THE DYNAMICS AND DILEMMAS OF COLLECTIVE ACTION

Theoretical accounts of participation in collective action have become more divergent. Some analysts employ the Prisoner's Dilemma paradigm, other analysts suggest that different social dilemmas underlie collec tive action, and still others deny that social dilemmas play any signi ficant role in collective action. I propose a theoretically exhaustive inventory of the dilemmas arising in collective action systems and sh ow that five games, including the Prisoner's Dilemma, can underlie col lective action. To analyze action within each game I use a dynamic sel ectionist model based on three modes of organization-voluntary coopera tion, strategic interaction and selective incentives. Social dilemmas exist in four of the five games, and conflicting accounts of collectiv e action have focused on different games and modes of organization As collective action proceeds from initiation to rapid expansion to stabi lity, its game type varies in a way that can be precisely characterize d as movement through a two-dimensional game-space. Finally, I disting uish between two ways of promoting collective action: One way focuses on resolving the dilemma within a particular game; the other focuses o n changing the game so the dilemma is more easily resolved or eliminat ed.