Mathematics Of Collective Action

Author : James Coleman
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351479709
Total Pages : 246 pages
Book Rating : 4.07/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Mathematics of Collective Action written by James Coleman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-12 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophers, social scientists, and laymen have used two perspectives in analyzing social action. One sees man's action as the result of causal forces, and the other sees action as purposive and goal directed. Mathematical treatment of social action has shown this same dichotomy. Some models of behavior describe a causal process, in which there is no place for intention or purpose. Most stochastic models of behavior, whether individual or group, are like this. Another body of work, however, employs purpose, anticipation of some future state, and action designed to maximize the proximity to some goal. Classical microeconomic theory, statistical decision theory, and game theory exemplify this direction.This book examines these two directions of work, and makes original contributions to the second. An introductory chapter outlines these two bodies of work, and casts them in a common frame, to display their similarities and differences. Chapter 2 reviews at length recent work in stochastic processes that makes up the first body of work, which sees social action as the resultant of causal forces. The remaining chapters develop a mathematical framework for the study of systems of social action using a purposive theoretical base. These chapters are designed particularly to contribute to the study of collective decisions, a form of social action that has proved particularly challenging to theoretical analysis. First published in 1973, this became a significant work both in problem solving and in the future career of the author. It is of continuing importance to researchers and students interested in statistical analysis.

Author : Ronald A. Francisco
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 1441914765
Total Pages : 123 pages
Book Rating : 4.67/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Collective Action Theory and Empirical Evidence written by Ronald A. Francisco and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-03-10 with total page 123 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book comprises empirical tests of the theoretical implications of collective action theory specifically with regard to mobilization. It is based on the author’s European Protest and Coercion Data, which won the Comparative Politics Section of American Political Science Association award for the best data set in 2007. The data is supplemented by historical investigations as well as other research. The volume is divided into six chapters. The introduction covers the theory of collective action in its many manifestations as well as the process of drawing out theoretical implications. The second chapter goes to the core of the mobilization issues, especially with regard to the role of leadership, which is inextricably linked to mobilization. The third chapter applies the concept of adaptation to the development of more productive tactics that promote mobilization in support of a public good and minimize the possibility of repression. In chapter four, five spatial hypotheses based on rationality and formal theories are developed and the role of time in protests is addressed. The fifth chapter focuses on the fundamental problems of terror with evidence from the Basque region of Spain and France from Ireland against the Provisional Irish Republican Army. The final chapter surveys the empirical evidence and summarizes the support of collective action theory. Testing collective action theory implications with empirical evidence will appeal to political scientists, sociologists, economists and researchers concerned with mobilization.

Author : Amy R. Poteete
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400835151
Total Pages : 371 pages
Book Rating : 4.57/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Working Together written by Amy R. Poteete and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-12 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Advances in the social sciences have emerged through a variety of research methods: field-based research, laboratory and field experiments, and agent-based models. However, which research method or approach is best suited to a particular inquiry is frequently debated and discussed. Working Together examines how different methods have promoted various theoretical developments related to collective action and the commons, and demonstrates the importance of cross-fertilization involving multimethod research across traditional boundaries. The authors look at why cross-fertilization is difficult to achieve, and they show ways to overcome these challenges through collaboration. The authors provide numerous examples of collaborative, multimethod research related to collective action and the commons. They examine the pros and cons of case studies, meta-analyses, large-N field research, experiments and modeling, and empirically grounded agent-based models, and they consider how these methods contribute to research on collective action for the management of natural resources. Using their findings, the authors outline a revised theory of collective action that includes three elements: individual decision making, microsituational conditions, and features of the broader social-ecological context. Acknowledging the academic incentives that influence and constrain how research is conducted, Working Together reworks the theory of collective action and offers practical solutions for researchers and students across a spectrum of disciplines.

Author : William Ferguson
Publisher : Stanford Economics and Finance
ISBN 13 : 9780804770033
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.34/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Collective Action and Exchange written by William Ferguson and published by Stanford Economics and Finance. This book was released on 2013-07-24 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Collective Action and Exchange: A Game-Theoretic Approach to Contemporary Political Economy, William D. Ferguson presents a comprehensive political economy text aimed at advanced undergraduates in economics and graduate students in the social sciences. The text utilizes collective action as a unifying concept, arguing that collective-action problems lie at the foundation of market success, market failure, economic development, and the motivations for policy. Ferguson draws on information economics, social preference theory, cognition theory, institutional economics, as well as political and policy theory to develop this approach. The text uses classical, evolutionary, and epistemic game theory, along with basic social network analysis, as modeling frameworks. These models effectively bind the ideas presented, generating a coherent theoretic approach to political economy that stresses sometimes overlooked implications.

Author : Mario Diani
Publisher : SAGE Publications Limited
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.97/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Studying Collective Action written by Mario Diani and published by SAGE Publications Limited. This book was released on 1992-01-21 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Research and theorizing in collective action and new social movements have grown rapidly since the 1970s. This volume provides some of the best recent work in the field and illustrates the efforts that have been made to develop research strategies which could fit the theoretical and empirical peculiarities of the research object. Examples include both quantitative approaches such as protest event analysis and network analysis; and qualitative approaches like political discourse analysis and life-histories. It also addresses problems of data construction, research design and operationalization.

Author : Mark Traugott
Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780822315469
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.67/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Repertoires and Cycles of Collective Action written by Mark Traugott and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The modern era has generated a bewildering profusion of popular protest including widespread social movements and sporadic revolutionary upheaval. Despite the seemingly chaotic character of such collective action, social scientists have increasingly noted the remarkable regularities exhibited by even the most tumultuous social change. In this volume, sociologists, political scientists, and historians come together to assess the complementary concepts of repertoires and cycles as tools for illuminating the consistent patterns that emerge from the apparent chaos. The significance of repertoires--recurrent forms or tactics of social protest-- is explored in an essay on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain by the originator of the concept, Charles Tilly. Sidney Tarrow, whose work has most directly linked the concept of repertoires with that of cycles--the recurrent peaks and troughs in the historical incidence of collective action--contributes an essay that focuses on twentieth-century Italy. Other essays investigate the rhythms and logic of social change in contexts as diverse as sixteenth- through nineteenth-century Japan, nineteeth-century Europe, and twentieth-century America. Through inquiries into the consequences of violent repression for social mobilization, the struggle to control the linguistic terms of social conflict, the unacknowledged antecedents of contemporary movements, and the importance of "movement families," this volume demonstrates the usefulness of these two concepts and defines the relationship between them. Collected from past issues of Social Science History, with a new introduction and two new essays, Repertoires and Cycles of Collective Action will reward an interdisciplinary audience of readers with the extraordinary vitality that emerges from this rich blend of historical perspectives. Contributors. Charles Brockett, Craig Calhoun, Doug McAdam, Marc Steinberg, Sidney Tarrow, Charles Tilly, Mark Traugott, James White

Author : Alison Alkon
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520292146
Total Pages : 344 pages
Book Rating : 4.47/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The New Food Activism written by Alison Alkon and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2017-06-27 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "New and exciting forms of food activism are emerging as supporters of sustainable agriculture increasingly recognize the need for a broader, more strategic and more politicized food politics that engages with questions of social, racial, and economic justice. This book highlights examples of campaigns to restrict industrial agriculture's use of pesticides and other harmful technologies, struggles to improve the pay and conditions of workers throughout the food system, and alternative projects that seek to de-emphasize notions of individualism and private ownership. Grounded in over a decade of scholarly critique of food activism, this volume seeks to answer the question of "what next," inspiring scholars, students, and activists toward collective, cooperative, and oppositional struggles for change."--Provided by publisher.

Author : Peter C. Fishburn
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400868335
Total Pages : 277 pages
Book Rating : 4.39/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Theory of Social Choice written by Peter C. Fishburn and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-08 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One fundamental premise of democratic theory is that social policy, group choice, or collective action should be based on the preferences of the individuals in the society, group, or collective. Using the tools of formal mathematical analysis, Peter C. Fishburn explores and defines the conditions for social choice and methods for synthesizing individuals' preferences. This study is unique in its emphasis on social choice functions, the general position that individual indifference may not be transitive, and the use of certain mathematics such as linear algebra. The text is divided into three main parts: social choice between two alternatives, which examines a variety of majority-like functions; simple majority social choice, which focuses on social choice among many alternatives when two-element feasible subset choices are based on simple majority; and a general study of aspects and types of social choice functions for many alternatives. Originally published in 1973. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Author : Peter Hedström
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191615234
Total Pages : 795 pages
Book Rating : 4.38/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Analytical Sociology written by Peter Hedström and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2011-01-06 with total page 795 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analytical sociology is a strategy for understanding the social world. It is concerned with explaining important social facts such as network structures, patterns of residential segregation, typical beliefs, cultural tastes, and common ways of acting. It explains such facts by detailing in clear and precise ways the mechanisms through which the social facts were brought about. Making sense of the relationship between micro and macro thus is one of the central concerns of analytical sociology. The approach is a contemporary incarnation of Robert K. Merton's notion of middle-range theory and presents a vision of sociological theory as a tool-box of semi-general theories each of which is adequate for explaining certain types of phenomena. The Handbook brings together some of the most prominent sociologists in the world. Some of the chapters focus on action and interaction as the cogs and wheels of social processes, while others consider the dynamic social processes that these actions and interactions bring about.

Author : Fabio A. C. C. Chalub
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 303480122X
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.25/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Mathematics of Darwin’s Legacy written by Fabio A. C. C. Chalub and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-06-24 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book presents a general overview of mathematical models in the context of evolution. It covers a wide range of topics such as population genetics, population dynamics, speciation, adaptive dynamics, game theory, kin selection, and stochastic processes. Written by leading scientists working at the interface between evolutionary biology and mathematics the book is the outcome of a conference commemorating Charles Darwin's 200th birthday, and the 150th anniversary of the first publication of his book "On the origin of species". Its chapters vary in format between general introductory and state-of-the-art research texts in biomathematics, in this way addressing both students and researchers in mathematics, biology and related fields. Mathematicians looking for new problems as well as biologists looking for rigorous description of population dynamics will find this book fundamental.