Eco-labelling is a way to promote sustainable development. This is a quantified study about purchase behaviour regarding eco-labelled seafood in Sweden, based on interviews with a convenience sample of consumers in situ. The objectives were to establish how large the knowledge of eco-labelled seafood is, to investigate the reasons for acquiring the product and thus determine the prime driving force to do it. The willingness to pay for eco-labelled seafood was also investigated. The results show a low awareness where just about a quarter of the respondents knew that eco-labelled seafood existed. The willingness to pay was high; four out of five were ready to spend additional money on an eco-labelled product. Women displayed a higher willingness to pay than men, which supports previous research. Regarding the reasons to purchase the only options presented to the respondents were environmental concern, enhanced health or both alternatives in combination. Health as the single factor was the least preferred choice and the two other alternatives were favoured to an equal amount. A difference in purchase behaviour can be detected among respondents with awareness of ecolabelled seafood when compared to those without. Those aware stated a willingness to pay to a higher degree and also displayed more environmental concern and less health interest than those unaware of eco-labelled seafood.

This research studies protests after fraudulent elections in a collective action framework, examining the impact of the potential cost, benefit and likelihood of success of protest on the occurrence and intensity of protests. Quantitative analysis of fraudulent elections in about 100 countries from 1990 to 2004 shows that the odds of protest after fraudulent elections are greater when the level of state repression is moderate with a possible backlash effect of high repression, when the opposition is united, and when international monitors denounce election results. The analysis only partially supports the benefit of protest argument. Also, the research uses case studies from Eurasia (Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, and Russia) and mini-case studies from Africa and Latin America to study in more detail the effects of the factors identified in the quantitative analysis and to identify overlooked but important explanatory factors using a set of extensive interviews conducted in the United States and during fieldwork in Armenia, Georgia, and Russia with politicians, domestic and international election monitors, and country experts.

Past research suggests that members of devalued groups recognize their group is discriminated against. Do the implicit responses of members of these groups demonstrate the same pattern? I argue that they do not and that this is due to a motivated protection of members of devalued groups’ social identity. Study 1 demonstrates that, at an explicit level African-Canadians recognize that their group is discriminated against, but at an implicit level African-Canadians think that most people like their group to a greater extent than do European-Canadians. Study 2 replicates this implicit finding but demonstrates that devalued and majority groups do not have different implicit normative regard about a non-devalued group. Study 3 again replicates the implicit finding with Muslim participants while demonstrating that, when affirmed, this group difference disappears. Study 4 demonstrates that implicit normative regard can predict collective action over and above implicit attitudes and explicit normative regard. The implications for social identity theory and collective action are discussed.

This dissertation explores the effects of democratic competition among political parties in India on natural resources and the ability of local communities to cooperate for natural resource management. A significant number of decentralization policies in developing countries depend for their success on local collective action for the provision of public goods. At the same time, democratization generates multiple impulses in society, and understanding its effects on the prospects for local cooperation is important for explaining the variation in success of decentralization policies for natural resource management. I use historical and ethnographic data to understand the influence of political competition on natural resource outcomes and local collective action. The descriptive analysis draws upon theoretical and empirical literatures on political competition, collective action, and property rights, and is used as the basis for generating hypotheses as well as specifying context-specific measurements of the relevant variables for statistical analysis. I test the hypotheses on two sets of dependent variables – local cooperation and forest condition – and three datasets covering community-based irrigation and forest management systems, co-management institutions for irrigation, soil conservation, and forest management, as well as state-managed forests as the null category without decentralized management. The findings show that an inclusive pattern of political mobilization and party competition have increased the salience of environment and forests in the public domain and democratic politics, with a positive effect on resource outcomes. Further, natural resources are better managed by decentralized institutions, compared to state management. However, communities located in highly competitive electoral districts find it significantly more difficult to cooperate due to interference from political parties. Moreover, communities that are heterogeneous along the salient issue dimension in democratic politics are the worst affected. On the other hand, better representation of sub-group interests in community affairs, prevalence of democratic practices, and linkages of community leaders to multiple political parties are associated with higher levels of local cooperation. In conclusion, the findings demonstrate that communities are better at natural resource management than state agencies, but the impulses generated by democratization can constrain the ability of local communities to manage natural resources. / Dissertation

The community development in Taiwan has its unique connotation and meaning, some scholars pointed that the key to the continuous promotion of community development is in the self identity, collective participation and active support. Promotion of community development fears discontinuity. The phenomenon that commonly appears is discontinuity of residents¡¦ participation or unsatisfactory cohesive force of community. As a consequence, the community development is regarded as a mean to enable collective action of community residents, what affects the communities to enable an effective collective action is an issue to be discussed in the study. There are four purposes of this study : firstly; is to get to know the theoretical base of local community development task in Taiwan; secondly; to proof the effect among social capital, community empowerment and collective action; thirdly; to explore the operation strategies for ¡§urban¡¨ and ¡§rural¡¨ community development and lastly, to combine social capital, community empowerment and collective action theories related aspects to construct a ¡§continuous development model¡¨ for the community development in Taiwan. The research variables with regard to the community collective action of this study include: ¡§civic engagement¡¨, ¡§interpersonal trust¡¨, ¡§social networks¡¨, ¡§community empowerment¡¨, ¡§individual and social benefits (incentives)¡¨ etc., with community participants (effective sample size of 573 people in total) from 19 community development associations as research objects; including 10 communities in Kaohsiung city (urban community), 9 communities in Kaohsiung county and Tainan county (rural community), with questionnaires acquired to proceed reliability analysis and exploratory factor analysis, using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to construct variables and model test that affect the collective action of community residents for community development. According to analysis of overall sample, there is certain effect of civic engagement on social capital, community empowerment on social capital, social capital on collective action, and individual and social benefits (incentives) on collective action; moreover, a direct impact of community empowerment is shown on the collective action. According to the model fit outcomes, urban community samples are more close to ideal standard, followed by overall sample. The suggestions and strategies proposed upon the research outcomes were mainly divided into 3 directions : first of all, to increase activity management and construct interactive network from social capital perspective; second, to advance identification affection through learning capability from community empowerment perspective; eventually, to provide incentives to enable an interest from collective action perspective. There shall be positive and effective influence on the community collective action once the community development is planned and fulfilled as per 3 dimensions recommended by the study.

Abstract This research will mainly study the Ping-Ling Freeway Plebiscite Act and the Ping-Ling County River and Fish Protection Act. The thesis adopts the logic of collective action and the analytic path of the resource mobilization theory and approval theory, which are derived from the collective action and social action theories. The research will further analyze the cause, process, effect and obstacles, of the Ping-Ling Plebiscite Action and River and Fish Protection Act. By observing the two actions, conclusions can then be drawn on the relationship between the regional collective action and the regional democracy. In the research, it is noted that a political elite, who is also an initiator, organizer as well as spokesperson, plays a significant role in the behavior of collective action. The Ping-Ling Plebiscite and the River and Fish Protection Act, with the leadership and power of the political elite added to hold, construct a systematic mechanism such as the Fish Protection Patrol Party. The politic elite will provide the residents theory discourse for use in participating collective action. Throughout the process of the regional residents participating in collective action, there will be great benefits to the democratic development in the region. From the process of actively participating in the regional affairs, the residents will develop new perspectives, and thus have positive on the development of regional civism. It is also discovered in the study that the factional structure of Ping-Ling County is gradually changing. The phenomenon of faction predominating the residents¡¦ power of political life is gradually diminishing. The residents now cast their votes based on the candidates¡¦ ability and contribution to the region and much less based on faction. It is shown that regional democracy can be radicated and practiced through collective action, and this can be a possible approach for every region¡¦s municipals push.

During the past two decades, community-based hazard mitigation (CBHM) has been newly proposed and implemented as an alternative conceptual model for emergency management to deal with disasters comprehensively in order to curtail skyrocketing disaster losses. Local community members have been growingly required to share information and responsibilities for reducing community vulnerabilities to natural and technological hazards and building a safer community. Consequently they are encouraged to join local mitigation programs and volunteer for collective mitigation action, but their contributions vary. This research examined factors associated with Tulsa Project Impact partners?? contributions to collective mitigation action. In the literature review, self-interest and social norms were identified and briefly discussed as two determinants to guide partners?? behavior by reviewing game theoretic frameworks and individual decision-making models. Partners?? collective interest in building a safer community and feelings of obligation to participate in collective mitigation action were also considered for this study. Thus, the major factors considered are: (1) collective interests, (2) selective benefits, (3) participation costs, (4) norms of cooperation, and (5) internalized norms of participation. Research findings showed that selective benefits and internalized norms of participation were the two best predictors for partners?? contributions to collective mitigation action. However, collective interests, participation costs, and norms of cooperation did not significantly influence partners?? contributions.

The unemployed workers movement in Argentina (also known as the piqueteros) emerged during the mid 1990s, as a response to the increasing poverty and unemployment produced by the economic reforms implemented by the national government. Its extraordinary growth and leading role in the protests of 2001-2002 led many scholars to believe that it would become an enduring aspect of Argentina’s politics. However, after 2002, the movement entered a period of decline, which was reflected in the loss of members, support, and public influence. In this paper, I study the trajectory of this movement in order to advance certain arguments regarding the relation between grievances and collective action. I will argue that a key factor behind the decline of the movement was the amelioration of the main grievance which gave it rise. The emergence and consolidation of the piqueteros coincided with a period of increasing unemployment. However, after 2002, Argentina’s economy entered a phase of intense growth which significantly improved labor market conditions. The new scenario deeply affected the movement’s influence. Therefore, the study of the piqueteros can provide significant insight about social movement theory. In particular, it suggests that the relation between grievances and collective action is more direct than what the resource mobilization and political process approaches predict. In other words, the case of the piqueteros shows that grievances matter: although several factors may mediate between them and collective action, their effect is never negligible. In addition, this paper addresses a more “empirical” gap. Although there is an increasing body of literature about the decline of the piquetero movement, most studies focus on political variables and neglect the potential role played by the reduction in unemployment. In other words, in exploring the causes of this downfall, authors usually center on the emergence of a new government in 2003, the divisions between different organizations, and the loss of legitimacy among other sectors of society. By focusing on an alternative explanation, I expect to contribute to the understanding of this movement. / text

This is a story of a social movement's conception and the articulation of its meaning and meaningfulness. Gawad Kalinga, an ambitious Philippine community development cum nation building movement, initiated "GK777" to build 700,000 homes in 7,000 communities, in seven years. I assessed the national and global implications of this social movement's social networking model of nation-building through community development, poverty alleviation, and slum eradication. Using an ethnographic case study to conduct an inductive, grounded theory analysis, the study sought to explore if strategies and actions that go beyond traditional and conflict-centered social movement conceptions are enabling it to achieve their goals and to transfer its model to five other countries. The global implications and replicability of GK's nation-building model on the emergence and development of other forms of social movements, civil society-state governance, are compelling. The attempt at articulating and integrating political process and opportunity structure, resource/ structure mobilization, framing process, and new social movement theories in explaining another form of social movement and of civil society highlights the suitability for such kind of research, long-term monitoring and evaluation, and theorizing.

This document presents the research I have undertaken over the last decade. It is both retrospective and prospective in the sense that, although it is obviously focused on my past activities, it also indicates ways for future research. The main topic of my overall research can be summarized as follows: I explore the development of online, open projects, or communities of creation, such as Free, Libre, Open Source Software (FLOSS), from an economics point of view. This means that in addition to renewing the answers to Olson's question about the individual participation to collective action (1965), it questions also the why and how companies participate in this process, renewing Arrow's dilemma (1962) on the incentives to produce innovation and the incentive to disseminate this innovation, and the way people organize themselves to transform participation into concrete pieces of knowledge, being software or encyclopedia articles.