Three essays on collective action
Abstract
[EMBARGOED UNTIL 12/01/2026] Since time immemorial, ordinary people have cooperated to pursue shared goals, and scholars have long sought to understand this phenomenon across contexts--from the motivations that drive collective action to the institutional arrangements that facilitate cooperation. This three-essay dissertation examines how such collective resolve can be harnessed to meet the contemporary crises of ecological degradation and social fragmentation. In doing so, it utilizes theory building, institutional designing and mixed methods empirics. This dissertation develops an integrative theoretical and empirical framework for understanding collective action, applied explicitly to contemporary challenges in ecosystem governance. Through the three complementary essays, it (a) reconceptualizes the motivational antecedents that precede formation of a collective organization, (b) designs an organizational setup that embeds these motivations into sustainable ecosystem governance structure ‘ecosystem cooperative,' and (c) empirically assesses the societal feasibility of the ecosystem cooperatives using primary data. The first essay (chapter 2) is a systematic literature review critically examining the existing explanations for ‘why people choose to act collectively?' or ‘the motivations behind collective action.' It draws on classic and foundational studies as well as metaanalyses, primarily in economics, psychology, and sociology, but also from other interdisciplinary studies, to demonstrate that existing collective action models inadequately explain initial mobilization by treating motivations as exogenous and can be coerced or as already present at initial coordination (for example, Olson's selective incentives, Cook's Phase 1). So, this essay formalizes a preceding stage (“Phase 0”), where perceptions of existential threat, procedural unfairness, and collective identity dynamically interact to start transforming diffuse grievances into concrete mobilization. After presenting a critique of existing theories, this essay describes what ‘Phase 0' is, and why it is essential to study it. It is important to understand motivations behind any form of collective action to determine a future course of action in terms of formation and maintenance of collective organizations. Ecosystems play a vital role in our world, yet several conservation efforts face sustainability challenges, such as high management costs and stakeholder conflicts. To address these issues, in the second essay (chapter 3) we introduce the concept of ecosystem cooperatives (eco-coops), a novel organizational structure. Eco-coops will involve members--including philanthropists and businesses among others--who will purchase the managing rights of an ecosystem, primarily for the purpose of restoring/conserving it. Since the concept is still under development, we present a conceptual framework that explains how an eco-coop could be established, what it could do, and what outcomes its efforts might generate. We utilize ecological and cooperative principles, and the concept of rights of nature to organize and support the idea of ecocoops. We show how eco-coops can help address some of the challenges faced by existing restoration and conservation approaches. A comparative analysis is presented, distinguishing eco-coops from other privately and publicly owned ecosystems. By exploring the relative strengths and weaknesses of these approaches, this essay advocates for the special consideration of eco-coops as a promising avenue for ecosystem restoration and conservation. The third essay (chapter 4) explores how environmental and cooperative value orientations interact to shape inferred support for ecosystem cooperatives. Drawing on two survey datasets--one from the general global population sample (GPS) and another from a farmer sample (FS)--we apply multivariate techniques, including MANOVA and logistic regression, to examine the distribution and demographic correlates of these values. Environmental and cooperative values (EV and CV) varied substantially across respondents and formed the basis for a four-quadrant classification capturing joint and partial value orientations. Individuals in the High-High quadrant, characterized by strong environmental and cooperative commitments, were more likely to reside in urban areas, hold higher educational qualifications, work in service-oriented industries, and identify as politically centrist. Additionally, a novel EV-CV alignment index revealed meaningful variation in internal value consistency across quadrants. These findings address a critical gap in the literature by modeling the interplay of multiple pro-social value systems and highlighting potential constituencies for future collective ecological action. Implications for stakeholder engagement, environmental governance, and policy targeting are discussed.
Table of Contents
PubMed ID
Degree
Ph. D.