Collective Action and Local Development Processes

The theory of collective action focuses on the question of why individuals would cooperate in a social dilemma when they could free-ride on the contributions of others. The term “social dilemma” refers to a setting in which individuals choose actions in an interdependent situation. If each individual in such situations selects strategies based on a calculus that maximizes short-term benefits to self, individuals are predicted to take actions that generate lower joint outcomes than could have been achieved. In other words, a social dilemma can be analyzed as a game where the predicted equilibrium for a single iteration of the game yields less than the socially optimal outcome. The socially optimal outcome could be achieved if those involved “cooperated” by selecting strategies other than those prescribed by game theory. Since the suboptimal joint outcome is an equilibrium, no one is independently motivated to change their choice, given the predicted choices of all others. Such situations are dilemmas because at least one outcome yields higher returns for all participants, but rational participants making independent choices are predicted not to achieve this outcome. Social dilemmas involve a conflict between individual rationality and optimal outcomes for a group [Schelling 1978; Lichbach 1995]. Even if some individuals cooperate, others are predicted to “free-ride” on the contributions of the cooperators. In addition to the assumption regarding the structure of payoffs leading to a deficient equilibrium, further assumptions made in almost all models of social dilemmas include: 1. Decisions about strategies are made independently and simultaneously;