Collective Action Flashcards
Definition of free-riding
Each person benefits without contributing
What is free-riding, whats it lead to?
- The maximization of short-term self-interest yields outcomes leaving all participants worse off
- Rationally, no-one contributes
- Free-riding prevents cooperation
How come public goods causing free-riding, examples of these public goods
- Public goods generate free-riding problems
– By definition, the benefits are non-excludable
– Each person can benefit without contributing - Examples
– Defense, infrastructure, public health, property rights
– Climate change mitigation
– Electoral accountability
– Social accountability
Rational vs real behavior of cooperation (collective action)
- Rational behavior: DO NOT cooperate
- The paradox of collective action: people are too cooperative in practice
– In lab experiments. cooperation rates are 20-50%, not 0%
– People do protest in large numbers (sometimes)
– Voters do kick out bad leaders (sometimes)
Definition of collective action
Multiple people coordinating their actions to overcome a free-riding problem and secure a collective benefit
When is collective action easier?
- The group is smaller
– Communication and monitoring is easier - Coercion is used
– Taxation solves many public goods problems - Selective incentives are used
– Handing out t-shirts, food, money to participants
– Entertainment - Informal institutions: social norms
– Where there are repeated interactions
– And social costs to not participating
– Voting as a duty
– Community clean-up days
What is the effect of anti-corruption projects (monitoring) on enforcement, and why?
- Anti-corruption projects try to increase accountability
– Most African countries have “very strong” anti-corruption laws - But increased monitoring, or stricter punishment does not increase enforcement
- Because principals do not do their job
– Bureaucrats look the other way to protect their job
– Politicians steal to finance elections
– Voters prioritize ethnicity, clientelism over voting out bad leaders
Reporting and punishing corruption as free-rider problems
- Monitoring and reporting is costly
- Less corruption benefits everyone in society (a public good, making investment safer)
How does corruption being the norm affect enforcement and why?
Enforcement is weak because corruption is the norm
- An informal institution (“culture”) of corruption
- Being honest can bring social punishment
- Failed anti-corruption reforms just create more cynicism and stronger expectations that corruption will continue
Example of John Githongo and corruption
John Githongo, Permanent Secretary in charge of Governance and Ethics, Kenya, 2003-2005
- Reported the Anglo-Leasing corruption scandal
- Allegedly received death threats from the head of Kenya’s Anti-Corruption Commission
- Fled the country
Whats the alternative to collective action in stopping corruption?
- Changing social norms and expectations
- Informal institutions
- So that people want to sanction others for wrong-doing
Whats the alternative to collective action in stopping corruption?
- Changing social norms and expectations
- Informal institutions
- So that people want to sanction others for wrong-doing
How do norms against corruption strengthen accountability?
- Bureaucrats get respect for blowing the whistle
- Judges reject bribes to maintain social status as clean
- Voters see their role as punishing corrupt politicians
- Citizens collectively protest against bad services to be a part of the community
How do we get accountability under authoritarianism? (eg. China)
- Informal accountability
– Local elites face social sanctions if they fail to deliver public goods and moral standing rewards where they perform well
– eg. Party Secretary on the donor wall of the temple - Where there are village temples, investment rises from 61 to 99 yuan per person
What are the characteristics of solidary groups?
Solidary groups are civil society groups that are:
- Embedding
– Politicians and bureaucrats are members
– So politicians can be rewarded
- Encompassing
– The group covers the whole political community
– So politicians are incentivized to provide public goods to all
How did Rwanda, Niger, Malawi, and Uganda try to fix maternal care through the principal-agent model?
The institutional rules and policies are the same across countries
- Making traditional birth attendants illegal
- Performance bonuses for health workers
- Health monitoring units
- Fines for failing to give birth at a clinic
- Voluntary health committees to supervise clinics
Niger collective action for maternal health
- The state provided ambulances but no fuel or drivers
- Nurses unmotivated as they were appointed by patronage
- Nobody cleans up the clinic
NO collective action for development
Rwanda collective action for maternal health
- Imihigo
– Public pledges by the President and Mayors
– Breaking a pledge let down your community
– Checking on progress is a citizen’s obligation - Ubudehe
– Self-help to solve local problems
– Reliance on outsides is lazy - Umuganda
– Communal work
– Rude not to participate
– You expect others to participate
Why was Rwanda more successful than its counterparts in improving maternal health?
Rwanda used collective action to make accountability mechanisms work
- Traditional informal institutions and social norms stopped free-riding
Development as a principal-agent problem
- The objectives of actors are in conflict
- We have to incentivize some people to change their behavior
- We need to generate accountability
Development as a collective action problem
- The objectives of actors are the same
- The context prevents them from realizing these objectives - they are stuck in a trap
- We need to help people coordinate
What is the new balance reached in the assurance game on protesting?
The “protest, protest” payoff is increased to reflect the social rewards of cooperation
- If everyone else protests, I don’t want to miss out
How does the assurance game change the prisoners dilemma?
Shifting from a single equilibrium in prisoner’s dilemma to multiple equilibria in assurance game
How can we shift equilibria? (assurance game)
- Building on latent social norms and traditional institutions, eg. Imihigo in Rwanda
- Leading form the top to change expectations
- A big push
- Making information public and common knowledge
