THE CONDITIONS FOR SUCCESSFUL COLLECTIVE ACTION

The purpose of this paper is to summarize some of the bargaining issue s involved in collective action to address local common-pool problems and to illustrate them in three empirical cases. The importance of tim ing 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 problem s and efforts to resolve them in fisheries and oil fields. The third i nvolves collective action by private firms to obtain government assist ance to control orange shipments so as to fix prices. Although the cas es are quite different, with one involving a nonrenewable resource, an other a renewable resource and a third addressing cooperation for prov ision of an industry public good, the bargaining problems encountered among heterogeneous parties are very similar. This condition allows fo r generalization to be drawn about the conditions for successful colle ctive action.