Lesson 2: Collective Action & the Evolution of Social Norms

"A substantial gap exists between the theoretical prediction that self-interested individuals will have extreme difficulty in coordinating collective action and the reality that such cooperative behavior is widespread, although far from inevitable".

This work from Ostrom (2000) suggests that instead of pure pessimism or pure optimism about how to resolve collective action situations we see variation, and need further understanding of the contextual variables that are seen to enhance cooperation and which discourage it.