Suchergebnisse

This article examines how states attempt to overcome collective action problems for promoting regional integration, by highlighting such attempts by members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It considers two kinds of collective action problems: collaboration games where actors are lured to defect from an agreement in order to obtain short-term gains, and coordination games where actors face difficulty in reaching an agreement. The article argues that although ASEAN countries have not intended to establish a supranational body to resolve collective action problems, they have gradually developed feasible enforcement mechanisms by intensifying the centralized nature of regional organization. It also contends that some member states have begun to play a "focal point" role in resolving coordination problems resulting from accelerated regional integration and market liberalization, and the resolution of coordination problems has been pursued in a framework where extra-regional countries and environments play a significant role.

This essay extends theoretical arguments pertaining to single (uniplex) networks on how to solve coordination and cooperation problems associated with institutional collective action to multiplex networks constituting both formal and informal relationships formed by policy actors. While coordination problems reflect difficulties for actors in arriving at jointly desired policy outcomes, cooperation problems mean that actors have conflicting interests and, thus, face incentives to defect on each other. We propose multiplex versions of bridging and bonding networks, which have been found suitable for solving coordination and cooperation problems in single networks. Although our approach is limited to the simultaneous analysis of formal and informal relationships in policy networks, the arguments we present should aid researchers interested in analyzing policy networks beyond these manifestations of inherently complex relationships.

This article examines how states attempt to overcome collective action problems for promoting regional integration, by highlighting such attempts by members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It considers two kinds of collective action problems: collaboration games where actors are lured to defect from an agreement in order to obtain short-term gains, and coordination games where actors face difficulty in reaching an agreement. The article argues that although ASEAN countries have not intended to establish a supranational body to resolve collective action problems, they have gradually developed feasible enforcement mechanisms by intensifying the centralized nature of regional organization. It also contends that some member states have begun to play a focal point role in resolving coordination problems resulting from accelerated regional integration and market liberalization, and the resolution of coordination problems has been pursued in a framework where extra-regional countries and environments play a significant role. (Contemp Southeast Asia/GIGA)

Incomplete information exacerbates the problems inherent in collective action. Participants cannot efficiently coordinate their actions if they do not know each other's preferences. I investigate when ordinary communication, or cheap talk, may resolve mutual uncertainty in collective action problems. I find that the efficacy of communication depends critically on the relationship between contributions and the value of the joint project. The incentive barriers to honesty are highest when every contribution increases the project's value. Participants then have a strict incentive to say whatever would induce others to contribute the most, so cheap talk lacks credibility. By contrast, when contributions may be marginally worthless, such as when the project has no value unless contributions hit a certain threshold, communication may help participants avoid wasted effort. Using these findings, I identify which collective action problems in politics might benefit from communication and which require more expensive solutions to overcome uncertainty.

In seeking to understand how nonprofits participate in policymaking at the state level, scholars of the third sector tend to overlook or assume a barrier to this activity: collective action problems. I show that such problems suppress charter school participation in their trade associations. An analysis of original survey data and informant interviews combined with Internal Revenue Service data for the complete set of charter membership associations in the United States demonstrates that schools' participation in these collectives follows a classic pattern of collective action problems: In states where the number of potential members is high, participation rates are lower. Across states, the size of the population of schools eligible for membership better explains variation in participation than other factors typically deemed important by scholars, such as organizational resources and policy environments. The finding supports the argument that large numbers inhibit participation in associations that pursue collective goods for their industry.