La letteratura che studia perché le persone si impegnano nell’azione collettiva mostra due principali limitazioni: 1) l’utilizzo di un approccio di ricerca top- down e researcher-centered e 2) il mancato coinvolgimento attivo delle persone in ottica partecipata e co-costruita. Quanto detto mostrerebbe la necessità di applicare un approccio bottom-up che veda il coinvolgimento in prima persona degli attivisti. Il presente lavoro è un disegno di ricerca qualitativo multi-metodo concorrente nel quale sono state combinare due metodologie di ricerca: la Grounded Theory costruttivista (Studio 1) e il Concept Mapping (Studio 2), partendo dalla domanda di ricerca: quali sono le motivazioni che portano gli attivisti oggigiorno a impegnarsi nell’azione collettiva? Lo Studio 1 ha evidenziato, attraverso interviste semi-strutturate individuali, le componenti processuali che portano le persone a impegnarsi nell’azione collettiva. Lo Studio 2, attraverso uno sguardo sulla comunità degli attivisti e tramite un approccio partecipato, ha permesso di far emergere le motivazioni che portano gli attivisti a impegnarsi e come incentivare questo impegno. I risultati suggeriscono come l’azione collettiva non possa più vedere un lavoro e uno studio solo sul singolo che agisce in gruppo, ma dovrebbe prevedere un lavoro di comunità: del contesto, dell’associazione e delle persone che ne fanno parte. / The literature studying why people engage in collective action shows two main limitations: 1) the use of a top-down, researcher-centered research approach and 2) the lack of active involvement of people from a participatory, co-constructed perspective. This shows the need to apply a bottom-up approach with the active involvement of activists. The present work is a concurrent multi-method qualitative research design in which two research methodologies were combined: constructivist Grounded Theory (Study 1) and Concept Mapping (Study 2), starting from the research question: what are the motivations that lead activists today to engage in collective action? Study 1 highlighted, through individual semi-structured interviews, the processual components that lead people to engage in collective action. Study 2, through a focus on the activist community and through a participatory approach, uncovered the motivations that lead activists to engage and how to incentivize this engagement. Results suggest how scholars and professionals can no longer study and work in the collective action context only from the individual acting in a group point of view, but instead should involve community work: in the context, in the associations and with people who are part of it.

Humanity currently faces an existential crisis: anthropogenic climate change. In order to guarantee our survival on a stable planet, immediate mitigation and adaption strategies must be implemented. However, institutions are failing to live up to the task and a concrete action plan is currently non-existent, as climate governance struggles with fragmentation, commitment, and challenges posed by neoliberalism. Since the top-down approach is insufficient, extra-institutional actors are arising as leaders for the environmental agenda.  This study narrows down on Greta Thunberg and assesses her capacity in leading the climate movement. The applicability of frame theory (Benford and Snow, 2000) will be tested to understand the mobilisation potential of Greta’s discourse. The main focus of this examination is to analyse how Greta has used diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational collective action frames in order to place the limelight on the seriousness of climate change and correspondingly how this has led to civil society mobilisation. Through a discourse analysis of her speeches, it was discovered that the framing perspective plays a role in meaning construction for the movement.

The use of nonviolent tactics has become the most common way to achieve change. The field of civil resistance has been predominantly focussed on the dynamics related to the outcome, however, about the types of organisational structures that are most effective, is no general consensus, yet. This thesis will try to fill this research gap by combining insights from organisational science, social movement studies, and civil resistance literature. The research question that is posed is: How does the organisational structure affect the outcome of civil resistance campaigns? A theoretical typology is created, proposing a four-fold classification system based on two relational characteristics, namely (1) the extent to which relations are either formal or informal, and (2) the extent to which the relations are hierarchical or lateral. A distinction is made between four quadrants with four different types of structures that affect four critical factors that affect the outcome of civil resistance campaigns: mass mobilisation, loyalty shifts, tactical diversity, and resilience. A ‘nested analysis’ approach is used combining quantitative and qualitative methods of research. After having conducted the analysis, the study showed that organisational structures affect the outcome of civil resistance campaigns in several ways. However, the main findings that were expected to be found did not yield significant evidence, as such the formulated hypothesis can ultimately be rejected. The results of the quantitative analysis show that the odds of success are 2.98 times larger in campaigns with formal organisational structures compared to informal structures, and the odds of success are 17.7 times larger in cases with centralised structures compared to clustered structures. Overall, centralised structures have the highest odds of success. Furthermore, the qualitative analysis suggests that unity, trust, and organisational capacity affect the likelihood that civil resistance campaigns achieve success. Future research should focus to further develop this theoretical model, assess the interaction between structural conditions and type of organisational structure adopted by civil resistance campaigns, and the impact that ICTs have on mobilising processes and organisational structure of civil resistance campaigns.

This thesis examines how communication technology is used for creating a democratic and committed participation within collective action organizations (CAOs). This is achieved by illuminating how organizations' structure and culture relate to their communication. It’s done by in-depth interviews with network-based movements and association-based organizations, and analyses of their digital newsletters. The analysis is based on affordance-driven theory, capturing the interaction between organizations and their digital platforms. The focus lies on how internal democracy and collective action are afforded or constrained to some degrees. Degrees of deliberation for creating common ground and active participation are made visible by using the concept of communicative action. Theories within social movement studies, such as collective action, broaden the understanding of how the perception of digital tools shapes and is shaped by their structure and culture. The results show that the usage and coordination of communication channels is essential for the practice of internal democracy in everyday work, beyond annual meetings and board meetings. Independent chat-based platforms enable an increased control of conversations, cooperation and coordination, while information overload and effective decision- making processes can hinder democratic participation. Commercial social media platforms such as Facebook enables new flows of engagement and connectivity but constrains coordination and control of the framing process within Facebook groups. Additionally, unpredictable algorithms and advertising policy on Facebook makes it difficult to reach out. Overall, the study suggests a broadened view of communication, where communication and usage of digital media should not be considered as instrumental entities. Rather, it is strongly related to how channels are being coordinated, how organizations are organized and the view of participation. Formal structures can both hinder and enable increased communicative action that contributes to democratic participation.

This thesis investigates the relationship between contemporary climate protest movements (Extinction Rebellion and Fridays For Future) and governmental bodies in European countries that declared a climate emergency in 2019. The primary contribution of this thesis is to demonstrate how emerging communication practices by these movements compare to the perceived influence of such practices among political decisionmakers in their governing bodies’ votes for a climate emergency declaration. Twitter content (tweets by movement accounts) surrounding protest actions of the climate movements was coded using concepts deduced from theoretical literature of participation, media and communication. Themes induced from this data were also used for coding. A thematic analysis of empirical interview text from semi-structured interviews of nine politicians in eight governmental bodies (six German city councils, that of Innsbruck, Austria and the Swiss cantonal parliament of Vaud) on this subject matter was done similarly. Relational thematic analyses of both datasets influenced the coding of one another. A frame analysis grounded in these data studied the use of social media imagery and text by the two movements. Another look at the interview data reflects the influence these movements had on climate emergency declarations via comparison of politicians’ stated impressions of the movements’ participation/influences with formations of tweeted movement frames. The data support the hypothesis that citizens engage via the connective power of personalized participatory culture on social media, enabling political participation. Today, we see a shift away from a political logic of social movements abiding to strong shared identity and meaning through frames of collective action. Instead, a social media logic, which aims to achieve the same functions, operates in loosely networked movements based on individualized frames of youth identity. This ‘connective identity’ bridges the participatory culture of social media with offline political participation in the streets and halls of power.

abstract: In many social-ecological systems, shared resources play a critical role in supporting the livelihoods of rural populations. Physical infrastructure enables resource access and reduces the variability of resource supply. In order for the infrastructure to remain functional, institutions must incentivize individuals to engage in provision and maintenance. The objective of my dissertation is to understand key formal and informal institutions that affect provision of shared infrastructure and the policy tools that may improve infrastructure provision. I examine these questions in the context of irrigation systems in India because infrastructure maintenance is a persistent challenge and system function is critical for global food production. My first study investigates how the presence of private infrastructure, such as groundwater pumps, affects the provision of shared infrastructure, such as shared tanks or surface reservoirs. I examine whether formal institutions, such as water pricing instruments, may prevent under-provision of the shared tanks. My findings suggest that in the absence of rules that coordinate tank maintenance, the presence of private pumps will have a detrimental effect on system productivity and equality. On the other hand, the combination of a fixed groundwater fee and a location-based maintenance fee for tank users can improve system productivity and equality. The second study examines the effect of power asymmetries between farmers, caused by informal institutions such as caste, on the persistence of political institutions that govern infrastructure provision. I examined the effect of policy tools, such as non-farm wage employment and informational interventions, on the persistence of two types of political institutions: self-governed and nested. Results suggest that critical regime shifts in political institutions can be generated by either intervening in formal institutions, such as non-farm wage employment, or informal institutions, such as knowledge transmission or learning mechanisms. The third study investigates how bureaucratic and political corruption affect public good provision. I examine how institutional and environmental factors affect the likelihood of corruption and infrastructure provision. I demonstrate that cracking down on corruption is only beneficial when infrastructure provision is poor. I also show that bureaucratic wages play an important role in curbing extralegal transactions and improving infrastructure provision. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Sustainability 2019

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the well documented health disparities affecting racial and ethnic minorities, particularly those living in underserved urban settings. Due to historic and contemporary structural racism, these areas are often food deserts, lack adequate access to primary care services, and have higher rates of maternal and infant mortality. The lack of public health infrastructure to respond to emergencies, such as pandemics, can be rapidly met with collective action from communities to take care of their most vulnerable. After providing a basic overview of how structural racism has created the present-day disparities seen in communities such as North Philadelphia, this thesis investigates and makes the case for the capacity of these resilient communities to take care of themselves. To this end, I describe the work of North10 Philadelphia, Fabric Masks for North Philly, and the Maternal Wellness Village—community-based organizations that rapidly pivoted their work to fill the unmet needs of people in North Philadelphia related to food insecurity, personal protective equipment, and childbirth preparation and social support, respectively. I describe the utilization of the services provided by these groups and evaluate the evolution of their work from the onset of the pandemic through present day. Following each case study, I share the stories of the leaders behind each project to give voice to the people fighting for the health and wellbeing of their community. Lastly, I reflect on my positionality as a Black woman and medical student at a large academic institution partnering with these groups and assert the need to maintain partnerships with these and similar organizations to ensure the sustainability of their programming in the long term. / Urban Bioethics

Evolutionary psychology often relies on experimental methods for testing theories due to their capacity to isolate independent variables, thereby enhancing internal validity. The scientific problem in this study, however, lies in the fact that an increase in internal validity in experiments might risk reducing ecological validity. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to test experimental results from the evolutionary coalitional psychology in a real case, to evaluate the ecological validity of the theory. The case is the Ukraine war and the method is a qualitative thematic text analysis, of President Volodymyr Zelensky's speeches, close to Russia's invasion on February 24, 2022. The results reveal that the president in his speeches, motivates with a collective gain of participating in the defence of Ukraine, exhibits a punitive attitude towards perceived free-riders, and does not show any gender bias in his appeals. The evidence of collective gain and a punitive attitude is particularly notable as it aligns precisely with the theoretical expectations based on previous experimental results from coalitional psychology. This alignment between real-world findings and experimental predictions enhances the ecological validity of the theory, thus fulfilling the aim of the study. The conclusion is that evolutionary psychology can be effectively applied to real- world conflicts within peace and conflict studies.

How do people maintain a sense of control when they realize the noncontingencies in their personal life and their strong interdependence with other people? Why do individuals continue to act on overwhelming collective problems, such as climate change, that are clearly beyond their personal control? Group-based control theory proposes that it is social identification with agentic groups and engagement in collective action that serve to maintain and restore people’s sense of control, especially when their personal control is threatened. As a consequence, group-based control may enable people to act adaptively and stay healthy even when personal control seems futile. These claims are supported by evidence showing increased in-group identification and group-based action intentions following reminders of low personal control. Furthermore, these responses of identifying with agentic in-groups increase people’s perceived control and well-being. This article succinctly presents group-based control theory and relevant empirical findings. It also elaborates on how group-based control relates to other social-identity motives and how it may explain social phenomena.

Background: “APES TOGETHER STRONG“ was one of the slogans, that participants of the influential GameStop movement (who ironically called themselves “apes“) utilized to show their unity (“together strong“) and relentlessness in their seemingly irrational actions. Erupting in January 2021, retail investors that had formed a community via Reddit, collectively achieved to multiply the stock price of American gaming retail chain GameStop, causing huge losses for hedge funds, resulting in political discussions and social outrage. This community was quickly labelled as a social movement. Research Problem: Despite the widespread understanding that social media had and has major impacts on social movements and their constitution, research on various aspects concerning movements in the context of social media remain underdeveloped. On a broader level, the formation of digital social movements within online communities presents a suitable area of research. On a finer level, newcomers and their socialization were identified as research gaps. Research Purpose: The purpose of this study is to close these research gaps by identifying key factors of socialization within digital movements. Additionally, it aims at showcasing the implications of these factors on the broader community and movement development. Research Question: How are newcomers socialized and integrated in digital movements? Research Method: This study is a qualitative, inductive research. It follows the relativistic ontology and the social constructionism epistemology. The methodology is an explorative, single case study and data is purposively collected through interviews and from Reddit. The data is analyzed utilizing the Gioia method. Conclusion: Our findings concentrate on four dualities concerning socialization and community development. Community growth, purpose, jargon and activity are found to be inherently divergent themes and mechanisms within the movement. From this we abstract a framework towards a spectrum of socialization approaches ranging from regulated to unregulated socialization. As such, we showcase the implications of both ofthese ends and how communities must be flexible in their socialization approach.