Selective incentives and intragroup heterogeneity in collective contests

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shmuel Nitzan ◽  
Kaoru Ueda
Keyword(s):  
Selective Incentives

Collective Action

2019 ◽  
pp. 466-488
Author(s):  
Jac C. Heckelman
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
Slow Growth ◽  
Policy Reform ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
Institutional Instability ◽  
Selective Incentives ◽  
Mancur Olson

The theory of collective action, as outlined by Mancur Olson, is presented. Olson argued that individuals are subject to free-riding behavior, which can be overcome by selective incentives. The larger is the potential group, the greater the hurdles to successful formation. Thus, smaller groups with more narrow interests are more likely to form, leading to an emphasis on policy reform that concentrates benefits to the group while diffusing the costs on greater society. The accumulation of such groups will slow growth, and this sclerotic effect is reversed due to institutional instability. This chapter develops a critical appraisal of the theory and the accumulated evidence in the literature that follows from Olson.

Reevaluating the Middle-Class Protest Paradigm: A Case-Control Study of Democratic Protest Coalitions in Russia

2017 ◽  
Vol 111 (4) ◽  
pp. 637-652 ◽  
Author(s):  
BRYN ROSENFELD
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Population Data ◽  
Case Control ◽  
Democratic Transitions ◽  
Electoral Fraud ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
State Sector ◽  
State Dependent ◽  
Selective Incentives

A large literature expects rising middle classes to promote democracy. However, few studies provide direct evidence on this group in nondemocratic settings. This article focuses on politically important differentiation within the middle classes, arguing that middle-class growth in state-dependent sectors weakens potential coalitions in support of democratization. I test this argument using surveys conducted at mass demonstrations in Russia and detailed population data. I also present a new approach to studying protest based on case-control methods from epidemiology. The results reveal that state-sector professionals were significantly less likely to mobilize against electoral fraud, even after controlling for ideology. If this group had participated at the same rate as middle-class professionals from the private sector, I estimate that another 90,000 protesters would have taken to the streets. I trace these patterns of participation to the interaction of individual resources and selective incentives. These findings have implications for authoritarian stability and democratic transitions.

scholarly journals Rallying the troops

2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 366-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy JA Passmore ◽  
Megan Shannon ◽  
Andrew F Hart
Keyword(s):  
Action Theory ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
Economic Incentives ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Member States ◽  
Free Ride ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
Selective Incentives ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Peacekeeping Missions

Is the acquisition of personnel for UN peacekeeping missions susceptible to free-riding by UN member states? If so, what drives this behavior and what impact does this have on obtaining required personnel for the mission? Using data from 21 missions in 13 African countries between 1990 and 2010, this article addresses whether UN peacekeeping missions experience a shortfall in personnel due to incentives to free-ride by contributing states. It argues that as the number of states contributing to a mission increases, contributors have a greater incentive to free-ride and make suboptimal personnel contributions, leading to greater overall shortfall in the mission’s personnel. However, this free-riding behavior can be mitigated by the economic incentives of contributor states. The findings support two central tenets of collective action theory: that free-riding by member states contributing to the mission is more prevalent when the number of contributors is larger, and when selective incentives such as economic gains are lower. These findings have implications for the strategic composition and efficacy of peacekeeping forces. More broadly, the results underscore the struggle of international organizations to obtain compliance from member states in achieving their international objectives.

Intrinsic and internalized modes of teaching motivation

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uwe Wilkesmann ◽  
Christian J. Schmid
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Intrinsic Motivation ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Higher Education Institutions ◽  
Multivariate Regression Analysis ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Academic Teaching ◽  
Teaching Motivation ◽  
Selective Incentives

Purpose – The introduction of New Public Management in the German system of higher education raises issues of the academics’ motivation to do research and to teach. The purpose of this paper is to present evidence-based findings about contextual factors which influence intrinsic and related modes of internalized teaching motivation in German higher education institutions. The paper discusses parallels between internalized forms of motivation and public service motivation (PSM). In accordance with self-determination theory (SDT), the paper empirically tests factors which correlate with autonomous motivation to teach. The paper also addresses the issue of the crowding effect of intrinsic motivation by selective incentives. Design/methodology/approach – The analyses are based on the data of two online surveys among German professors (n=2,061) representative for the population of state-governed universities. To test the theory-driven hypotheses the paper used multivariate regression analysis. Findings – The results support the basic claims of the SDT that intrinsic teaching motivation is facilitated by social relatedness, competence, and partly by autonomy for German professors, too. If teaching is managed by objective agreements intrinsic motivation is significantly decreased. Originality/value – The authors translated, reformulated, and applied the SDT framework to academic teaching. The analysis presents evidence that the management of autonomy-supportive work environmental factors is also superior to selective incentives in higher education institutions. The study on academic teaching motivation is a specific contribution to PSM research. Academic teaching in public higher education institutions is a service to the public.

scholarly journals Understanding participation dilemmas in community mobilisation: can collective action theory help?

2018 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lu Gram ◽  
Nayreen Daruwalla ◽  
David Osrin
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Action Theory ◽  
Critical Mass ◽  
Community Mobilisation ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Incentive Mechanisms ◽  
Theoretical Predictions ◽  
Selective Incentives

Community mobilisation interventions have been used to promote health in many low-income and middle-income settings. They frequently involve collective action to address shared determinants of ill-health, which often requires high levels of participation to be effective. However, the non-excludable nature of benefits produced often generates participation dilemmas: community members have an individual interest in abstaining from collective action and free riding on others’ contributions, but no benefit is produced if nobody participates. For example, marches, rallies or other awareness-raising activities to change entrenched social norms affect the social environment shared by community members whether they participate or not. This creates a temptation to let other community members invest time and effort. Collective action theory provides a rich, principled framework for analysing such participation dilemmas. Over the past 50 years, political scientists, economists, sociologists and psychologists have proposed a plethora of incentive mechanisms to solve participation dilemmas: selective incentives, intrinsic benefits, social incentives, outsize stakes, intermediate goals, interdependency and critical mass theory. We discuss how such incentive mechanisms might be used by global health researchers to produce new questions about how community mobilisation works and conclude with theoretical predictions to be explored in future quantitative or qualitative research.

Effects of member size and selective incentives of agricultural cooperatives on product quality

2016 ◽  
Vol 118 (4) ◽  
pp. 858-870 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rong Cai ◽  
Wanglin Ma ◽  
Ye Su
Keyword(s):  
Food Safety ◽  
Product Quality ◽  
Least Square ◽  
Agricultural Cooperatives ◽  
Target Market ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Safety Certification ◽  
Selective Incentives ◽  
Member Size ◽  
Apple Quality

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the effects of member size and external incentives (food safety certification and target market) on cooperative’s product quality, using data collected from 135 apple producing cooperatives in China. Design/methodology/approach – Given that different indicator variables were used to measure apple quality, the authors employed a principle component analysis method to reduce the measurement dimension. An ordinary least square regression was employed to analyse the effects of member size and selective incentives of agricultural cooperatives on product quality. Findings – The empirical results show that member size and cooperative’s product quality bear an inverse “U-shape” relationship, and food safety certification and target market variables tend to positively and significantly influence cooperative’s product quality. In particular, the cooperatives with more food safety certificates and targeting supermarkets and export enterprises are more likely to supply high-quality products. Originality/value – This study provides the first attempt to measure apple quality and investigate the factors that influence cooperative’s product quality.

Institutional Structure and the Logic of Ongoing Collective Action

1987 ◽  
Vol 81 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Bendor ◽  
Dilip Mookherjee
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Hierarchical Structure ◽  
Prisoner’S Dilemma ◽  
Institutional Structure ◽  
Herbert Simon ◽  
Conditional Cooperation ◽  
Mutual Cooperation ◽  
Selective Incentives ◽  
Individual Choices

Work by Axelrod, Hardin, and Taylor indicates that problems of repeated collective action may lessen if people use decentralized strategies of reciprocity to induce mutual cooperation. Hobbes's centralized solution may thus be overrated. We investigate these issues by representing ongoing collective action as an n-person repeated prisoner's dilemma. The results show that decentralized conditional cooperation can ease iterated collective action dilemmas—if all players perfectly monitor the relation between individual choices and group payoffs. Once monitoring uncertainty is introduced, such strategies degrade rapidly in value, and centrally administered selective incentives become relatively more valuable. Most importantly, we build on a suggestion of Herbert Simon by showing that a hierarchical structure, with reciprocity used in subunits and selective incentives centrally administered, combines the advantages of the decentralized and centralized solutions. This hierarchical form is more stable than the decentralized structure and often secures more cooperation than the centralized structure. Generally, the model shows that the logic of repeated decision making has significant implications for the institutional forms of collective action.

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