Cogs in Collective Action: The 2022 Skytte Lecture

Abstract

Collective action can be motivated in many different ways. Here I point to a new and perhaps surprising one: by, in effect, telling people that the group is powerful and likely to achieve its goal, precisely because each of them is an inessential, interchangeable part in it. Given people’s desire to be part (even if a superfluous part) of a winning group, that can be a powerful motivator for people to join in a collective action.