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Social theory implies that a rise in the expectation that many will participate in collective action can make participation in the action widely rational, giving rise to a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’. I address this classic, yet understudied, proposition by surveying participation in a demonstration that the ‘Panama Papers Leak’ triggered in Iceland in 2016. The demonstration was preceded by a sudden rise of large-turnout expectations, and attracted one-fifth of an urban population, allowing me to obtain event-specific, population-representative survey measures of the focal constructs (N = 821). The findings support hypotheses about the role of large-turnout expectations in collective action. They confirm that protest support (i.e. the value placed in the goal of the collective action) both raises large-turnout expectations and moderates their effects on protest participation. In fact, large-turnout expectations were associated with participation only if individuals supported the protest. Also, the findings imply that large-protest expectations trigger interpersonal relational dynamics that further motivate participation. The study thus supports and yet qualifies the role of the self-fulfilling prophecy in collective action., Pre-print (óritrýnt handrit)

International audience

The contemporary American economy presents a troubling paradox. On the one hand, capital and yield-hungry investors are sufficiently plentiful in the financial system to generate recurrent and devastating asset price bubbles and busts. On the other hand, capital and “patient” investors are so scarce in the nonfinancial and infrastructure sectors that the U.S. has steadily fallen behind its competitors in cutting-edge industries and high quality infrastructure. The explanation for this paradox is not hard to find. Unlike during the nation’s most dynamic and prosperous periods in the past, there is at present no public instrumentality tasked with devising and implementing any ongoing national development strategy, or with directing the capital needed to implement it. No private actor or group of such actors is up to this task. Individual time horizons are too short, and individual capacity to bear long-term risks and capture fair shares of public goods too miniscule, to render such efforts individually rational. Against such a backdrop, it is reasonable for investors to speculate upon price movements in secondary markets rather than invest patiently in primary markets – hence to fuel asset price bubbles and busts rather than real growth. The nation’s economy is accordingly caught in a classic collective action problem – a situation in which multiple acts of individual rationality aggregate into a collectively irrational outcome. Only informed exercises of collective agency can address such problems. This White Paper proposes a form that such agency should take. It calls for a new National Investment Authority (NIA), operationally situated between the Federal Reserve and the Treasury, for the specific purpose of mobilizing private capital in pursuit of long-term investments in both vital infrastructure and the real economy. The NIA reintroduces in modern guise the Hamiltonian national development program of the late 18th century and the Hoover/Roosevelt-era Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) of the mid-20th century. Like those earlier programs, it combines the public and private sectors in partnership. Also like those earlier programs, it reverses the ill-fated latter-day “P3” model of “public capital, private management” in favor of the historically more successful model of “public management, mixed public-and-private capital.” The Paper first lays out the key theoretical and practical justifications for establishing an NIA. It then unpacks the proposal in detail by addressing the specific legal, administrative, and operational choices that will have to be made in connection with its implementation. We lay out and assess the full range of plausible options in connection with each such choice, then conclude and look forward.

This article details corrections to the article: Ulinskas, M., 2018. The Terezita Romo Papers: Capturing the Spirit of Collective Action in Archives. KULA: knowledge creation, dissemination, and preservation studies, 2(1), p. 4. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/kula.22

Recent events have drawn the world’s attention to a crisis that has been building up for a long time—forced displacement. Beside five million Palestinians, over half of the refugees worldwide originate from Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia – with Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Myanmar, Iraq, and Eritrea also accounting for large numbers. This joint paper aims to define a framework for collective action for Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) in response to the forced displacement crisis, within the context of the One Humanity agenda issued by the United Nations Secretary General in February 2016. The paper outlines an agenda for MDBs to further strengthen their contributions, complementing humanitarian, diplomatic and peacekeeping efforts in specific areas where stronger synergies are desirable and possible. This paper was jointly coordinated by the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the World Bank Group (WBG) and prepared by MDB staff. The paper has three main sections focusing on MDBs’ strategic agenda as they attempt to mitigate and or respond to the crisis (Section B); operational implications of this response in terms of financial instrument, organizational challenges (Section C); and, finally a framework for collective action (Section D). Annexes I to III provide additional definitions and numbers.

On the Ground We know relatively little about women and rangelands because gender has not been a major focus of rangeland research and outreach. “Gender gaps” and “leaky pipelines” negatively affect women who live on rangelands as well as professional women in range research, teaching, and outreach. Fixing gaps and leaks is important for gender equity and rangeland stewardship. Prominent barriers for women worldwide include male-dominated hierarchies, heavy workloads, and restricted access to the means of production. Despite barriers, rangeland women are “change agents” who improve circumstances for families, peer groups, and communities. Barriers can be addressed via research, education, and policy.

The European desire to ensure that bearers of EU rights are adequately compensated for any infringement of these rights, particularly in cases where the harm is widely diffused, and perhaps not even noticed by those affected by it, collides with another desire: to avoid the perceived excesses of an American-style system of class actions. The excesses of these American class actions are in European discourse presented as a sort of bogeyman, which is a source of irrational fear, often presented by parental or other authority figures. But when looked at critically, the bogeyman disappears. In this paper, I examine the European (and UK) proposals for collective action. I compare them to the American regime. The flaws and purported excesses of the American regime, I argue, are exaggerated. A close, objective examination of the American regime shows this. I conclude that it is not the mythical bogeyman of a US class action that is the barrier to effective collective redress; rather, the barriers to effective, wide-ranging group actions lie within European legal culture and traditions, particularly those mandating individual control over litigation.

This study investigated the compliance of paper-making plants in Phong Khe Commune of Bac Ninh Province with regulations on wastewater management. According to existing regulations for wastewater management, all paper plants in Bac Ninh province are required to submit an environmental impact assessment report, pay the wastewater charges, and establish a wastewater treatment system. Many paper-making plants in the commune did not, however, comply with these regulations. Although fines were imposed for non-compliance, only a few plants paid the fines due to weak enforcement. As a result, the current costs of compliance of paper-making plants were very small compared with the full costs of compliance. Type of plant, location of the plant, and number of schooling years of the plant owners were found to be significant factors affecting compliance. The main reasons why the plants did not comply with the regulations were the plant owners’ inadequate understanding of environmental regulations, their lack of financial resources, limited space for treatment system installation, small fines, and the limited capacity of the local environment authorities in enforcing the regulations. The option of wastewater treatment for a group of paper-making plants located close to one another was widely accepted. The study proposes collective action for the adoption of this treatment option and policy recommendations.

The objective of this paper is to synthesize the findings of six individual case studies (Bucaramanga, Colombia; Coimbatore, India; Kigali, Rwanda; Gaziantep, Turkey; Changsha, China; and Tangier, Morocco) by analyzing the similarities and dissimilarities among them and identifying common, cross-cutting themes. The intent is to highlight what institutions and strategies successful cities have relied on to spur economic development, under what conditions such success has occurred, and what lessons of this experience might be applicable to decision makers in other cities.

The objective of this paper is to recommend, at the request of the Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States - along with the European Union (EU) (G-20), how knowledge sharing (KS), through North-South, South-South, and triangular cooperation, can be scaled up in support of growth and development processes. The working group collaborates closely with the steering committee for pillar nine, which, besides the working group members, also includes Korea and Mexico as co-facilitators for pillar nine, France as this year’s G-20 Chair, and Colombia and Indonesia as co-chairs of the task team on South-South cooperation. The paper is organized into four sections: section one presents a description of how KS is increasingly viewed as a complementary third leg to financial and technical cooperation in the changing global development landscape; section two presents a set of emerging, evidence-based lessons for KS as a development tool; section three recommendations from the G-20 to scale up KS; and section four presents next steps on the short and medium term.

When emergency provisions in the constitution are abused, they pose a threat to the legal order. Citizen mobilization has been proposed as a mechanism to constrain the executive from such abuses of power. Specifically, if the executive oversteps its authority, the opposition can overthrow the government by mobilizing citizens against the power maximizing behavior. Despite the abundance of contributions on citizen's activism, constitutionally protected resistance has been neglected. This paper covers the gap by proposing a definition of constitutional resistance, which distinguishes it from other forms of disobedience and protest. Moreover, the importance of properly delineating the right is discussed and it is argued that such a right is not simply a parchment barrier. Specifically, the paper theorizes that the inclusion of the right tips the scale in favor of resisting even minor transgressions, leading to a more constrained executive power. However, if the right is not properly delineated it creates adverse incentives, jeopardizing political stability.

This paper considers whether highly concentrated industries are better represented in the political process, as Olson's Logic of Collective Action suggests, and, if they are, whether this is so for the reasons that the Logic claims. It begins with a review and critique of the quantitative literature that has largely tried and failed to substantiate Olson's view. The bulk of the paper consists of five longitudinal case studies of firms that dominate or have dominated industries: IBM, Intel, Microsoft, America Online, and Cisco. The cases suggest that there is merit to the Olsonian view, but that alone it does not constitute an adequate political theory of the concentrated industry or the dominant firm. Additional variables drawn from organizational and institutional theory need to be incorporated into such a theory, including variables that bear on the allocation of attention, threat perception, and information flow within dominant firms.

One hundred years ago, the first coordinated reactions to the urban chaos of the industrial revolution were being established though a system of centralised planning, while the rudiments of a theory underpinning this collective action were also being fashioned, through the writings and rhetoric of Patrick Geddes. Drawing on Darwin's theory of natural selection, he laid the foundations for a response to urban growth that drew loosely on ideas of evolution, but which ultimately became established through the imposition of a top-down 'organic' order in city and regional plans associated with the work of Patrick Abercrombie, one of Geddes' best-known followers. This approach was rooted in 'physicalism', a perspective that assumed social problems might be solved by manipulating the physical built environment. This ideology began to fragment from the mid-twentieth century on as questions over its effectiveness in generating more liveable and equitable urban environments grew. Now, however, there are signs that ...