Collective Action (Rff Press)

Hardin, Russell

ISBN 10: 0801828198 / ISBN 13: 9780801828195

Published by Resources for the Future by the John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 1993

About this Item

Fair in wraps; 8vo; Paperback; 248 pages; Published for Resources for the Future by the John Hopkins University Press; 1993; Third Paperback Printing; Rubbing to wraps; Large tear to front wrap near spine; Text clean and unmarked.

Seller Inventory # 4033

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Collective Action (Rff Press)
• Publisher: Resources for the Future by the John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD
• Publication Date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0801828198
• ISBN 13: 9780801828195
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Fair
• Dimensions: 5.98W x 9.02H x 0.61D inches 5.98 inches width by 9.02 inches height by 0.61 inches depth
• Weight: 0.95 pounds
• Seller catalogs:
  • Politics

About this title

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 the Author

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