Abstract
We elucidate the dynamics of ongoing collective action among intentional agents with diverse beliefs and imperfect information. Their decisions on whether or not to contribute to the collective good depend not only on the past but also on their expectations as to how their actions will affect those of others. We show that in attempts at collective action the onset of overall cooperation can take place in a sudden and unexpected way. Likewise, defection can appear out of nowhere in very large, previously cooperating groups. These outbreaks mark the end of long transient states in which defection or cooperation persists in groups that cannot sustain it indefinitely. Computer experiments demonstrate these predictions, as well as verifying that diversity of beliefs among individuals acts as an additional source of uncertainty, instigating the outbreaks.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Mancur Olson. The Logic of Collective Action. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1965.
Garrett Hardin. The tragedy of the commons. Science, 162:1243–1248, 1968.
Michael Taylor. Anarchy and Cooperation, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1976.
Thomas C. Schelling. Micromotives and Macrobehavior, W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., United States, 1978.
Russell Hardin. Collective Action, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1982.
Michael Taylor. The Possibility of Cooperation, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987.
David D. Friedman. Price Theory, South-Westem Publishing Co., Ohio, 1990.
Pamela E. Oliver and Gerald Marwell. The paradox of group size in collective action: A theory of the critical mass. ii.American Sociological Review, 53:1–8, 1988.
Jonathan Bendor and Dilip Mookheijee. Institutional structure and the logic of ongoing collective action. American Political Science Review, 81(1): 129–154, March 1987.
Russell Hardin. Collective action as an agreeable n-prisoners’ dilemma. Behavioral Science, 16(5):472–481, 1971.
Robert Axelrod and William D. Hamilton. The evolution of cooperation. Science, 211:1390–1396, 1981.
H. A. Ceccatto and B. A. Huberman. Persistence of nonoptimal strategies. Proc. Natl, Acad. Sci. USA, 86:3443–3446, 1989.
Natalie S. Glance and Bernardo A. Huberman. The outbreak of cooperation. Journal of Mathematical Sociology, 17, 1992.
Reinhardt Selten. Re-examination of the perfectness concept for equilibirium points in extensive games. International journal of Game Theory, 4:25–55, 1975.
Herbert Simon. The Sciences of the Artificial. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, 1969.
Bernardo A. Huberman and Tad Hogg. The behavior of computational ecologies. In B. A. Huberman, editor. The Ecology of Computation, pages 77–115. North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1988.
Masuo Suzuki. Scaling theory of transient phenomena near the instability point. Journal of Statistical Physics, 16:11–32, 1977.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1993 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Huberman, B.A., Glance, N.S. (1993). Diversity and Collective Action. In: Haken, H., Mikhailov, A. (eds) Interdisciplinary Approaches to Nonlinear Complex Systems. Springer Series in Synergetics, vol 62. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-51030-4_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-51030-4_5
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-51032-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-51030-4
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive