Good metaphors may be essential to social science. By putting ``the polysemous properties of language in the foreground,'' they facilitate what Richard Harvey Brown calls the ``genre-stretching'' that drives innovation. The danger of a good metaphor, though, is that claims merely implied are subjected neither to theoretical speci¢cation nor empirical investigation. Evocation substitutes for exp...

Many celebrate the Internet’s ability to connect individuals and facilitate collective action toward a common goal. While numerous systems have been designed to support particular aspects of collective action, few systems support participatory, end-to-end collective action in which a crowd or community identifies opportunities, formulates goals, brainstorms ideas and develops plans, mobilizes, ...

This paper gives an account of proxy agency in the context of collective action. It takes the case of a group announcing something by way of a spokesperson as an illustration. In proxy agency, it seems that one person or subgroup’s doing something counts as or constitutes or is recognized as (tantamount to) another person or group’s doing something. Proxy agency is pervasive in institutional ac...

Compensation from the international community should be provided and take account of the opportunity costs of alternative uses of the land, the costs of administering and enforcing protection, and managing the transition. Research carried out for this report indicates that the opportunity cost of forest protection in 8 countries responsible for 70 per cent of emissions from land use could be ar...

This essay introduces a neurologically-informed mathematical model of collective action (CA) that reveals the role for empathy and distress in motivating costly helping behaviors. We report three direct tests of model with a key focus on the neuropeptide oxytocin as well as a variety of indirect tests. These studies, from our lab and other researchers, show support for the model. Our findings i...

Numerous recent field and lab experiments have found that elections cause higher subsequent levels of collective action within groups. This article questions whether effects observed in these environments apply when traditional institutions are democratized. We test the external validity of the experimental findings by examining the effects of introducing elections in an indigenous institution ...

The authors provide a set of criteria and procedures for systematically observing and recording collective action across temporary gatherings such as political demonstrations. Their method uses trained observers, distributed across a gathering, who complete a code sheet during time interval samples. The code sheet allows observers to record the extent of participation in 40 or more elementary f...

An intriguing question for scholars of collective action is how participants of unsuccessful actions become re-engaged in future collective activities. At an individual level, previous research has shown that after negative outcomes counterfactual thoughts ('if only … ') may serve to prepare for future action. In the current research, we investigated whether counterfactuals may also prepare for...