POLI 227 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Gustave Le Bon, Instrumental And Value Rationality, Arab Spring
27 Jul 2016
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Protests, riots, social movements, civil wars… Why
do people participate? 2/18/2015 8:38:00 PM
Definition: Political Behavior-
Refers to the observable activity of political actors- focus on ordinary people
A wide range of political activities: elections, protests, riots, lootings,
rebellions, war, ethnic cleansing, terrorist attacks
Analysis at the individual level: distinction between why collective action
occur and why people choose to participate in collective action
Early Explanations: Popular Participation as an irrational behavior
Crowd Theory= 19th c. Europe
Gustave Le Bon- founding father of crowd theory
collective action- as a result of the role of emotions- people that participate,
wanna relieve themselves from negative emotions like frustration against a
particular situation- he has a particular way of framing it- doesn’t look at
individuals as one unit of analysis, but a crowd
ordinary peoples political participation framed as the mob, masses or crowd
very negative perspective of the crowd- it exerts an irrational, unconscious,
and inferior mental influence upon society
a degenerate social force: destructive and lead to chaos.
-early movements lead to fascist movements
Early Explanations: Legacy of The Irrational Angry Mob:
In the popular Culture- ex. Simpsons
In the news
Implications:
since it’s dangerous, and has effect on society, we should make sure to
secure society against the crowd- a security discourse when facing public
demonstrtions
ex. Tunisian police and protesters in central tunis- a result of viewing the
crowd as dangerous
-the result of in the unfortunate comments that the French foreign minister
Michele alliot-marie made- at the national assembly in French- she wanted
to send police officers to help against the arab spring mob, which represents
the idea of crowd theory in the minds of elites
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
A critique of early explanations:
simplistic theory to explain collective action
pejorative connation- no fair qualification
elitist conceptualization of political participation
perspective of the elite on ordinary people
disregards history- the crowds has gained credibility as an active and
rational agent of historical change ex. The us civil rights and anti-vietnam
war social movements
treating the crowd as an abstract phenomenon, the same in all contexts
political participation can be explained because it is patterned
as a result of outburst of emotions- we disregard that collective actions, are
responses to certain patterns- it is not just outbursts of emotions- there are
patterns and rationality that have to be included in why people participate in
collective action
theories-
rational choice?
conceptualize social phenomena as the result of individual strategic choices
individuals as the basic unity of analysis
so: decompose social phenomena into sequences of individual actions
Importance of instrumental rationality: choosing the most efficient means to
a desired end
Implications: decision to participate in a collective
only instrumental rationality- the decisions that are based on choosing the
most efficient means to a desired end- prevalent in all the theories.
-people decide to participate in collective action, because the cause is lower
than the benefit
Rational Choice: The Logic of Collective Action
Olsen-1965: The Logic of collective action:
A mean for individuals to access collective good-an end
Collective good: something that all participations in the group desire and
that by its nature, is inherently shared between all the members of the
group.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Puzzle: tension between collective and individual interests in accessing
collective good.
Individual actors perceive cost of acting individually to access a particular
public good as exceeding the benefits of this public good(when they are part
of a large group of actors).
Why individuals may not act to obtain a collective good?
ex. action against climate change-
the international community(states) do not want to suffer the consequences
of global warming and desire a more stable climate.
However, states are not necessarily willing to individually take the action
necessary to ensure this collective good(stable climate).
Incentives to cheat(free-rider problem): its not possible to exclude actors
from benefiting from a public good.
So then, why do people engage in collective action:
1) when it is made compulsory
2)when high level of social pressure(informal constraints)
3)When people are offered individual incentives
ex. unions – mandatory membership, incentives(free lunch)
The limits of the logic of collective action- rational choice:
Voluntary participation in big groups is irrational… the individual costs are
higher than the payoffs
But Then:
Where all theses unions come from if nobody at the first place wanted to
freely participate in them?
How can we explain the emergence of the state?
Does not account for the collective action emergence, but only for political
participation in the context of collective action
One for all: the logic of group conflict”-Hardin(1995)
Historical context- ethnic violence and nationalist movements, which have
been as irrational
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Refers to the observable activity of political actors- focus on ordinary people. A wide range of political activities: elections, protests, riots, lootings, rebellions, war, ethnic cleansing, terrorist attacks. Analysis at the individual level: distinction between why collective action occur and why people choose to participate in collective action. Early explanations: popular participation as an irrational behavior. Early explanations: legacy of the irrational angry mob: Implications: since it"s dangerous, and has effect on society, we should make sure to secure society against the crowd- a security discourse when facing public demonstrtions ex. Tunisian police and protesters in central tunis- a result of viewing the crowd as dangerous. The result of in the unfortunate comments that the french foreign minister. Michele alliot-marie made- at the national assembly in french- she wanted to send police officers to help against the arab spring mob, which represents the idea of crowd theory in the minds of elites.
