Escenarios para la acción colectiva

Abstract

This paper focuses on formal theories and models of collective action. There are many types of collective action, and they cannot all be captured with the same formal model. Taking into account the relationship between individual and collective interests, three types of scenarios for collective action are presented: (1) social dilemmas, in which all or most of the members of a group act following their private interests, obtaining a worse outcome that if they had ignored their own interest; (2) privileged groups, in which a subset of highly interested and/or resourceful people play a crucial role in the early phases of collective action and create the conditions for the incorporation of others; and (3) coordination, in which actors have similar interests, and, although they may not care about which solution is imposed, they all agree that some solution is necessary.