Collective Action (RFF Press) - Hardcover

Hardin, Professor Russell

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 080182818X ISBN 13: 9780801828188

Publisher: RFF Press, 1982

Synopsis

Public choice, an important subdiscipline in the field of political theory, seeks to understand how people and societies make decisions affecting their collective lives. Relying heavily on theoretical models of decision making, public choice postulates that people act in their individual interests in making collective decisions. As it happens, however, reality does not mirror theory, and people often act contrary to what the principal public choice models suggest. In this book, Russell Hardin looks beyond the models to find out why people choose to act together in situations that the models find quite hopeless. He uses three constructs of modern political economy--public goods, the Prisoner's Dilemma, and game theory--to test public choice theories against real world examples of collective action. These include movements important in American society in the past few decades--civil rights, the Vietnam War, women's rights, and environmental concerns. This classic work on public choice will be of interest to theoreticians and graduate students in the fields of public choice, political economy, or political theory--and to those in other disciplines who are concerned with the problem of collective action in social contexts.

About this title

About the Author

Russell Hardin is professor of politics at New York University. His recent books include Indeterminacy and Society and Trust and Trustworthiness.

Review

"Like its predecessor work, Mancur Olson's The Logic of Collective Action, Hardin's effort promises to prompt some original new research on interest group politics. This innovative and scholarly public choice effort both challenges and advances Olson and the important attention he directed toward the internal behavior of interest group participants. In this work, Hardin's primary conceptual contribution is to note the static rather than dynamic nature of the social exchange relationships postulated earlier. By emphasizing the dynamic -- and necessary forward-looking -- exchanges that hold interest groups together, the author is able to develop a theory in which truly collective action is more likely possible than Olson would have us believe." -- Social Science Quarterly

Edition details

• Publisher: RFF Press
• Publication date: 1982
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 080182818X
• ISBN 13: 9780801828188
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 264