Social Control, Participation in Collective Action and Network Stability

This paper investigates the interrelations between social control mechanisms, social networks and collective action. We introduce a game theoretical model that explains how and under what conditions social networks rationalize participation in collective action and how can collective action reshape network relations in single encounters. The key mobilizing forces in collective action are interpersonal ties, as they transmit different forms of social control such as behavioral confirmation and social selective incentives. The paper shows that stronger social control by and large fosters participation, but eventually it decreases the chance of mass mobilization. We demonstrate that the impact of network structure is conditional to which social control mechanisms operate. In case selective incentives are strong, the minimum degree of the network is a crucial determinant of collective action. In case of strong confirmation incentives, we find a negative effect of network segregation on mass mobilization. Furthermore, the paper goes beyond the static analysis of network effects in collective action and incorporates the opportunity of forming and of severing ties in the model. We introduce an equilibrium refinement that embraces the concepts of Nash equilibrium and network stability. We show that when abandoning and forming relations are inexpensive, only networks in which contributors and defectors are highly segregated can be in this equilibrium.