collective action theories

1. Lecture III: Collective action
Mike McQuestion, MPH, PhD
Director Sustainable Immunization Financing
Sabin Vaccine Institute
December 2011

2. • Public goods and collective action
• Applied example: Sustainable
immunization financing
• How the SIF Program supports collective
action in its pilot countries

4. Public goods
• Public (collective) good (def): “The
achievement of a common goal, or
satisfaction of a common interest” (Olson
1965)
• Under certain conditions, actors in a
collectivity will provide a public good
through collective action

5. Public goods
• Unattainable individually: it can only be
provided collectively
• Jointness of supply: available to
everyone if available to anyone
• Non-excludability: cannot be feasibly
withheld from any group member

6. Public goods
• Provision is suboptimal unless the
marginal costs and benefits are equal for
every actor
• If the collective good can be attained at a
sufficiently low cost in relation to its
benefit, such that one or more actors
stand to gain by providing the good
themselves, then it presumably will be
provided

7. Public goods
• If the public good is produced, all
members will be better off than if it is not
produced (Pareto superiority)
• Examples of public goods
A lighthouse
An army
A public education system
An immunized society
A world without polio (Smith et al 2007)

9. Collective action
• If all would be better off, why isn’t a public
good always provided? Most of the time,
collective action fails because
Free-rider problem: rational, self-interested
actors are tempted to consume the good
without contributing their fair share
Multiple objectives: heterogeneous actors
may not find common cause

10. Collective action
• Why collective action fails, continued
Conflicts of interest: some actors may have
vested interests in the status quo
Incomplete information: inability to gauge
the chances of success a priori
Lack of common understanding
(intersubjectivity): actors do not understand
issues and facts the same way (Gauri et al
2011)

11. Collective action
• Why collective action fails, continued
Group size: smaller is better
Individual contributions more noticeable
Each individual’s contribution more important
Group heterogeneity: differential interests in
achieving the goal make mobilization more
likely
Inequality: a few powerful actors can be
exploited by more numerous weak actors

12. • Necessary conditions for collective action
Monitoring and feedback on the contributions
each actor makes toward the public good
Monitoring and feedback on progress being
made toward the goal (efficacy)
Strategies change as needed
Actors learn from one another
Individual actors are publicly recognized for
their contributions
Collective action

13. Collective action
• To induce participation, tangible rewards
not central to the collective action may
need to be given, particularly to more
powerful participants
A by-product of collective action
Must be sufficient to make defection less
valuable than staying in the group
Lends an all-or-none character to the action

14. Collective action
• Contemporary social theorists believe that
nonmaterial incentives are increasingly
important, especially to urban inhabitants
who are exposed to telecommunications
and other aspects of globalization
Solidary: actor finds participation intrinsically
rewarding
Purposive: ideology motivates participation
Expressive: actor derives benefits from
expression itself

15. Collective action
• In practice, collective action is a process,
a series of individual decisions about
whether to participate or not
• An actor decides, taking into account the
decisions of nearby others (threshold
effect) (Oliver et al 1985)
• If there is an organizing group, or a critical
mass of committed actors, it is more
probable the collective action will succeed

16. Collective action
• Despite not understanding all of the pros
and cons, an actor may join the collective
action because she had prior positive
collective action experiences, or because
she feels solidarity with the group
• Participation is worthwhile because the
group and its goals are worthwhile
• These are social learning concepts (Macy
1990)

18. SIF Program: Collective action
• Through its SIF Program, the Sabin
Vaccine Institute induces and supports
collective action in each of its 15 pilot
countries
• The public good is a sustainably financed
national immunization program
• By definition, external partners are not
actors but facilitators of this collective
action

19. SIF Program: Collective action
Facilitators
WHO, UNICEF, World Bank, GAVI,
SVI, CSOs, Others

20. SIF Program: Collective action
• Collective action happens within and
among the 15 countries
• A critical mass of champions is formed in
each country, representing the three key
public institutions
• The groups of champions are connected
through peer exchanges and frequent
international meetings relating to
immunization

21. Examples of collective activities for sustainable
immunization financing
 MoH, MoF and donor counterparts regularly
analyze expenditures and program outputs
together to make the investment case for
immunization
 MoH, MoF and parliamentary counterparts meet
regularly to discuss this updated information and
follow immunization budget performance
throughout the year
 Parliament participates actively in formulating
sector budget
SIF Program: Collective action

22. Examples of collective activities for sustainable
immunization financing, continued
 Parliamentarians regularly visit, assess
immunization performance in their constituent
areas
 Parliamentarians craft, enact legislation
safeguarding immunization financing
 Non-state actors disseminate information,
recognize individual contributors
 An external expert committee determines whether
and when sustainable financing has been attained
SIF Program: Collective action

24. How Sabin/SIF supports collective action
 Each of the five Senior Program Officers organizes
2-3 annual meetings with the principals
(government, parliamentary champions and
external partner counterparts) in each country
(coordination, monitoring)
 A quarterly newsletter (Summary Digest) describes
country advocacy activities and progress toward the
goal- both budgetary and legislative work
(feedback, efficacy)
 Profiles of SIF champions in each Summary Digest
(public recognition)
SIF Program: Collective action

25. How Sabin/SIF supports collective action,
continued
 A webpage for each country showing activities and
achievements (www.sabin.org/sif) (monitoring,
feedback)
 Actors can access an online reference library
through the SIF website (efficacy)
 A Colloquium on SIF, held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
in March 2011, drew 70 delegates representing
13/15 SIF countries
 A second colloquium is planned for early 2013
(coordination, feedback, efficacy)
SIF Program: Collective action

26. • Collective action ends when the country finds
its particular sustainable financing solution
 Adequate, reliable funding
 External dependencies minimized or eliminated
 Supporting legislation enacted
SIF Program: Collective action

27. Summary
• In the long run, individual cognition and
social learning processes may be
sufficient to attain and sustain high
immunization levels
• In the short run, immunization levels can
be increased through collective action
Collective action contributes to sustained
demand by accelerating cognitive and social
learning processes among those who
participate

29. References
• Gauri, Varun, Michael Woolcock and Deval Desai. 2011. Intersubjective meaning and
collective action in ‘fragile’ societies: Theory, evidence and policy implications. Policy
Research Working Paper 5707. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Available from:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1871603
• Macy, Michael W. 1990. Learning Theory and the Logic of Critical Mass. American
Sociological Review, 55(6): 809-826.
• Oliver, Pam, Gerald Marwell and Roy Texeira. 1985. A Theory of the Critical Mass I.
Interdependence, Group Heterogeneity, and the Production of Collective Action.
American Journal of Sociology, 91, 522-556.
• Olson, Mancur. 1965. The logic of collective action: Public goods and the theory of
groups. Cambridge: Harvard Economic Studies 124, Harvard University Press.
• Smith, Richard D and Landis MacKellar. 2007. Global public goods and the global
health agenda: problems, priorities and potential. Globalization and Health,3:9.
Available from:
http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-3-9.pdf

30. SUSTAINABLE IMMUNIZATION FINANCING
PROGRAM
Thank you for
your attention!
www.sabin.org/sif