Networks and collective action

Given a social network, we are interested in the problem of measuring the influence of a group of agents to lead the society to adopt their behavior. Motivated by the description of terrorist movements, we provide a markovian dynamical model for non-symmetric societies, which takes into account two special features: the hard core terrorist group cannot be influenced, and the remaining agents may change from active to non-active and vice versa during the process. In this setting, we interpret the absorption time of the model, which measures how quickly the terrorist movement achieve the support of all society, as a group measure of power. In some sense, our model generalizes the classical approach of DeGroot to consensus formatio

Collective action and vulnerability: Burial societies in rural Ethiopia

"Collective action can help individuals, groups, and communities achieve common goals, thus contributing to poverty reduction. Drawing on longitudinal household and qualitative community data, the authors examine the impact of shocks on household living standards, study the correlates of participation in groups and formal and informal networks, and discuss the relationship of networks with access to other forms of capital. In this context, they assess how one form of collective action, iddir, or burial societies, help households attenuate the impact of illness. They find that iddir effectively deal with problems of asymmetric information by restricting membership geographically, imposing a membership fee, and conducting checks on how the funds were spent. The study also finds that while iddir help poor households cope with individual health shocks, but shows that the better-off households belong to more groups and have larger networks. In addition, where households have limited ability to develop spatial networks, collective action has limited ability to respond to covariate shocks. Therefore, realism is needed in terms of the ability of collective action to respond to shocks, and direct public action is more appropriate to deal with common shocks." authors' abstractCollective action, Burial societies, Shocks, Vulnerability, Poverty, Networks,

Guilds, Efficiency, and Social Capital: Evidence from German Proto-Industry

This paper analyzes an early modern German economy to test alternative theories about guilds. It finds little evidence to support recent hypotheses arguing that guilds corrected market failures relating to product quality, training, and innovation. But it finds that guilds were social networks that generated a social capital of shared norms, common information, mutual sanctions, and collective political action. Guilds’ social capital affected rival producers, suppliers, employees, consumers, the government, and the wider economy. Economic analyses of collective action, it is argued, can explain why guilds were so widespread while not necessarily being efficient.guilds, social capital, social networks

Initiatives for rural development through collective action: the case of household participation in group activities in the highlands of Central Kenya

"Dimensions of the nature, scope, and complexity of collective action in Kenya have evolved over many years. In studying collective action, the aim is to understand why and how people participate in networks of trust. The purpose of this study was to investigate the different objectives that farmers pursue through collective action with the aim of understanding the patterns of people's participation in collective action, identify factors that influence people to join groups, and identify the costs and benefits of participating in activities of groups. The study was carried out in four sites spread across the highlands of central Kenya. Data was collected from a total of 442 households, focusing on whether members of those households belonged to groups and if so, what type of groups these were and their activities. In addition we looked at how these groups functioned and identified some of the contributions members make to these groups and the benefits from the same. The analysis shows that collective action is used to accomplish a range of activities for different socioeconomic categories and that the majority of households in central Kenya engage in some form of group activity.... The study suggests that where institutions and policies that promote individual or private sector growth are weak, collective action can help to overcome these weaknesses and connect individuals in these institutions and policies." from Author's AbstractCollective action, Trust, Community participation, cost benefit analysis, Household surveys, Gender,

Media and Collective Action in Greece: From Indignation to Solidarity

This article explores the role of media and communication processes in the organization of collective action in Greece in the context of the Aganaktismeni (Indignant) protests and subsequent solidarity networks. Theoretically, the article employs the concept of communication ecology to highlight the complex network of media platforms in which collective action is embedded. The concept allows us to explore collective action both within the specific cultural and political environment in Greece as well as beyond specific moments of political mobilization and across time. Based on interviews with activists from various solidarity networks in Athens, we discuss the use of media and unmediated communication practices employed for the organization and mobilization of collective action. We argue that these practices need to be explored beyond the moment of protest in order to better understand how collective action moves across social and political sites

Burley Tobacco Clubs in Malawi: Nonmarket Institutions for Exports

This paper studies nonmarket institutions that facilitate exports. In Malawi, as in many other developing countries, farmers face numerous constraints that disconnect them from export markets. We explore the role of a local institution, the burley tobacco clubs, in bridging smallholders to exports. Burley clubs potentially enable farmers to increase their tobacco farming productivity by providing services related to institutional access, collective action, economies of scale, and supporting networks. Using matching methods and instrumental variable techniques, we find that tobacco club membership causes an increase of between 40-74 percent in output per acre and an increase of between 45-89 percent in tobacco sales per acre. Instead, neither the land share allocated to tobacco nor the unit value obtained by the producers is affected by club membership.institutional access, collective action and economies of scale, supporting networks, tobacco exports, trade facilitation

Local farmers' organisations: a space for peer-to-peer learning? The case of milk collection cooperatives in Morocco

International audiencePurpose. The study investigated to what extent local farmers' organisations are spaces where farmers discuss, learn, and innovate. Design/methodology/approach. Two milk collection cooperatives in Morocco were studied. The study analysed the discussion networks, their impacts on farmers' knowledge and innovation, and the performance of collective action at cooperative level. Findings. In both cooperatives, only two-thirds of the farmers regularly discussed dairy practices with other farmers. Most leaders of one cooperative were acknowledged to be experienced farmers and played key roles as advisors on dairy farming. Farmers' involvement in dialogue networks in this cooperative improved their capacity to innovate in dairy farming, even though their knowledge on some issues related to cattle health and nutrition was not improved. In the other cooperative, experienced farmers did not share their knowledge and farmers' involvement in dialogue networks at cooperative level had no impact on their knowledge and practices. Dialogue networks and collective action were found to influence each other, since in the first cooperative, collective action was considered by members to be efficient, whereas in the second collective action was limited to milk collection. Practical implications. The study enabled identification of stumbling blocks which need to be addressed to get local farmers' organisations involved in farmer capacity building. Originality/value. While the importance of local discussion networks for knowledge creation and diffusion is widely acknowledged, taking such networks into account in farmers' capacity building programmes in developing countries has been hindered by their informality. Combining the analysis of dialogue networks and collective action proved to be a productive way to assess the potentialities of working with farmers' organisations with the aim of establishing a connection with local discussion networks

Networks and Collective Action

This paper proposes a new measure for a group's ability to lead society to adopt their standard of behavior, which in particular takes account of the time the group takes to convince the whole society to adopt their position. This notion of a group's power to initiate action is computed as the reciprocal of the resistance against it, which is in turn given by the expected absorption time of a related finite state partial Markov chain that captures the social dynamics. The measure is applicable and meaningful in a variety of models where interaction between agents is formalized through (weighted) binary relations. Using Percolation Theory, it is shown that the group power is monotonic as a function of groups of agents. We also explain the differences between our measure and those discussed in the literature on Graph Theory, and illustrate all these concerns by a thorough analysis of two particular cases: the Wolfe Primate Data and the 11S hijackers’ network

Poverty and public celebrations in rural India

The author examines the paradox of very poor households, spending large sums on celebrations. Using qualitative, and quantitative data from South India, the author demonstrates that spending on weddings, and festivals can be explained by integrating an anthropological understanding of how identity is shaped in Indian society, with an economic analysis of decision-making under conditions of extreme poverty, and risk. The author argues that publicly observable celebrations have two functions: they provide a space for maintaining social reputations, and webs of obligation, and, they serve as arenas for status-making competitions. The first role is central to maintaining the networks essential for social relationships, and coping with poverty. The second is a correlate of mobility that may become more prevalent as incomes rise. Development policies that favor individual over collective action, reduce the incentives for the networking function, and increase the incentives for status-enhancing functions - thus reducing social cohesion, and increasing conspicuous consumption. Market-driven improvements in urban employment, for example, could reduce a family's dependence on its traditional networks, could reduce incentives to maintain these networks, and could reduce social cohesion within a village, and thus its capacity for collective action. In contrast, micro-finance programs, and social funds try to retain, and even build a community's capacity for collective action.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Anthropology,Education and Society,Health Economics&Finance

Empowerment through technology: Gender dimensions of social capital build-up in Maharashtra, India

"This paper explores how and to what extent women and men have benefited from the build-up of social capital in technology uptake, and the role of women in this process. Using a case study on Groundnut Production Technology (GPT) in Maharashtra, India, a systematic documentation of the process by which farmers – both men and women - as well as the whole community became empowered through the build-up of social capital is presented. The focus of the paper is on collective action as a mechanism to stimulate gender-equitable change processes. Our evidence suggests that the technology uptake process was enhanced with the build up of social capital, whereby men and women from all class and caste groups came together for improving their livelihoods. Collective action was enhanced with the increased involvement and participation of women. Strong kinship ties were developed among diverse classes all over the village including landless tribal women, who formed the major labor force for this technology. The paper concludes that social networks played a crucial mediating role in the process of technology uptake. The build-up of social capital played an important role in influencing impacts from the technology because of the ways in which social networks and social relationships facilitated technology dissemination. Gender relations played a significant role in mediating the translation of economic benefits into well being of the individual, the family and community. Finally, it is suggested that further insights into the role of social networks and power relations in the village may be examined in greater detail by establishing the village network architecture, especially marginalized groups." Author's AbstractEmpowerment, Technology adoption, Agricultural growth, Agricultural technology, Gender, Social capital buildup, Social networks, Impact, Collective action,