Collective Action Essay ⋆ Sociology Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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The term “collective action” is hopelessly broad. Taken at face value, it could plausibly refer to all forms of human behavior involving two or more people. For our purposes, however, collective action refers to emergent and at least minimally coordinated action by two or more people that is motivated by a desire to change some aspect of social life or to resist changes proposed by others. While many aspects of collective action have been the subject of theory and research, we organize the entry around the two questions that have received the most scholarly attention.

The first concerns the origins of collective action. Strain theories presume that collective action is a response to some form of disruption in the normal functioning of society. In contrast, resource mobilization theorists argue that there is always sufficient ”strain in society to provide the motivation for collective action; what varies are the organizational capacity and resources required to do so. The distinctive contribution of political process theory has been to reassert the fundamental political character and origins of collective action. The main emphasis has been on the role of catalytic events that weaken established regimes, thereby creating new ”opportunities for successful action by challenging groups.

The second question focuses on differential participation in collective action. Why does one person come to take part while another does not? The oldest accounts of activism are psychological. The emphasis is on character traits or states of mind that presumably dispose an individual to participate. Running very much counter to these psychological theories is an important rationalist tradition in the study of collective action. More specifically, we can expect individuals to participate when: (1) they receive selective incentives for doing so and (2) effective systems of monitoring and sanctioning work are operating to deny benefits to those who fail to take part. A third perspective holds that strong attitudinal support for the aims of a movement compels individual activism.

All of the previous accounts of participation can be thought of as ”dispositional.” The final theory rests on a very different assumption. People participate not simply because prior dispositions impel them to, but because their network location in the world puts them at ”risk for participation. The causal emphasis is on existing ties to others in the movement that serve to pull them into collective action even as various dispositions are pushing them in that direction.

Bibliography:

Diani, M. & McAdam, D. (eds.) (2003) Social Movements and Networks. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
McAdam, D. (1999) [1982] Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930-1970.University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
McCarthy, J. D. & Zald, M. N. (1977) Resource mobilization and social movements: a partial theory. American Journal ofSociology 82: 1212—41.
Olson, M., Jr. (1965) The Logic of Collective Action. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Tilly, (1978) From Mobilization to Revolution. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.