Social Policy from Olson to Ostrom: A Case Study of Dutch Disability Insurance

Social policy development and reform in corporatist welfare states often follows a pattern of subsequent collectivization and de‐collectivization. This has to do, the article argues, with the social problems these phases address. Early social policy development forms a response to Olson‐type collective action problems that organized actors (labour and employers' organizations) in the field experience: state‐obliged benefits solve free rider problems, while bipartite administration allows labour and employers' organizations to organize their constituencies. This solution to Olson‐type collective action problems, however, also constitutes an Ostrom‐type collective action problem. Such a system functions as a common pool resource. Individual benefit take‐up is experienced as free and the costs of benefit take‐up are collectivized in the common pool. The article illustrates this pattern with reference to Dutch disability insurance.     

Communities do act: Neighborhood characteristics,resource mobilization,and political action by local community organizations

Some communities act, and some do not. By action we refer to political actions that challenge existing authority, and by communities we refer to urban neighborhoods and their local voluntary organizations. By combining recent theories and research on local urban communities and neighborhoods with the resource mobilization perspective of collective political action we develop a synthetic model specifying the characteristics of local neighborhoods that affect their capacity to mobilize resources in local community organizations to engage in collective political action. Structural characteristics of neighborhoods (such as size and heterogeneity) are hypothesized to affect their ability to mobilize resources (funds and members) in local organizations. The degree of external support for local organizations is also hypothesized to affect resource mobilization. These in turn are hypothesized to affect the amount of organized political action engaged in by local urban communities. The model is tested in a secondary analysis of data from a pooled sample of 181 community organizations in neighborhoods in three cities. We conclude that structural characteristics of local neighborhoods do affect political action, but only indirectly through their effects on resource mobilization. Larger, more homogeneous local communities and neighborhoods mobilize more funds, but this in turn reduces the likelihood of political action. Smaller local communities and neighborhoods are more likely to mobilize members, however size of membership does not affect political action. In short, members do not count, and money matters—the more the money, the less the political action.     

Collective Action as the Material Expression of Opinion-Based Group Membership

In this article, we argue that progress in the study of collective action rests on an increasingly sophisticated application of the social identity approach. We develop the view, however, that the application of this theoretical perspective has been limited by theoretical and empirical difficulties in distinguishing between social categories and psychological groups. These problems have undermined the ability of researchers to correctly specify the collective identities that actually underpin many instances of collective action. As a partial solution to this problem we focus on collective identities based on shared opinion (opinion-based groups). We develop the proposition that much collective action reflects the crystallization or instantiation of opinion-based groups. We also outline an intervention aimed at stimulating commitment to collective action through group-based interaction involving opinion-based group members. We conclude by emphasizing that opinion-based groups tend to be most successful when they present themselves as being representative or aligned with dominant, positively valued social categories such as nations.     

Game-modeling multilateral trade negotiations

Using actual trade and tariff data for the United States and the European Community, this paper demonstrates how a trade negotiation such as the Tokyo Round can be modeled as a game among countries attempting to minimize individual welfare loss functions. First, we construct welfare functions based on suggested trade negotiation goals. We compute both the noncooperative Nash-Cournot equilibrium tariffs and the cooperative Nash equilibrium implied by these welfare functions. Welfare outcomes under the computed equilibrium tariffs are then compared with those arising from the initial tariff structure, as well as the tariff structure actually determined by the negotiation. We find that, while the game model tracks closely the decisions of the negotiators in the Tokyo Round, later unilateral political decisions resulted in less optimal tariffs.     

Introduction to the Social and Psychological Dynamics of Collective Action

Collective action is one of the core mechanisms of social change, and thus of major importance to social scientists, practitioners, and policy-makers. Our goal in editing this issue is to bring together recent advances on the social and psychological dynamics of collective action among members of disadvantaged as well as advantaged groups. This article introduces the contributions to this issue after a brief review of the major psychological perspectives on collective action (social identity, relative deprivation, and resource mobilization theories), and a discussion of the considerable diversity in collective action research in terms of contexts, populations, and measures. We hope that this issue contributes to a more multi-faceted and integrative understanding of the social and psychological dynamics of collective action in terms of theory, research, policy, and practice.     

Stable International Environmental Agreements with a Stock Pollutant,Uncertainty and Learning

In this paper I address the question of how uncertainty about damage costs and the possibility of resolving that uncertainty in the future affects the incentives for countries to join an international environmental agreement. I use a two-period model with a stock pollutant where the number of countries generating pollution can be arbitrarily large. The stability concept employed is such that size of the stable IEA can be anywhere between 2 and the grand coalition of all countries depending on parameter values. The dynamic structure allows two different membership rules for an IEA: fixed (countries commit at the outset to be members for both periods) or variable (countries decide each period whether to join). I show that with fixed membership learning results in at least as high membership and global welfare as no learning (unless both the expected value and variance of damage costs are high). With variable membership, learning leads to higher membership (in the second period) but lower global welfare than no learning. For most parameter values variable membership results in higher global welfare than fixed membership.     

Welfare Rigidity,the Composition of Public Expenditure and the Welfare Trap

Welfare expenditure is characterized by rigidity, i.e., it goes up easily but is very hard to get down. We introduced welfare rigidity into an endogenous growth model that includes government expenditure to analyze the impact of welfare rigidity and the composition of public expenditure on economic growth and family utility. Our findings show that welfare spending and economic growth have a non-monotonic relationship that is negative or inverted U-shaped depending on cross-country differences. Higher welfare rigidity reduces long-term economic growth and household utility. According to the estimated optimal size of welfare expenditure, China, as a developing country with a large population, has to do all it can to improve people’s livelihood but must at the same time weigh its limited resources so that its welfare expenditure does not fall into a “welfare trap.”     

Beyond Condorcet: optimal aggregation rules using voting records

In certain judgmental situations where a “correct” decision is presumed to exist, optimal decision making requires evaluation of the decision-makers’ capabilities and the selection of the appropriate aggregation rule. The major and so far unresolved difficulty is the former necessity. This article presents the optimal aggregation rule that simultaneously satisfies these two interdependent necessary requirements. In our setting, some record of the voters’ past decisions is available, but the correct decisions are not known. We observe that any arbitrary evaluation of the decision-makers’ capabilities as probabilities yields some optimal aggregation rule that, in turn, yields a maximum-likelihood estimation of decisional skills. Thus, a skill-evaluation equilibrium can be defined as an evaluation of decisional skills that yields itself as a maximum-likelihood estimation of decisional skills. We show that such equilibrium exists and offer a procedure for finding one. The obtained equilibrium is locally optimal and is shown empirically to generally be globally optimal in terms of the correctness of the resulting collective decisions. Interestingly, under minimally competent (almost symmetric) skill distributions that allow unskilled decision makers, the optimal rule considerably outperforms the common simple majority rule (SMR). Furthermore, a sufficient record of past decisions ensures that the collective probability of making a correct decision converges to 1, as opposed to accuracy of about 0.7 under SMR. Our proposed optimal voting procedure relaxes the fundamental (and sometimes unrealistic) assumptions in Condorcet’s celebrated theorem and its extensions, such as sufficiently high decision-making quality, skill homogeneity or existence of a sufficiently large group of decision makers.     

Why Do Men and Women Challenge Gender Discrimination in the Workplace? The Role of Group Status and In-group Identification in Predicting Pathways to Collective Action

Group status and group identification were hypothesized to moderate the predictors of collective action to challenge gender discrimination against women. Higher identifiers were expected to respond to the inequality through the lens of their in-group's interests. Among highly identified women, collective action was predicted by appraisals of illegitimacy and feelings of anger, suggesting that they felt a sense of solidarity with the victims and experienced the justice violation as personally relevant. In contrast, higher identification with the high-status group should reflect more investment in the advantaged in-group, relative to the interests of the victimized out-group members. Thus, among highly identified men, collective action intentions were predicted by perceiving the inequality as pervasive (i.e., not limited to a few cases) and feelings of sympathy for victims. This suggests that highly identified men did not experience the inequality as self-relevant until they saw it as too widespread to be ignored. In contrast, men and women with lower gender group identification demonstrated more similar pathways to collective action, where sympathy was the main predictor. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

The practices of collective action: Practice theory,sustainability transitions and social change

Developing theory for understanding social transformation is essential for environmental sustainability, yet mainstream accounts of collective action neglect the dynamics of daily life. Theories of practice have proved generative for the study of sustainable consumption but struggle to accommodate the roles of collective actors, strategic action and purposive collective projects in social change. In response, this paper develops a practice theoretical account of collective action pertinent to processes of large scale social change, with specific focus on transitions towards sustainability. We consider three ideal types of collective—bureaucratic organisations, groupings and latent networks—and, drawing on existing social theoretical resources that are ontologically compatible with a practice account, explore the kinds of practices and arrangements which compose them. Processes concerning strategy, bureaucracy, management, social worlds and collective identity are identified as important combinations of practices and arrangements. We suggest a key contribution of practice theory has been to identify a type of collective action we call dispersed collective activity, and we suggest how this type of activity may give rise to collectives. We conclude by suggesting further development for the realisation of the project's contribution to the analysis of sustainability transitions.     

On Robust Constitution Design

We study a class of representation mechanisms, based on reports made by a random subset of agents, called representatives, in a collective choice problem with quasi-linear utilities. We do not assume the existence of a common prior probability describing the distribution of preference types. In addition, there is no benevolent planner. Decisions will be carried out by an individual who cannot be assumed impartial, a self-interested executive. These assumptions impose new constraints on Mechanism Design. A robust mechanism is defined as maximizing expected welfare under a vague prior probability distribution, and over a set of mechanisms which is at the same time immune from opportunistic manipulations by the executive, and compatible with truthful revelation of preferences by representatives. Robust mechanisms are characterized and their existence is shown. Sampling Groves mechanisms are shown to be robust.      

The Middle‐class in the German Welfare State: Beneficial Involvement at Stake?

The working‐class is typically regarded as the driving force of welfare state development. Yet, some argue that the middle‐classes' beneficial involvement in the welfare state is crucial for its financial sustainability and popular legitimacy. Against this backdrop, we investigate how recent welfare state reforms in Germany which affect the status of the middle‐class are viewed and discussed by this group. Germany is a particularly interesting case because its welfare state is seen to be centred on the desires of the middle‐class, especially through its focus on status maintenance and horizontal redistribution over the life‐course. However, the move from status maintenance to minimum income support in unemployment provision and the strengthening of private old age provision challenge this assumption. Thus, we ask how the German middle‐class views the emerging abandonment of the principle of status maintenance and the shift from collective to individual responsibility. Based on qualitative material from focus groups, we find that individual responsibility is generally supported, but that the state is still assigned responsibility for providing basic levels of social security. Furthermore, for those groups seen as less capable of acting individually responsible (e.g. the poor or long‐term unemployed) the ‘inducement’ of – or assistance for – individually responsible behaviour by the state is demanded. Overall, while the principle of ‘individual responsibility’ seems to find some resonance among the middle‐class members interviewed, they still try to balance individual and collective responsibility.     

Who is supported? Social security for families with children between family law and social security regulations in Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom

Individual and collective welfare lies at the heart of deliberations about contemporary welfare states. It is not always recognized that social security provisions interact closely with systems for the support of families and for labour market participation. This paper focuses on the interaction of institutional arrangements providing social security for families with children. The analytic framework incorporates family and marital law and social security provisions. Three European welfare states, Belgium Germany and the United Kingdom — with divergent systems of family support — are compared in detail. Among the questions to be posed are: How do these societies organize their support and family-related activities? And what are the rights for individual women, men and children? Among the indicators to be considered are whether the basis for entitlement to social security is individualized or based on a collective unit such as the couple or the household; the extent to which access relates to marriage status or the legitimacy of the children; and the employment-related or universal nature of benefit. The different family models underlying institutions are analysed.     

Metaphors of Protest: A Classification of Motivations for Collective Action

This article proposes a classification of motivations for collective action based in three of Tetlock's (2002) metaphors of social functionalism (i.e., people as intuitive economists, politicians, and theologians). We use these metaphors to map individual- and group-based motivations for collective action from the literature onto the distinction between individuals who are strongly or weakly identified with their social group. We conclude that low identifiers can be best understood as intuitive economists (supported by both early and recent work on collective action), whereas high identifiers can be best thought of as intuitive politicians or theologians (as recent work on social identity has started to explore). Interestingly, our classification reveals a remarkable lack of attention for the intuitive theologian's motivation for collective action. We therefore develop new hypotheses for future research, and derive recommendations for policy and practice from our analysis.     

A Bedrock of Support? Trends in Welfare State Attitudes in Sweden, 1981–2010

This article reports findings about Swedes' attitudes towards the welfare state from 1981 to 2010, building on data from the Swedish Welfare State Surveys. Attitudes towards social spending, willingness to pay taxes, attitudes towards collective financing and public organization, suspicion about welfare abuse, and trust in the task performance of the welfare state are tracked. Overall, there is a large degree of stability in attitudes, and where change is registered, it tends to go in the direction of increasing support. More people state their willingness to pay higher taxes for welfare policy purposes; more people want collective financing of welfare policies; and fewer people perceive extensive welfare abuse in 2010 than was the case in previous surveys. Class patterns change so that the salaried and the self‐employed become more similar to workers in their attitudes. Hence, the unprecedented election loss of the Swedish Social Democrats in 2010, and the rise of the Moderates (conservatives) as the dominant party cannot be explained by changing attitudes towards the welfare state. Nor can any corrosive effects from increased marketization of the Swedish welfare state on public support for welfare policies be detected.     

Context Matters: Explaining How and Why Mobilizing Context Influences Motivational Dynamics

The emphasis in the social-psychological collective action literature is on why individuals take part in collective action; however, it does not elaborate on how different mobilizing contexts may appeal to distinct motivational dynamics to participate. The present study connects the microlevel of motivational dynamics of individual protesters with the mesolevel of social movement characteristics. To do so a field study was conducted. Protesters were surveyed in the act of protesting in two different demonstrations in two different town squares simultaneously organized by two social movements at exactly the same time against the same budget cuts proposed by the same government. But with one fundamental difference, the movements emphasized different aspects of the policies proposed by the government. This most similar systems design created a unique natural experiment, which enabled the authors to examine whether the motivational dynamics of individual protesters are moderated by the social movement context. Previous research suggested an instrumental path to collective action, and the authors added an ideology path. The authors expected and found that power-oriented collective action appeals to instrumental motives and efficacy and that value-oriented collective action appeals to ideological motives, and, finally, that efficacy mediates on instrumental motives and motivational strength, but only so in power-oriented action.     

The wisdom of collective grading and the effects of epistemic and semantic diversity

A computer simulation is used to study collective judgements that an expert panel reaches on the basis of qualitative probability judgements contributed by individual members. The simulated panel displays a strong and robust crowd wisdom effect. The panel’s performance is better when members contribute precise probability estimates instead of qualitative judgements, but not by much. Surprisingly, it does not always hurt for panel members to interpret the probability expressions differently. Indeed, coordinating their understandings can be much worse.     

Charity or Entitlement? Generational Habitus and the Welfare State among Older People in North‐east England

Current UK policies aimed at reducing pensioner poverty involve targeting those in greatest need by supplementing their incomes with means-tested welfare benefits. It is believed that such policies provide more resources for those in greatest need. However, non-uptake of state welfare benefits by many older UK citizens exacerbates the widening income gap between the richest and poorest pensioners. We examine the underlying beliefs and discourses among those currently in retirement who lived through a time when welfare programmes had more of a putative abstract universalism than is now the case. Based on the narratives of people aged over 60 in North-east England, we show how the collective forces of structure and individual practice in relation to welfare accumulate over a lifetime and influence the ways in which people interact with the welfare system in later life. We find that the reasons for the apparent lack of agency among older people in relation to claiming benefit entitlements are linked to the particular social, economic and political circumstances which have prevailed at various points prior to and since the inception of the UK welfare state. We argue that the failure of some older citizens to operate as citizen consumers can be conceptualized in terms of a generational welfare 'habitus', the consequences of which are likely to exacerbate inequalities in later life.     

Voluntary Leaders in Voluntary Welfare Agencies

The voluntary sector is an increasingly important component of our system of welfare provision. This paper focuses on voluntary leaders of welfare agencies in the voluntary sector; the chairpersons of governing bodies. It draws on a study carried out in an outer metropolitan borough with a socially mixed population. The characteristics of chairpersons and the background to their involvement are described. It appears that most are drawn in to their agencies and in to the role of chairperson more by chance than through positive commitment to a cause, but that, once in post, they rise rapidly to the challenge. Leadership of the local voluntary sector is found to be part of a wider commitment to community benefit and to collective provision of welfare. Some implications of the findings for the development of voluntary sector welfare agencies and for social policy are discussed.     

从在线到离线：基于互联网的集体行动的形成及其影响因素——以反建X餐厨垃圾站运动为例

本文以反对垃圾站选址的社区集体抗争为例,采用虚拟民族志方法,展现了业主利用互联网进行抗争的行动图景,揭示了基于互联网的集体行动从线上走向线下的过程和影响因素。研究发现,对于浅层行动,在线动员能够实现广泛的离线参与;对于深层行动,在政治弱控制、参与热情高涨的运动初期,在线动员效果较好,但在政治控制介入、行动力弱化的运动维持阶段,则需要通过离线的二次动员或现实网络及组织的生成来保证行动参与并支撑运动的持续性。文章指出,互联网的动员潜力、行动特性及运动历程综合影响着从在线到离线的转换,而控制因素产生的政治风险塑造着网络动员的方式和策略,型构着网民群体的行动逻辑,并最终呈现为对在线动员效果的约制。