Abstract
Are there cultural underpinnings for differences in types of collective action? One may think that countries that have been successful in establishing democracies earlier than other countries had stronger historical traditions of collective action. If this were true, countries that have not yet established democracies are simply lagging in having their population stage a successful revolution to establish democracy. Looking back in human history, things seem, however, quite different from such a simple scheme. Some countries may have had a stronger tradition of collective action than established democracies, but the aims of that collective action may not necessarily have been to establish democracy. In a recent paper, Gorodnichenko and Roland (2013) presented a model and empirical evidence showing that countries with individualist culture would adopt democracy earlier than countries with collectivist culture, even if the latter possibly had better traditions of collective action. In this chapter, we would like to take a closer look at this question and look for micro-foundations of different types of collective action in different cultures. We focus on the comparison between individualism and collectivism, so it is useful in such an endeavor to compare Chinese and European history, which are relatively well documented.
Access provided by Autonomous University of Puebla. Download to read the full chapter text
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
References
Carlsson, H. and E. Van Damme (1993) “Global Games and Equilibrium Selection,” Econometrica 61(5) 989–1018.
Finer, S. (1997). The History of Government, volumes I–III, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Frank, R. (1993) Choosing the Right Pond: Human Behavior and the Quest for Status, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Gächter, S. and E. Fehr (1999) “Collective action as a social exchange,” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 39(4), pp. 341–369.
Gorodnichenko, Y. and G. Roland (2012) “Understanding the Individualism-Collectivism Cleavage and its Effects: Lessons from Cultural Psychology.” In Aoki, M., T. Kuran, and G. Roland (eds.) Institutions and Comparative Economic Development, Palgrave McMillan.
Gorodnichenko, Y. and G. Roland (2013) “Culture, Institutions and Democratization” mimeo UC Berkeley.
G.E.M. de Sainte Croix (1981) The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World, Cornell University Press, Ithaca New York.
Markus, H. R., and S. Kitayama (1991) “Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation,” Psychological Review, 98(2), 224–253.
Morris, S. and H. Shin (2003) “Global Games: Theory and Applications,” in Advances in Economics and Econometrics (Proceedings of the Eighth World Congress of the Econometric Society), M. Dewatripont, L. Hansen and S. Turnovsky (eds). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 56–114.
Ostrom, E. (1990) Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for collective action, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Palfrey, T. and H. Rosenthal. (1984) “Participation and the Provision of Public Goods: A Strategic Analysis,” Journal of Public Economics, 24 (1984): 171–193.
Zhao, D. (2009) “The Mandate of Heaven and Performance Legitimation in Historical and contemporary China,” American Behavioral Scientist 53(3) 416–433.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2016 The Editor(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Roland, G., Xie, Y. (2016). Culture and Collective Action. In: Besley, T. (eds) Contemporary Issues in Development Economics. International Economic Association Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137529749_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137529749_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-57944-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-52974-9
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)