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After criticizing current models of political action committee (PAC) formation as flawed both in the samples used in tests and in the specifications tested, we develop a new explanation of PAC formation that emphasizes competition for access among those already engaged in lobby ing. We test both organization- and state-level implications of this alternative account, respec tively, employing survey and aggregate data on PACs in the American states. The empirical findings provide preliminary support for our explanation and sharply contradict prior evidence that PAC formation is governed by problems of free riding.

This article investigates the collective action problem in the name, image, and likeness (NIL) era. By allowing college athletes to profit from their NIL through endorsements, sponsorships, and social media presence, athletes may now receive unlimited monetary benefits for their participation in college sports. But a collection action problem exists. Although all universities benefit from the NIL landscape, they do not have to disclose their NIL data. In addressing this problem, the article finds that, when athletic departments are selfish, defection from a position of cooperation exists as a dominant strategy. An emerging social norm of information disclosure is insufficient to provide an incentive for disclosure.

How do dissident, far-right groups overcome the collective action problem inherent to political organisation in order to recruit sufficient activists willing to bear the costs of participation and not free-ride on the participation of others? An original ethnographic study of the UK anti-Islamic street protest organisation, the English Defence League, shows that it solved the collective action problem by supplying selective incentives to members in the form of the club goods of access to violence, increased self-worth and group solidarity. These benefits were offset against the costs of stigma, time, money and unwanted police attention that also accompanied English Defence League membership. The personal benefits the English Defence League provided to its members enabled it to supply what Mancur Olson has termed the first unit of collective action, but limited its ability to supply the additional units required to build a broader, more mainstream movement.

AbstractThe English economy during the sixteenth century was increasingly captured by monopolists, with dire consequences in aggregate. Yet, though many Members of Parliament owned patents of monopoly, on 20 November 1601 the House of Commons agreed, with no voices raised in opposition, to void all such patents. That collective decision helped shift the English economy from a non‐cooperative to a cooperative game, and thus from non‐competition to competition, so taking a key prefatory step towards the English Industrial Revolution.

Recent electoral outcomes have challenged the notion that elections in the Balkans are not able to bring about change. How has the public responded? It is argued that, in spite of the manifest obstacles for challengers to prevail over incumbents, public opinion is contingent upon the recent experiences in each country. Once shown the way, and in spite of a long period of stasis (or even state capture), citizens start believing that change is possible. The findings of the brief indicate that, in relation to electoral participation, the 'collective action' problem in the Balkans – characterised as lack of confidence in the possibility of change, leading to disillusionment with the democratic process and individual unwillingness to act to bring about change – might not be as difficult to break as previous research had indicated.

Max Weber's description of how status groups monopolise goods and opportunities is now widely used by sociological theory to understand the economic and political relationships between groups. However, it is rarely recognised that a problem of collective action must be solved if a status group is to operate in this way, that it is individually irrational for members of the group to support its monopolistic activities even if they profit from them. Once the collective action problem is recognised, it is immediately apparent that Weber's own account of the definitive features of a status group identifies precisely the means by which the problem is solved. Weber on the operation of status groups and Weber on their nature may then be fused into a single coherent and comprehensive account, an account of profound and far-reaching theoretical interest.

The article considers the success of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in con trolling the price of crude oil as a possible example that the destructive logic of collective action may be circumvented. It is argued that the OPEC countries have succeeded in the pursuit of their collective cause due to the ability and willingness of Saudi Arabia to make good the damage perpetrated by free-rider conduct. Yet, the recent (March 1982 — March 1983) conflict over pricing- and production policy was a war of nerves, from which an accord emerged only after a painful game of threats and brinkmanship.