How Should Responsibility for Regulation Be Allocated?

2019 ◽  
pp. 195-234
Author(s):  
Kevin E. Davis
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Development Bank ◽  
Or Efficiency ◽  
Collective Action Problems ◽  
Enforcement Authority ◽  
Hard Cases

The OECD paradigm’s expansive approach to jurisdiction has advantages in terms of effectiveness and legitimacy, but, by inviting multiple enforcement agencies to intervene in individual cases, it creates space for disagreement, conflict, and redundancy. Previous chapters have shown that reasonable people can disagree about which conduct or actors to target and what sanctions to impose. There also is a risk that collective action problems will compromise effectiveness or efficiency. Some of these dangers can be avoided by assigning enforcement authority to an international organization such as a multilateral development bank, or even a new international anti-corruption agency, but the problems of legitimacy are likely to remain. When hard cases arise, the views of people who will be most greatly affected by the decision, namely, the inhabitants of the country governed by corrupt officials, ought to be given significant weight.

Openness and Its Discontents

2021 ◽  
pp. 71-76
Author(s):  
Kieron O’Hara
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Data Protection ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Net Neutrality ◽  
Bad Faith ◽  
Collective Action Problems ◽  
Hard Cases

Although openness has many good arguments for it, it has led to a string of hard cases, including data protection and privacy, copyright, censorship, the externalities of social networks, and net neutrality. Openness brings three problematic effects: it is hard to keep out bad actors without centralized gatekeeping; openness does not ensure representativeness or diversity; collective action problems, such as free-riding, can occur. Some technologies enable the efficiencies of openness to be reproduced in systems that are not open, and governments have a number of levers they can pull to restrict Internet freedoms. Some governments even dream of total sovereignty over the Internet. There are various specific complaints about openness, including the need to treat different media differently, the problems of bad faith at scale, a large threat surface, and bias.

Catalytic Cooperation

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 73-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Hale
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
World Politics ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Preference Heterogeneity ◽  
Climate Mitigation ◽  
Global Public Goods ◽  
Collective Action Problem ◽  
Free Rider Problem ◽  
Collective Action Problems ◽  
International Climate

Scholars typically model the politics of global public goods or common pool resources as difficult collective action problems. Theories of international organization aim to explain how institutions can promote cooperation by solving the free rider problem. Based on an analysis of a quintessential global collective action problem—international climate mitigation—this article challenges both this diagnosis of the problem and the concomitant institutional remedies. Important elements of climate mitigation exhibit three key features that depart from the canonical model: joint goods, preference heterogeneity, and increasing returns. The presence of these features creates the possibility for “catalytic cooperation.” Under such conditions, the chief barrier to cooperation is not the threat of free riding but the lack of incentive to act in the first place. States and other actors seek to solve this problem by creating “catalytic institutions” that work to shift actors’ preferences and strategies toward cooperative outcomes over time. While catalytic institutions can be seen in many areas of world politics, the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change has put this logic of cooperation at its core, raising the possibility that similar catalytic institutions may facilitate cooperation in other areas of world politics characterized by analogous problem structures.

scholarly journals Agency in historical institutionalism coalitional work in the creation, maintenance, and change of institutions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Emmenegger
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Historical Institutionalism ◽  
Sociological Institutionalism ◽  
Collective Action Problems ◽  
The Creation

AbstractInstitutionalism gives priority to structure over agency. Yet institutions have never developed and operated without the intervention of interested groups. This paper develops a conceptual framework for the role of agency in historical institutionalism. Based on recent contributions following the coalitional turn and drawing on insights from sociological institutionalism, it argues that agency plays a key role in the creation and maintenance of social coalitions that stabilize but also challenge institutions. Without such agency, no coalition can be created, maintained, or changed. Similarly, without a supporting coalition, no contested institution can survive. Yet, due to collective action problems, such coalitional work is challenging. This coalitional perspective offers a robust role for agency in historical institutionalism, but it also explains why institutions remain stable despite agency. In addition, this paper forwards several portable propositions that allow for the identification of who is likely to develop agency and what these actors do.

scholarly journals Influencing Attitudes and Preferences Toward Climate Change using a Multi-Player, Transportation Themed Board Game

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Xiaoyi Kjorven
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Board Game ◽  
Life Choices ◽  
Board Games ◽  
Effective Combination ◽  
Collective Action Problems ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Game Board

Traditional tabletop board games have soared in popularity in recent years, and used often as tools for education and entertainment. Board games are an especially engaging format for studying themes of collective-action problem solving. This study looks at one of the most complex collective-action problems of this generation, climate change, and evaluates how individual attitudes and preferences may be altered by playing a board game specifically designed to influence how people relate to an issue. The board game Wheels was introduced and taught to 18 participants, who engaged in five separate playtesting sessions where observation, survey and interview data were collected. The study evaluates participants' attitudes and preferences toward certain transportation and climate change topics before and after playing the game. The game showed promise in changing players' preferences toward certain modes of transportation - increasing preferences toward electric vehicles and cycling, and decreasing preference towards gas powered cars. These findings indicate that the effective combination of select climate change game mechanics in a highly personalized theme may produce an engaging and entertaining experience that has the potential to transcend the game board and impact players' outlook upon real life choices.

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