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COLLECTIVEACTION AND NETWORK STRUCTURE*
ROGER V. GOULD
University
of Chicago
*
Direct correspondenceto Roger V. Gould, De- i For instance, it may be rationalto cooperate in
partmentof Sociology, Universityof Chicago, 1126 IteratedPrisoner's Dilemma games because when
East 59th St., Chicago, IL 60637. I thank Charles players use some variationof the "tit for tat"strat-
E. Bidwell, James S. Coleman, Pamela E. Oliver, egy, the decision to cooperate or defect affects the
Joel M. Podolny, Kazuo Yamaguchi, and the ASR other player's decision in later-iterations(Axelrod
editorand reviewersfor theircomments. 1984; Macy 1991a).
ACTIONANDNETWORK
COLLECTIVE STRUCTURE 183
come more willing to cooperate;when collec- alternativenetworkstructuresexert profoundly
tive outcomes are harmful, actors alter their differentand occasionally counterintuitiveef-
thresholdsin the opposite direction. fects on collective action, depending on the
According to all three perspectives, contri- structuralposition of "volunteers." Specifi-
butions hinge on a crucial element of naivete. cally, when volunteers are centrally located,
For Opp, actorsconvince themselves thatthey dense networksoffer far dimmerprospectsfor
can make a difference because it would be mobilizationthansparsenetworks.In addition,
costly (in cognitive terms) to go on making group size may affect mobilizationpositively,
contributionsin the face of a contrarybelief. negatively,or not at all, dependingon density.
In Macy's (1991b) account, actors simply do Finally, tendencies toward intransitivity en-
more of whateverappearedto work last time hance mobilizationby contributingto connect-
(or less of what did not work), regardlessof edness in relatively sparse networks. All of
whetherthere is any plausible causal connec- these effects, and the complex interactions
tion between their own actions and the out- among them, show that an actor's impact on
come. Thereis such a connectionin the model, the behavior of others depends not only on
because thresholdsmake everyone's participa- overall networkstructure,but also on his or her
tion contingenton the overall rateof participa- position within that structure.
tion; but this causal link is invisible to each ac-
tor because his or her impact on the participa- THEORY
tion rate is small.2 In the model describedby
Marwellet al. (1988), actorsclose their minds Suppose the residents of Maple Street gener-
to the temptingoption of shirkingwhile others ally agree that they would like it to be cleaner
contribute. than the city keeps it. Olson's (1965) logic of
In this article,I proposea formulationof the collective action predicts that suboptimallev-
link between individualparticipationand col- els of this "good" (cleanliness) will be pro-
lective efficacy that is predicatedon different duced unless there is at least one individual
assumptions.When contributionsfall short of who values it sufficientlyto bearthe cost alone,
the collective optimum,I argue,it is not neces- or unless selective incentives are providedthat
sarily because people are rewardedfor free- make individual contributions worthwhile.
riding.Conversely,when people do contribute, Worse yet, even if there are people who value
it is not necessarilybecause they have not con- clean streets enough to benefit by doing the
sideredthe possibility of free-riding.Instead,I work themselves, they may still prefer to do
assumepotentialcontributorskeep all theirop- nothing in the hope that someone else will do
tions in mind, choosing amongthem on the ba- it first. This is the essence of "Volunteer'sDi-
sis of two simple concerns: norms of fairness lemma":As worthwhile as it might be to do
thatencourageindividualsto matchthe contri- the work, it would be even nicer to have some-
butionsof others, and the desire to avoid mak- one else do it (Diekmann 1985).
ing contributionsthatwill be wasted.Both con- Few social scientists believe that individuals
cerns push actors to attend to the behaviorof arepurerationalegoists, particularlysince col-
otherswhen makingdecisions abouttheirown lective action occurs more frequentlythan the
contributions. rationalchoice frameworkwould predict.This
Following a brief theoretical discussion, I is why models like those of Macy (1991 a,
develop a model relating individualdecisions 1991b), Oliver and Marwell (1988), and Mar-
about participationin collective action to net- well et al. (1988) relax the rational-choiceas-
worksof social ties thatinformactorsaboutthe sumptions underlying economists' work on
behaviorof others.Solving the model for equi- public goods. The advantageof such models is
libriumoutcomes leads to the predictionthat that they can explain the productionof collec-
tive goods even in the absence of formal sanc-
2 Macy (1991b) noted that actors' initial thresh- tioning mechanisms(Heckathorn1988, 1990),
olds may reflect attachmentto a norm of fairness
but they do not errin the opposite directionin-
- a willingness to contributeonly if a sufficient sofar as they also predictsuboptimaloutcomes
numberof others are contributing.But changes in in a varietyof situations.
actors' thresholds are modeled exclusively as a For instance, in the hypothetical case just
function of positive and negative reinforcements. described,Macy's (1991) model would predict
184 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICAL
REVIEW
that some residentsmight end up participating the best thing to do is wait aroundfor someone
in a cleanupeffort if chance producedenough else to do the (now more valuable) work. But
simultaneouscontributionsto have a noticeable Betty's effort has anothereffect as well: In the
effect. If the benefit were sufficiently large, presence of a norm of fairness, everyone now
these contributorscould eventually lower their has a reasonto matchher contribution.For the
thresholdsenough to "lock in" a sustainedef- same reasonthatpeople dislike being exploited
fort, even as shirkers,reassuredby the success (i.e., they believe exploitation is unfair), they
of theirfree-riding,settled furtherinto idleness do not want to be perceived, and potentially
by increasingtheir thresholds.(Some of these ostracized, as exploitative. Stated more posi-
shirkersmight, in fact, have had initially low tively, seeing otherscontributeshouldmotivate
thresholds;their startdown the roadto chronic actors to contributetheir share. Thus, in gen-
shirkingbegins with positive reinforcementin- eral, if contributionsare visible, then noncon-
curredduringa randomlyproducedmomentof tributorsmay be subject to normative social
nonparticipation.) pressures to alter their behavior.3That this is
The model I propose retainsthe assumption far from a trivial concern was clearly demon-
that individuals are not pure utility maximiz- stratedby the emotional reactions of subjects
ers, in particularbecause I argue that fairness in Dawes, McTavish,and Shaklee's (1977) ex-
norms play a central part in the productionof perimenton communicationandcooperationin
collective goods (Elster 1989). At the same social dilemmas. Cooperators often reacted
time, however, I assume thatdecisions to con- with considerable anger to the defection of
tribute are informed by expectations of indi- other subjects, either shouting at them or re-
vidual efficacy. People may be perfectly will- fusing to speak with them afterwards. Even
ing to contribute something to a collective when the identities of defectors were not an-
good, but unless they are reasonablysure their nounced, cooperators were visibly upset by
contributionswill not be wasted,they will wait what they consideredto be treachery.For their
to see what others do. That is, even if they are part,defectors waited until others had left be-
not tempted to free-ride, individuals may be fore leaving the experimentsite.
reluctantto invest in a collective good unless it In short, if at least one actor has already
seems likely that enough others will also in- madea contribution,otheractorshave two rea-
vest to producepositive results. sons - one normativeandone instrumental-
Imagine, then, that none of Maple Street's to make contributions of their own. Neither
inhabitantshas so far done anythingto improve reason accomplishes much by itself: Norma-
the street'sappearance.Most thinkit would be tive pressure to contribute should have little
unfairif they had to shoulderthe burdenalone; impact if elicited contributionswill be com-
moreover,if the task of cleaning is large, the pletely wasted, while increasing marginal re-
total benefit of one person's efforts will be turns will only reinforce the waiting game in
small. But as long as there is at least one per- the absence of fairnessnorms.
son for whom some small effort is worthwhile Nonexperimentalresearchsuggests thatcon-
(perhapsbecause he or she values clean streets siderationsof this kindoften enterinto people's
more), the decision framework for everyone decisions to participatein collective action. For
else changes. Suppose, for example, thatBetty instance, McAdam's (1986) study of partici-
decides to spend an hour picking up refuse. pants in the Mississippi Freedom Summer
This initial effort increasesthe value of further projectfound thatpairsor groupsof friendsof-
efforts: Others will now be more enthusiastic
about sweeping, planting ivy, or just picking 3 This could create a second-order free rider
up trash(becausea single discardedobject now problem insofar as people might be unwilling to
representsa greaterpercentageof the total re- expend the effort to pressureothers (Oliver 1980).
maining). Stated more formally,Betty's effort But it seems doubtfulthatindividualswould neces-
has increasedthe marginalreturnsto the group sarily perceive this "effort" as costly: Pressuring
others to contributeto a collective good may actu-
thatwould accruefrom furthercontributions. ally be rewardingin itself because it permits con-
Note that, if everyone else were a rational tributorsto representthemselves as praiseworthy,
egoist, these increasingmarginalreturnswould conscientious citizens. Fairnessnorms make social
make no difference. The contributionalready influence both possible and efficacious as a weapon
made would only furtherpersuadeshirkersthat against free-riding.
COLLECTIVEACTIONAND NETWORKSTRUCTURE 185
ten decidedto participateafteran I'l go if you are insufficient to make the contributions of
go" discussion. Applicants to the project felt others seem worthwhile. This does not imply
that (1) participationwould be more effica- that the argument is incorrect in such situa-
cious if others also participated, and (2) it tions, but rather that the model based on it
would be embarrassingto withdrawfrom the leads to a predictionof low total contributions
project if one's friends had the courage and when initial contributionsleave marginal re-
commitment to stay with it. Gould (1990) turns unchanged.Here, normativepressure to
found that participantsin the Paris Commune contributeis simply outweighed by futility.4
of 1871 routinely reportedthat pressurefrom A second boundarycondition is that initial
neighborsin the Paris National Guardmade it contributionsmust represent sunk costs, i.e.,
difficult to avoid serving in the neighborhood- the model developed below assumes that vol-
based insurgent militia organization. Hirsch unteers will not or cannot retracttheir contri-
(1990) suggested that participantsin an anti- butions if responses are not forthcoming.Oth-
apartheid divestiture movement understood erwise, uncertaintyabout whether the volun-
theirown participationas a responseto the ap- teeredcontributionhas been made in good faith
parentlyaltruisticparticipationof othersand to may vitiate its impact;in response, the volun-
the change in their expectations of success teer might reducehis or her investment,result-
based on this observation. ing in a self-fulfilling prophecyof failure.This
means that instances of collective action in
which mobilization attempts are backed up
BoundaryConditions
with promised contributions(ratherthan vis-
The argumentsI have advancedare clearly not ible investmentsthat have alreadybeen made)
applicableto all social dilemmasituations.The are less likely to exhibit the influence process
most salient boundary condition is efficacy: hypothesized here. For instance, a pledge to
Althoughit is not necessaryto assume thatac- spend one hour cleaning up Maple Street will
tors can precisely estimate the group's mar- do less to motivateothers than an hour already
ginal returnsto contributing,they must at least invested.
perceive a differencein the potentialimpactof The final boundarycondition is that in order
theirown efforts based on the effortsof others. for fairnessnormsto influencebehavior,actors
In addition to scenarios like the Maple Street must perceive themselves as members of an
example, it is reasonableto expect such a per- identifiablecollectivity - even if this collec-
ception in any situation in which there is no tivity is defined merely as the total numberof
explicit benefit function but where results de- potential beneficiaries of the collective good.
pend on an indispensablefirst step. Signing a In the absence of such a collective identity,ac-
petition, for instance, is not only pointless but tors may have no reasonto thinkof themselves
impossible unless someone has already in- as bound by a norm of fairness (or a norm
vested the time in writingone. Similarly,large againstexploitation),at least with respectto the
protestdemonstrationsalmost inevitablybegin specific collective good in question (for recent
(at least in Westernsocieties) with an applica- discussions of the role of collective identities
tion for an official permit,followed by adver- in social movements, see Gamson 1990;
tisementand recruitmentefforts,and finally by Melucci 1985). Residents of Oak Street pre-
directparticipation.At each step in the process, sumably have no qualms about not contribut-
new contributionsare efficacious only to the ing to the clean-up effort on Maple Street. On
extent that previous efforts have alreadybeen the otherhand,collective identitiesneed not be
made. The increasing importance of profes- restrictedin scope or impact to small, face-to-
sionalized social movement organizationsde- face groups. Finkel, Muller, and Opp (1989)
rives from the same principle, which explains found that the "duty to participate"played a
why direct-mailsolicitations focus so heavily significant role in decisions to join in anti-
on the value of small contributionsgiven that nuclearprotests,despite the fact that duty was
movementactivities are alreadyorganizedand
producingresults. 4 Most theoretical discussions, of course, make
The theory I propose, then, would not pre- the same prediction;no one expects large contribu-
dict contributions in situations in which the tions to collective goods that have little perceived
volunteeredeffortsof a small numberof people chance of being provided.
186 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICAL
REVIEW
60
v = .8
00
0 i
IX 40
02
C
00
10-V . = .2
0
0 .1 2 3 A 5 .6 .7 X .9 1.0
Actor's Discounting Level (X)
0
z
'g 10 / /N 1
01
.0
C
0
a
CT2
o2
0 .1 2 3 A 5 .6 .7 8 .9 1.0
Network Density
Figure 2. Total Contributionsby Network Density: Networks With RandomActor VolunteeringOne Hour
Solving equation 14 for a star-shapednet- These findings clearly indicate that, when
work in which the centralactorinitially volun- actors peg their contributionsto the contribu-
teers to contributeone hour gives a total equi- tions they observe among theirsocial contacts,
libriumcontributionof network density can be deleterious to collec-
tive action to varyingdegrees - dependingon
the rate at which normativepressure and en-
(N-l+l5) thusiasm about the prospects for success
prompt actors to emulate the contributionsof
So, if X = .9, N = 20, and v = .5, then ct~t= others. Moreover, the size of this effect de-
[19(.9) + 1]/.595 = 30.42. This total contribu- pendson the degreeto which volunteersin turn
tion, which (by definitionof a "star"of size 20) respondto nonvolunteers.But this leads to two
occurs in a networkwith density .1 (density is furtherquestions.First,are these effects of net-
the number of existing ties divided by work structurecontingenton the networkposi-
N[N - 1]/2), is four times greaterthanthe equi- tion of volunteers,as the sensitivity of cto0to v
libriumcontributionbasedon a fully connected suggests? Second, do these effects hold for
network,which by definition has a density of "messier" network structures? Figures 2
1. Figure 1 plots the difference in total contri- through 4 show the overall relationship be-
butions yielded by these two network struc- tween networkdensity and total contributions
turesagainstvalues of X for threedifferentlev- for situationsin which one actor volunteersan
els of volunteer responsiveness (v). For low initial one-hourcontribution.For each density
values of X, the advantageaccruingto central- level between 0 and 1 at intervalsof .01, 500
ization is more or less independentof whether networks were sampled from the universe of
or not the single volunteerechoes the reactions possible networksand equation 14 was calcu-
of othersby addingto his or her unconditional lated in each case to give the total contribution
contribution.But for X > .5, the differences for each sampled network. The graphs show
start to increase sharply for the scenario in the average total equilibriumcontributionby
which enthusiasm at the collective effort in- density for these sampled networks for three
duces the volunteerto raise the stakes still fur- volunteerscenarios:The volunteeris randomly
ther.As X approachesunity,however,the large selected (Figure2); the volunteeris always the
advantageof the starnetworkbegins to evapo- most centralactorin termsof the total number
rate.Indeed,when X = 1, equation 15 gives the of ties to other actors (Figures 3a and 3b); the
same level of total contributionsas equation volunteeris always the least centralactorin the
10; for both networkstructures,total contribu- network (Figure 4). Figures 2, 3a, and 3b
tions simplify to N/(1 - v). present results for networks of varying sizes
192 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICAL
REVIEW
16 N =20
0
0
14
z
c 12
10
C
0
EN
~,6
CT~ 4
LU
12
0 .1 2 .3 4 .5 .6 .7 8 .9 1.0
Network Density
Figure 3a. Total EquilibriumContributionby Network Density: Networks With Most Central Actor Volunteering
One Hour (X = .9, v = .8)
25
N =50
0
z
%
20
.0
15
C
0
0
E
10
.0~~~~~
0 .1 2 3 A .5 .6 .7 X .9 1.0
Network Density
Figure 3b. Total EquilibriumContributionby Network Density: Networks With Most Central Actor Volunteering
One Hour (X= .9, v = 1)
(results for the last scenario are more or less initial unconditionalcontribution.If the volun-
independentof networksize). In all figuresex- teer is simply a randomlyselected actor (Fig-
cept 3b, X = .9 and v = .8; Figure 3b depicts ure 2), total contributions increase steadily
results for v = 1. In the scenarios represented with density, but level off at a little under 10
in Figures 2 and 4, low values of the two pa- hoursonce densityreaches.5, or in otherwords
rametersproduce low total contributions,but when half of the possible pairs of actors are
the patternsare the same. Even when v = 0, tied. In this scenario, then, additionalties are
i.e., when volunteershold steady at theirinitial useful up to a point, but then make no differ-
contribution levels, the effects of network ence; if the volunteeris an "average"actor in
structureare still noticeable. terms of the numberof others to whom he or
Clearly,density has a radicallydifferentef- she is tied, then total contributions are no
fect on total contributionsdepending on the greater in extremely dense networks than in
structuralposition of the actor who makes the moderatelydense ones.
ACTIONANDNETWORK
COLLECTIVE STRUCTURE 193
10
0
z 8
C
26
C
.2
0
0
E
4
.0
X 2
I-I
0
0 .1 2 3 A 5 .6 .7 X .9 1.0
Network Density
Figure 4. Total EquilibriumContributionby Network Density: Networks with Least CentralActor VolunteeringOne
Hour
On the otherhand,when the initial contribu- additional actors are tied only to the central
tion is made by the actor with the most ties volunteer. Consequently, more actors means
(Figures 3a and 3b), more ties mean lower to- there are more people subject to the influence
tal contributionsexcept when networksare so of the volunteerratherthanmore people bring-
sparsethatsome actorsarecompletelyisolated. ing down the average expected contribution.
That is, once there are enough ties to ensure This advantage disappears, of course, when
thatmost actorsare tied to someone, additional high density guaranteesthateveryone is tied to
ties serve only to dilute the effect of the central nearlyeveryone else.
actor's volunteered contribution. Conse- When the least centralactor is the volunteer
quently, sparse networks provide the highest (Figure 4), density has a monotonicallyposi-
level of contributionsin situationsin which the tive effect on total contributions.In this case,
most central actor is the volunteer.Moreover, addingties helps because, even in networksin
Figure 3a shows that this effect is even stron- which every actoris mutuallyreachableby ev-
ger for large networks:With more actors,total ery other, the least central actor will on aver-
contributionsare largerand the point at which age be linked to other actors by longer paths.
new ties starthinderingratherthanaidingcon- This means that the impact of that actor's vol-
tributionsoccurs at lower densities. When v = unteeredhour will be reduced not only by the
1 (Figure3b), networksize actuallyhas a nega- presence of nonvolunteers, but also by the
tive effect on contributionsat high densities. greaternumberof steps it takes to reachevery-
However, the near convergence of the three one else. If, to expand the cast of characters,
lines in Figure 3a at the highest density levels, Betty is the least central actor because she is
and their actual convergence in Figure 3b, tied only to Frank,then every other actor will
show that the effect of size disappearsas net- be influencedonly by the effect of Betty's con-
work density approaches 1. The explanation tributionon Frank.Since X is less than unity,
for these findings again rests on the notion of the added step requiredfor the influence pro-
dilution:For dense networks, the presence of cess to reach the other N - 2 actors has a cost
more actors means that everyone is tied to in terms of the discounting reflected in the
more people who do not volunteer anything, value of X.And because new ties will, on aver-
reducingthe impactof the one actor who vol- age, reduce the length of paths to Betty, they
unteersan hour.In sparse networks,the pres- will increase the influence of her volunteered
ence of more people does not on averagehave contribution until everyone is directly con-
this effect becauseof the greaterlikelihoodthat nected to everyone else.
194 AMERICANSOCIOLOGICAL
REVIEW