Alston Yan

Social work theory · Volume F: Community, Collective & Social Change

Collective action and resource mobilisation

Collective action theories explain when and how people cooperate to pursue shared interests, and why cooperation often fails even when everyone would benefit.

1. What it is

Collective action theories explain when and how people cooperate to pursue shared interests, and why cooperation often fails even when everyone would benefit. Resource mobilisation theory extends this analysis to social movements, explaining collective action through the resources, organisations and strategies available to groups (McCarthy & Zald, 1977). Together, these theories address a practical problem that community workers meet constantly: people may agree that change is needed, yet few take part in achieving it. They explain the conditions that make participation rational, sustainable and effective (Ostrom, 1990).

The family draws on economics, political science and sociology. Its theories share an assumption that people act purposefully and respond to incentives, costs and institutional arrangements. Three bodies of work are central.

Olson’s collective action problem. Mancur Olson (1965) argued that rational, self-interested individuals will not necessarily act to achieve a common goal, even when all members of a group would gain from it. This is because collective goods, such as cleaner air or a better local service, benefit everyone in the group whether or not they contributed. Each person therefore has an incentive to “free ride” on the efforts of others. Olson showed that the problem is greater in large groups, where any one person’s contribution makes little visible difference. He argued that large groups are mobilised mainly through selective incentives: benefits or sanctions that apply only to those who participate, such as membership services, social recognition or legal compulsion (Olson, 1965).

Resource mobilisation (McCarthy & Zald). McCarthy and Zald (1977) shifted attention from why people feel aggrieved to how movements acquire and use the resources needed for action. They argued that grievances are relatively constant, and that the key variable is the availability of resources such as money, labour, expertise, facilities and legitimacy. Their framework introduced several concepts. A social movement organisation (SMO) is a formal organisation pursuing a movement’s goals; a social movement industry is the set of SMOs pursuing similar goals; and the social movement sector comprises all such industries. They distinguished beneficiary constituents, who would gain directly from success, from conscience constituents, who support a cause from moral commitment. They also described professional SMOs, which rely on paid staff and external funding more than on mass membership. Edwards and McCarthy (2004) later classified movement resources as moral, cultural, social-organisational, human and material.

Ostrom on the commons. Elinor Ostrom challenged the pessimism of both Olson and Hardin’s (1968) “tragedy of the commons”, which held that shared resources would inevitably be overused unless privatised or controlled by the state. Studying fisheries, irrigation systems and forests around the world, Ostrom (1990) found that communities often manage common-pool resources sustainably through their own institutions. She identified design principles shared by enduring arrangements: clearly defined boundaries; rules suited to local conditions; collective-choice arrangements that let users modify rules; monitoring; graduated sanctions; accessible conflict-resolution mechanisms; recognition by external authorities of the right to organise; and, for larger systems, nested layers of governance. Ostrom (2000) argued that trust, reciprocity and reputation allow groups to overcome the free-rider problem without external coercion. She received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2009 for this work.

Collective action in community practice. For social work, these theories turn attention to organisational and institutional questions. Olson explains why participation is hard to sustain; McCarthy and Zald explain how organisations gather and deploy resources; and Ostrom explains how communities can create durable rules for cooperation. Hardina (2002) applies such analysis to community organisation practice, emphasising assessment of resources, constituencies and power.

2. Historical development

Period Development
1965 Olson’s The Logic of Collective Action formulates the free-rider problem
1968 Hardin’s “The tragedy of the commons”
1973 Oberschall’s account of mobilisation; McCarthy and Zald’s (1973) study of professionalisation
1977 McCarthy and Zald’s “partial theory” of resource mobilisation; Piven and Cloward’s Poor People’s Movements
1983 Jenkins reviews resource mobilisation as the dominant movement paradigm
1990 Ostrom’s Governing the Commons sets out design principles
2000–2010 Ostrom links collective action to social norms and polycentric governance; Nobel Prize (2009)
2000s Edwards and McCarthy refine resource typology

Collective action theory began in economics. Olson (1965) applied rational choice assumptions to groups, challenging the pluralist belief that shared interests naturally produce organised action. Sociologists studying the movements of the 1960s used his insights but found that movements did mobilise despite the free-rider problem. Oberschall (1973) and McCarthy and Zald (1977) explained this through pre-existing networks, organisations and external resources, shifting movement research away from older theories that treated protest as irrational (Jenkins, 1983).

Ostrom’s work grew from political science and institutional economics. It became an independent tradition because it showed, from extensive field evidence, that self-governance was a realistic alternative to market or state control (Ostrom, 2010). Social work drew on resource mobilisation through community organisation and macro practice texts (Hardina, 2002; Weil et al., 2013), and Piven and Cloward’s (1977) critique of organisation-building became a lasting debate in the field. Ostrom’s design principles have since been applied well beyond natural resources, to questions of local governance and the design of self-organising institutions (Ostrom, 2010).

3. Practical guidance

Collective action and resource mobilisation theories suggest the following strategies for social workers organising groups and communities.

4. Critical evaluation

Strengths. These theories provide a realistic account of why collective action is difficult and what makes it possible. Olson’s analysis explains common frustrations in community work, while resource mobilisation directs attention to the practical organisational tasks of campaigns. Ostrom’s research offers strong empirical evidence that communities can govern shared resources well, giving community practice a positive and testable model of self-governance (Ostrom, 2010).

Limitations. Rational choice assumptions underplay emotion, identity, solidarity and moral commitment, which often explain why people act against narrow self-interest (Polletta & Jasper, 2001). Resource mobilisation theory has been criticised for favouring well-resourced, professional organisations and neglecting the disruptive power of poor people’s movements (Piven & Cloward, 1977). It also gives limited attention to grievances and meaning, which framing theory (F3) addresses. Ostrom’s principles were derived from relatively bounded natural-resource systems and may not transfer directly to complex urban or policy problems.

Overall importance. Collective action theories help social workers understand participation as something that must be organised and supported. They provide practical tools for resourcing campaigns, designing fair group processes and sustaining involvement. Combined with framing and collective identity theories, they give a balanced account of how collective change is achieved.

5. References

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