collective undertaking?
– How do we make sure that each person in our household does part of the cleaning? - Do groups uniformly represent the interest of their members?
– A powerful critique came from Mancur Olson’s “The logic of collective action”
17
Q
Mancur Olson facts
A
- Mancur Olson (1932-1998)
- Former professor of economics at the University of Maryland
- A father of political economy and public choice
– Public financing and public policy
– Political economy
– International Relations eg. economic theory of alliances
18
Q
What assumptions did Olson’s “The logic of collective action” work against?
A
- Prior to this, scholars took groups for granted, assuming they were a natural state of social and political affairs
- Furthermore, many believed that groups representing the wide array of interests in a society would “naturally” form to represent those interests
- Olson’s work demonstrated that these assumptions were false
19
Q
Olson’s main arguments
A
- Rational and self-interested individuals will not act voluntarily to achieve their common or group interests
- Collective action is problematic if we talk about public goods
20
Q
Defining features of public goods
A
Non-excludable
- They must be available to everyone if the are available to anyone
Non-rival (or jointly supplied)
- One person’s enjoyment of the good does not detract from others’ enjoyment of the good
21
Q
Examples of public goods
A
Clean air, national defense, lighthouses, highways (?)
22
Q
Characteristics of private goods
A
- Private goods are excludable and rivalrous
- Private goods raise no collective action problems
23
Q
What does the non-excludability requirement of public goods entail?
A
- It means that if some members of a group achieve a public good, then every member of the groups gets to enjoy this good, whether or not the member contributed to the achievement of the good
- However, in most cases excludability is a matter of cost
- Example: the owners of a lighthouse could arrange for a series of ships carrying giant black-out screens to sail directly in front of any boat which had not paid to use the lighthouse beam
24
Q
What is the collective action problem?
A
- Non-excludability of public goods creates incentives to free ride
- When people free-ride, the desired good is under produced or not produced at all
25
Olson on the collective action problem
Any group or any organization, large or small, works for some collective benefit that by its nature will benefit all of the members of that group in question. Though all members of a group therefore have a common interest in paying costs of providing that collective good. Each would prefer that the others pay the entire cost, and ordinarily would get any benefit provided whether he has borne part of the cost or not
26
RCT in connection to the collective action problem
- The assumptions of RC lead to pessimistic conclusions about the willingness of individuals to engage in collective action
- And when RCT correctly predicts that individuals will not rationally pursue a common interest, this is often a "problem" in that a common good is not obtained
27
What is the voting paradox?
- In a very large election, the probability that an individual vote might change the election outcomes is extremely small
- At the same time, each has an incentive to free-ride on the political knowledge of others
- If each person only votes for the purposes of influencing the election outcome, then even a small cost to vote - like bad weather - should dissuade anyone from voting
28
What is the instrumental voting model?
An action has value only if it affects outcomes
29
What is the paradox of (not) voting?
The inconsistency between the theory (no one votes) and real-world turnout rates
30
How can we explain such high turnout rates in the real-world?
- Expressive theories: the act of voting itself gives people utility, which can depend on various factors (how other people vote, etc.)
- Bounded rationality voter theories: weaken the full rationality assumptions of voters
31
Collective action problem from realists
- Realists argue that in an anarchical system, states confront a "security dilemma"
- The more one state arms itself, the more reason other states have to either accelerate their own rearmament or contemplate a pre-emptive attack
- Yet, even if it is in the interest of every country that everyone disarms, it may not be in the interest of any one country to be the first to do so
32
Olson on the effects of group size for collective action
"Indeed unless the number of individuals in a group is quite small, or unless there is coercion or some other special device to make individuals act in their common interest, rational, self-interested individuals will not act to achieve their common or group interests"
- For Olson, the most important factor influencing the likelihood of collective action occurring is the size of the group
33
Effect of small group size on collective action (Olson)
Although free-riding problems are common to all groups collective action problems are easier to overcome when the size of the group is small
- The effectiveness of each individual is rather large in small groups
-- Each individual contribution makes a noticeable different
- Because each member matters, the other members have incentives to make sure everyone is cooperating
-- Free-riders can be identified and subjected to social pressure (it is more personal)
- Small groups still have problems, specifically the exploitation of the large by the small
34
Effect of large group size on collective action (Olson)
- Collective action problems are most severe in large groups
-- Individual contributions may matter less
-- Free-riders are difficult to identify (large groups are anonymous)
-- Free-riders are difficult to punish
- Thus, large groups often remain "latent" (plagued by free-riders)
- The types of groups likely to remain latent are those that represent broad societal interests
35
Solutions to free riding problems
- State provides public goods
- Large members/political entrepreneurs have a stronger incentive to engage in cooperative behavior and produce a public good
- Privatization
- By products and selective incentives
36
Selective incentives (solutions to free-riding problems)
- This is Olson's explanation for the existence of large-scale collective action
- Groups can entice members to join by providing selective incentives, ie. benefits (private goods) that can be obtained only by contributing
- Selective incentives are private and exclusive; they are rewards for being a member of the group
- Selective incentives can be positive (ie. a reward) or negative (ie. a fine)
37
Voting and social pressure (Gerber, Green, Larimer)
- Large field experiment involving registered voters in Michigan
- 180,002 households in Michigan received one of four mails, or no mail, before primary elections
-- All four mails emphasized the recipients civic duty to vote
-- Mail 2: addition, the recipient was being studied
-- Mail 3: addition, recipients who vote is public information, listed the recent voting record of each registered voter in the household, and indicated that the sender would "mail an updated chart" after the elections
-- Mail 4: addition, recipients who vote is public information and listed the recent voting record of each registered voter in the household + listed neighbors and their voting records and indicated that the send would "mail and updated chart" after the election
- As compared to turnout in the no-mailer control condition (29.7%) turnout was higher in the civic duty condition (31.5%), the second condition (32.2%), third condition (34.5%) and especially in the last condition (37.8%)
- Turnout was higher among those told that their participation would be made public
38
Examples of negative selective incentives
- State coercion and regulation: if you do not pay tax, you will go to jail
-- Governments can solve many collective action problems
- Non-state actors such as warlords or mafia can also enforce rules and regulations
39
Enforcement problems (collective action)
- Costly enforcement
-- Enforcement is not costless; small departures from cooperative agreements are likely to go unpunished
- Imperfect enforcement
-- Enforcement is not always perfect; mistakes happen
- Enforcer incentives
-- We assume that enforcers are honest but what if they have ulterior motives
40
What benefits can individuals derive from cooperative behavior?
- Material benefits
- Solidary benefits
-- Deriving pleasure from social activities that result from joining a group/cooperating
-- A different type of "selective incentive"
- Purposive benefits
-- Deriving pleasure from pursuing ideological goals and feeling like you are "doing the right thing"
-- The action IS the benefit
-- Also a type of selective incentive
41
What does the willingness of a rational individual to engage in collective action depend on?
- The effect of an individual's contribution in achieving the public good
- The number of members in a group
- The number of members necessary to achieve the public good
- Whether the public good is dichotomous (you either have it or you don't) or continuous (you can have varying degrees of the good)
- Whether the individual recognizes the collective goal
- Expectations about the behavior of others
42
Effect of Olson definition of public goods
Olson defines public goods solely on the basis of excludability
- However, public goods are also defined in terms of non-rivalry
- This suggests that his theory also applies to common pool resources
-- Goods that are non-excludable but rivalrous
-- eg. the environment, fishing grounds
-- It is difficult to stop boats exploiting fishing grounds, but fish caught in one boat cannot be caught by another
43
Elinor Ostrom facts
- First female political scientist who won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2009
- She won the prize for her "analysis of economic governance, especially the commons"
- Book: "Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action"
- Field research
44
Governing the commons (Ostrom)
- Detailed case studies of the management of common pool resources
-- Goods that are non-excludable but rivalrous
- She shows that over-time groups of individuals have developed complex formal and informal rules of allocation to overcome collective action problems
- She argued strongly against Garrett Hardin (1968) and his idea of the "tragedy of the commons"
45
Garrett Hardin facts + tragedy of the commons
- Garrett Hardin (1968), biologist
- Racist and anti-immigrant
- Against welfare state; which promotes the tragedy
- Restatement of Olson's argument with respect to latent groups and common pool resources
- His work does not contain any reference to Olson
46
Tragedy of the Commons
- The problem
-- Every individual has an incentive to consume a resource, but at the expense of every other individual
-- There is not way to exclude anyone from consuming
- Negative results
-- Harmful over-consumption
-- Under investment
-- Total depletion of the resource
- As the demand for the resource overwhelms the supply, every individual who consumes an additional unit directly harms others - and themselves too - who can no longer enjoy the benefits
47
Ostrom's solution to the commons
- Ostrom rejected the idea of the outside solution (government intervention)
- Instead she argued that individuals can escape collective action problems by converging on informal norms or crafting formal rules to facilitate cooperation
-- Social norms can encourage cooperation
-- She saw social norms as a type of preference over one's own behavior which is adopted as part of a community or culture (a sort of social selective incentive)
- Privatization or nationalization will often be unnecessary
- Ostrom shows that it might even be counterproductive
-- eg. privatization of a lake might solve overfishing but might also prevent non-rivalrous use of the lake for transport
48
Differences between Olson and Ostrom
- Ostrom provides many case studies of specific instances of collective action
- Ostrom argues against Olson's idea that voluntary cooperation is out of the question in large groups
- Ostrom argues against Olson's idea that social incentives do not play any role
