Onyx Ramirez

Political Violence in Latin America

Collective Action Experiment
Historically, collective action has been necessary in order to precipitate some kind of change.
Collective action being, a group of people working together towards a specific cause. However,
people are going to work in their own individual best interests when furthering their causes. The
resulting problem is that most of the time, individual best interests do not align with the best
interests of the group they are a part of. Lichbach and Olson both propose theories about
collective action in regards to why it is that collective action problems come about, and, what are
the necessary and sufficient conditions for protest to come about under repression. I applied their
respective theories to the collective action experiment that we performed in class, specifically the
part in Lichbachs theory where he assumes that the opposition to the government is a
homogenous group. And, in Olsons theory, where he assumes that individuals objectives are in
pursuit of a public good, that they each have individual, transitive, interests, and that the way to
solve collective action problems is by giving selective incentives to those that participate.

In the case of the collective action problem, the class was not homogenous, in fact, we were
independent actors in each situation. The same is the case in all collective action problems.
Under Lichbachs theory on whether or not repression deters or inflames protestors, rebels and
terrorists, it is necessary to assume that the opposition is a homogenous group. This is to say, that
there is only one opposition group, with one line of thinking, rallying behind one leader, when in
actuality this is not the case. It will often be the case, as was such in the class experiment, that
people will have very different objectives. My objective in the game was to contribute my fair
share, while still ensuring that I could play the game. Whereas it may have been the objective of

someone else to contribute as little as possible, under the assumption that another player
couldve picked up the contribution instead of them. The later case did in fact happen, as
ultimately the goal of the game, was to have as many points as possible. In relation to Lichbachs
theory, it is impossible that the opposition be a homogenous group, as this is only possible if
there is one actor. But, the entire point of collective action, is that there be a collective and
collectives are diverse. As such, in many ways, it is difficult to regard his theory as unflawed.

Olson details that there is a tension between the two objectives that individuals have in
regards to collective action. Those two objectives being, their desire to obtain a public good, and
their desire to reduce their cost while gaining as much as possible from the public good.
However, Olsons theory operates under the assumption that individuals are rational, rational
being that they are self interested, their preferences are transitive, and that they have perfect
information. By perfect information it is meant that everyone knows exactly what everyone else
knows. Additionally, rational individuals work in their own best interests, and if youre working
in your own best interest, its not rational to assume a cost that someone else can assume.
However, in the case of the class collective action problem, many people were not acting in their
own best interests, and they were behaving irrationally. Not only were they unnecessarily
assuming more cost than their fellow classmates, but, they also didnt have perfect information.
In fact, in some situations, they were blindly going into each round, having to choose how much
they were going to invest each go. As was the case with the round where everyone did have
perfect information, the expected response was that once everyone noticed how much each
other person was putting in, they would adjust their own contributions to match. i.e., either,
contribute less or more, depending on what others are doing. Actually, in my opinion they may

even contribute less in both instances, because they may believe that their weight is going to be
carried by someone else, in terms of selective contribution. Or, in the case that they notice that
others are contributing less than they are, they may again, lower their contribution, because if
youre working in your own best interest its not rational to assume the cost when someone else
can.
Ultimately, Olson proposes that the way to solve collective action problems is by giving
selective incentives, or, rewarding participants and punishing non-participants. This generally
reigned true in the class collective action problem. In the round where there was a positive
incentive if participants contributed a significant enough amount, and a negative incentive if
people didnt contribute enough, people generally contributed more. Additionally, because it
was never outlined how much exactly was enough, or a significant contribution, people tended
to contribute as much as they could so they wouldnt be penalized. In this case, Olsons theory
reigned true.