Efficient and inefficient social control in collective action
Efficient and inefficient social control in collective action

Summary/Abstract: This study investigates how and under what conditions networks and dyadic social control rationalize participation in collective action. Social control mechanisms, such as behavioral confirmation and social selective incentives, do not necessarily help mobilization in collective action, but they might also act against it. In certain network configurations, not only an increase in the strength of conformity, but also an increase in selective incentives could turn out to be inefficient to establish mass collective action. This contradiction is captured by an integrative model that combines the n-person social dilemma model of collective action with local interaction games. Predictions of the integrated model reveal non-monotonic effects of the strength of social control on full contribution. For structural effects, the model predicts that cohesion is the most important catalyst of full contribution; besides, modularity of the network facilitates partial contribution equilibria.

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