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"The primary structural purpose of the United States Constitution is to empower the federal government to solve problems that the states would need to act collectively to solve, and to prevent the states from undermining these solutions or causing such problems from the perspective of the Constitution or Congress. Any faithful account of what the Constitution is for and how it should be interpreted must include this main structural function. The Constitution was established principally because of the widely recognized failures of its predecessor, the Articles of Confederation, to adequately address "collective-action problems" facing the states, including funding the national government, regulating foreign and interstate commerce, and defending the nation from attack. These challenges are called collective-action problems because the states would need to cooperate or coordinate their behavior-they would need to act collectively, not individually-to solve them, and they would often struggle to do so. In a fundamental sense, the U.S. Constitution is the Collective-Action Constitution, and the sobering problems facing America today-including inadequate access to health care, climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic and future ones, opioid addiction, gun violence, racism and other bigotry, political extremism, unlawful immigration, terrorism, and nuclear proliferation-cannot be adequately dealt with by government if Americans do not recognize this truth. The main goal of the Collective-Action Constitution is not to vindicate a conception of economic efficiency, but to create and maintain political and economic union"--

THE AUTHOR SUMMARIZES SOME OF THE BARGAINING ISSUES INVOLVED IN COLLECTIVE ACTION TO ADDRESS LOCAL COMMON-POOL RESOURCE (CPR) PROBLEMS AND ILLUSTRATES THEM IN THREE EMPIRICAL CASES. THE IMPORTANCE OF TIMING OR THE SEQUENCE OF COALITION BUILDING AND THE HETEROGENEITY OF THE PARTICIPANT'S PREFERENCES, INFORMATION, AND STAKES IN THE PROBLEM ARE EMPHASIZED. TWO OF THE EMPIRICAL CASES INVOLVE TRADITIONAL CPR PROBLEMS AND EFFORTS TO RESOLVE THEM IN FISHERIES AND OIL FIELDS. THE THIRD INVOLVES COLLECTIVE ACTION BY PRIVATE FIRMS TO OBTAIN GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE IN ORDER TO FIX PRICES. ALTHOUGH THE CASES ARE QUITE DIFFERENT, THE BARGAINING PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED AMONG HETEROGENEOUS PARTIES ARE VERY SIMILAR.

Analyzed is a continuous or dynamic version of the R. Hardin game (see SA 20:6/72F8326) over collective goods. M. Olson's analysis (The Logic of Collective Action, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965) of such prisoners' dilemma games, containing a contradiction between individual & collective rationality, lead him to the conclusion that the collective good would not be provided or maintained. On the other hand, the usual equilibrium notion of the core would predict some pareto optimal outcome of the game. Here it is argued that both the Olson argument & the core prediction are incorrect. In particular, the core theory does not make explicit certain internal assumptions regarding rationally expected responses to noncooperation. Instead, the structure of the game is such as to permit local cycles. More generally, one may regard the game as an instance of Arrowian inconsistency; in fact, the domain of instability in the game is shown to be dense. It is argued that all games with similar structure, including oligopoly, imperfect market, & bargaining games display precisely this locally cyclic instability. Given the ubiquity of instability in such games, the germ of a solution theory is introduced, emphasizing the notion of a stable nucleus of a coalition. A discussion of the stability of the Atlantic Alliance & the OPEC coalition is presented in these terms. 12 Figures. AA.

Unequal Medicaid spending patterns across the US states continue despite a federal reimbursement formula designed to mitigate these disparities. Here, an interest group explanation of Medicaid expenditures is developed, based on a cross-sectional analysis of 1989 Medicaid spending using a Supplemental Security Income category model, an Aid to Families with Dependent Children category model, & an overall model. Physicians & the poor were not found to influence spending in any of the models; however, nursing home interest groups were found to be extremely important in explaining Medicaid spending in all three models, & hospital & elderly groups were influential in the Supplemental Security Income & overall models. These results support the plural elitism model, which predicts that organized groups providing members with selective incentives will be more influential than large, disorganized groups. Implications for future study of Medicaid policy are discussed, stressing the importance of distinguishing health provider groups & recipient categories. 2 Tables, 24 References. Adapted from the source document.

Examines the potential of contemporary social movements to act as agents of social & political transformation in the information age. Prior efforts to theorize this question have been hampered by the assumption that social movements are protagonists that always produce positive or progressive outcomes. This is an especially erroneous assumption under conditions of modern complex societies in which information is a valuable currency. In this context, social movements themselves may act as media in the sense that they broadcast to the rest of society the existence of dilemmas & conflicts. Thus, social movements may cause several types of change: (1) making visible forms of social power; (2) setting public discourse & public agendas; (3) creating greater access to channels of representation in the political system; (4) participating in the selection of new elites by supplying knowledgeable personnel; (5) modernizing organizations; (6) contributing to innovation in everyday life; & (7) restructuring the capitalist market. It is concluded that the capacity of social movements to make a progressive impact on these areas depends on the availability of an autonomous space for collective action guaranteed by a set of political rights. D. Ryfe

Theoretical frame -- The tragedy of the commons recalled -- Collective action problems reconsidered -- Joint environmental action : the building blocks -- The ethos in joint environmental action -- Climate goals revisited -- Climate duties -- Climate duties as joint-action duties -- A fair share in accumulative goals -- Some conclusions : institutions and responsibilities.

In recent years there has been a proliferation of scholarship on protests and other forms of collective action in China. Important insights have been gained into how conflicts between social groups and local governments begin, which strategies and instruments protesters apply, and under which circumstances protests are likely to succeed or fail. However, comparatively little is known about the mobilizing structures and how such collective action can be sustained over a long period of time, in some instances over several years. Such perseverance would be remarkable even in a democracy, but it is more so in an authoritarian system where the risks of participating in collective action are higher and the chances to succeed much smaller. This article compares the development of public protests in two research locations and identifies four factors instrumental to overcoming the formidable challenges of sustaining collective action in China: the continuing existence of substantial grievances; the re-activation of strong social ties; the presence of unifying frames; and an adaptive protest leadership. The comparison shows that the last factor is particularly crucial: while the two villages were similar in all other respects, leadership in village B was far more adaptive than in village A, which goes a long way towards explaining why collective action could be sustained twice as long in village B. (China Q/GIGA)