In this classic work, Mancur Olson viewed difficulties in organization for the common good as a purely rational response to the array of incentives and disincentives provided. It is worth a read for those interested in the topic -- and would provide an interesting background for this article. FWIW

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action

Diana, thank you for citing the reference.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...ive_Action

The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups is a book by Mancur Olson, Jr. first published in 1965. It develops a theory of political science and economics of concentrated benefits versus diffuse costs.

The book challenged accepted wisdom in Olson?s day that:

1. if everyone in a group has interests in common, then they will act collectively to achieve them; and

2. in a democracy, the greatest concern is that the majority will tyrannize and exploit the minority.

The book argues that individuals in any group attempting collective action will have incentives to "free ride" on the efforts of others if the group is working to provide public goods. Individuals will not ?free ride? in groups which provide benefits only to active participants.

Public goods are goods which are non-excludable (i.e. one person cannot reasonably prevent another from consuming the good) and non-rival (one person?s consumption of the good does not affect another?s, nor vice-versa). Hence, without selective incentives to motivate participation, collective action is unlikely to occur even when large groups of people with common interests exist.

The book also noted that large groups will face relatively high costs when attempting to organize for collective action while small groups will face relatively low costs. Furthermore, individuals in large groups will gain relatively less per capita of successful collective action; individuals in small groups will gain relatively more per capita through successful collective action. Hence, in the absence of collective incentives, the incentive for group action diminishes as group size increases, so that large groups are less able to act in their common interest than small ones.

The book concludes that, not only will collective action by large groups be difficult to achieve even when they have interests in common, but situations could also occur where the minority (bound together by concentrated selective incentives) can dominate the majority.

References

Olson, Mancur [1965] (1971). The Logic of Collective Action : Public Goods and the Theory of Groups, Revised edition, Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-53751-3.

You got there first, Sharon - you really are quick! Mancur's book still resonates to this day and is a fine example of how such scholarship should be done.

I have one question. Where in the research in this article does it say how many men versus women were in the samples?

You asked a good question:

Where in the research in this article does it say how many men versus women were in the samples?

Short answer: I do not know. The researchers did not cvontrol for that variable as their primary concern was for the influence of cultural and political variation.

The Supplementary Data may have the breakdown you seek. We will research the question and get back to you on the results. Please subscribe to this feed so you get an alert.