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Collective Action

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Handbook of European Societies

Abstract

Collective action is a fuzzy term, encompassing extremely variegated activities ranging from a young couple taking a honeymoon trip to armies engaging in warfare. Contrary to collective behaviour (e.g. panic) which is often taken synonymous to collective action, the latter term should be reserved for an intentional activity to reach a certain goal. And contrary to many forms of individual action, such as participating in a ballot, collective action requires a certain degree of coordination among the activists. While collective action, taken literally, would also include activities of highly institutionalised groups such as governments or executive boards of corporations, the term usually refers to activities of groups that are less institutionalised and less formalised.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For overviews on collective action and/or political participation in Europe, see Roller and Wessels (1996); Greenwood and Aspinwall (1998); Imig and Tarrow (2001); Balme et al. (2002); and Rucht (2006).

  2. 2.

    Tilly distinguishes, and probably overemphasises, a historical watershed around the turn from the 18th to the 19th century when new forms of collective action, in his words a new action repertoire, took shape. It is likely that these changes occurred at a slower pace than Tilly has assumed (see, for example, Tarrow 1998, Chapter 6).

  3. 3.

    These struggles go back much earlier. See, for example, Cohn (2006).

  4. 4.

    “Involvement” has been operationalised by the items “Belong to group” and/or “do unpaid work” for such a group.

  5. 5.

    The survey includes “Joining in boycotts” as another kind of action which, however, is neglected here for two reasons: First, to reduce the amount of information packed in one table and, second, because the meaning of joining a boycott is relatively vague. It may include not buying a certain product, hence a non-disruptive act, but also an illegal act, e.g. to refuse to pay taxes for political reasons.

  6. 6.

    This was indeed the case in Belgium when the by far largest protest ever in this country took place because of the bad handling of spectacular criminal case by state authorities including the judiciary (Walgrave and Manssens 2000).

  7. 7.

    Britain, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain and Sweden.

  8. 8.

    Britain, France, Germany, Netherlands and Switzerland.

  9. 9.

    To this category, one usually attributes movements concerned with peace, human, civil, women’s and gay rights, environmental protection, urban issues and Third World problems in the period since the 1960s/1970s. For an analysis of support to these movements in several European countries, see Fuchs and Rucht 1994.

  10. 10.

    Schmitter and Trechsel (2004).

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Lee Ann Banaszak, Stefan Immerfall and Wolfgang Stuppert for their useful comments on earlier versions of this chapter.

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    Dieter Rucht

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  1. Inst. Humanwissenschaften, Pädagogische Hochschule Schwäbisch Gmünd, Oberbettringer Str. 200, Schwäbisch Gmünd, 73525, Germany

    Stefan Immerfall

  2. Dept. Sociology, University of Cambridge, Free School Lane, Cambridge, CB2 3RQ, United Kingdom

    Göran Therborn

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Rucht, D. (2010). Collective Action. In: Immerfall, S., Therborn, G. (eds) Handbook of European Societies. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-88199-7_6

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