Introduction
Collective action lies at the heart of any vibrant civil society because civic engagement requires individuals to work together as part of a group. In plural societies, political parties, interest organizations, voluntary associations, and religious congregations serve an important role. Putnam et al. (1994) said these associations all help to “make democracy work.” Meyer and Tarrow (1998) characterize contemporary postindustrial societies as “social movement societies” in which interest organizations and protest groups are nearly ubiquitous. Too often, however, collective action is taken for granted by civic activists and prescriptive theorists of civil society alike. It is easy to assume that, because people belong to groups with common interests, the members of that group will act in concert to achieve those interests. These assumptions are challenged by collective action theory.
Definition
Developing out of rational-choice theory, the theory of collective action...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References/Further Readings
Chong, D. (1991). Collective action and the civil rights movement. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Coleman, J. (1988). Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology, 94 (Suppl.), S92–S120.
Coleman, J. (1990). Foundations of social theory. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Cook, K. S., Hardin, R., & Levi, M. (2005). Cooperation without Trust? New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Fehr, E., & Gintis, H. (2007). Human motivation and social cooperation: Experimental and analytical foundations. Annual Review of Sociology, 33, 43–64.
Granovetter, M. (1978). Threshold models of collective behavior. American Journal of Sociology, 83(6), 1420–1443.
Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Science, 162, 1243–1248.
Hardin, R. (1982). Collective action. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Hechter, M. (1987). Principles of group solidarity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Heckathorn, D. (1989). Collective action and the second-order free-rider problem. Rationality and Society, 1(1), 78–100.
Henrich, J., Boyd, R., Bowles, S., Camerer, C., Fehr, E., & Gintis, H. (2004). Foundations of human sociality: Economic experiments and ethnographic evidence from fifteen small-scale societies. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kollock, P. (1998). Social dilemmas: The anatomy of cooperation. Annual Review of Sociology, 24, 183–214.
Lichbach, M. (1994). The rebel’s dilemma. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Marwell, G., & Oliver, P. (1993). The critical mass in collective action: A micro-social theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Marwell, P., Marwell, G., & Texeira, R. (1985). A theory of the critical mass. I. interdependence, group heterogeneity, and the production of collection action. American Journal of Sociology, 91(3), 522–556.
McAdam, D., McCarthy, J., & Zald, M. (1996). Comparative perspectives on social movements: Political opportunities, mobilizing structures, and cultural framings. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Meyer, D., & Tarrow, S. (Eds.) (1998). The social movement society. Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield.
Oliver, P. (1984). If you don't do it, nobody else will: Active and token contributors to local collective action. American Sociological Review, 49(5), 601–610.
Oliver, P., & Marwell, G. (2001). Whatever happened to critical mass theory? A retrospective and assessment. Sociological Theory, 19(3), 292–311.
Olson, M. (1965). The logic of collective action: Public goods and the theory of groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the commons. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Putnam, R. D., Leonardi, R., & Nanetti, R.Y. (1994). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Schelling, T. C. (1978). Micromotives and macrobehavior. New York: Norton.
Tilly, C. (1978). From mobilization to revolution. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this entry
Cite this entry
Pfaff, S., Valdez, S. (2010). Collective Action. In: Anheier, H.K., Toepler, S. (eds) International Encyclopedia of Civil Society. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-93996-4_539
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-93996-4_539
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-93994-0
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-93996-4
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law