Theme 4: Interdependence among factors
There are many factors that have an impact on successful large-scale collective action, LSCA, and these factors interact in a variety of ways. For example, a corrupt political system decreases actors’ levels of institutional trust, which in turn decreases support for market-based instruments relative to command-and-control instruments.
Another example is that perceived distributive fairness has been shown to affect cooperation, but people favour different distributive principles for private versus public goods. The section on synthesis and research strategy further elaborates on examples of interdependencies to be studied within the centre.
Projects within Theme 4:
This project aims to develop a theoretical framework that properly define the concept of large-scale collective action, LSCA, compared to collective action more in general and small-scale in particular. The framework will then be applied to various LSCA problems.
Participants: The CeCAR PI group.
Theme: 4 and 5
Publication: Publication of Perspective paper in Ambio: Jagers, S. C., Harring, N., Löfgren, Å., Sjöstedt, M., Alpizar, F., Brülde, B., ... & Steffen, W. (2020). On the preconditions for large-scale collective action. Ambio, 49(7), 1282-1296.
In recent decades, the number of people affected by extreme weather has been unprecedented. The IPCC reports that heavy rain, floods, violent winds and droughts can destroy progress built up over many years, and thus threaten to undermine the continuing efforts to reduce poverty (IPCC 2014). Of particular importance in this project is the potential impact climate change may have on regime stability, and hence on the prospects for economic growth. Regime stability has been shown to affect economic growth by reducing uncertainty and stimulating economic exchange but is at the same time potentially being threatened by climate change. While some studies indicate that climate change severely affects regime stability and the prospects of economic growth, others suggest that it in fact can constitute a window of opportunity and be a vehicle of positive political changes such as democratization and increased political stability. Our findings contribute to this gap in knowledge and explicitly focuses on increasing our understanding of how climate change affects the prospects for economic growth.
Participants: Oskar Rydén (Department of Political Science), Martin Sjöstedt (Department of Political Science), Sverker Jagers (Department of Political Science), Pelle Ahlerup (Department of Economics), Aksel Sundström (department of Political Science).
Theme: 3 and 4