Collective Actions: a Network Approach

This paper contributes to the issue of collective action by advancing an epistemology of agency based on the idea that individuals' propensity to act (attitudes) depends on relevant features of their social context. To this purpose, we develop a network model that links the probability that an agent joins collective action to the characteristics of the social structure, which is, in turn, shaped by the activation of collective actions within it. Our underlying assumption is that preferences for collective action are not only an individual endowment, but crucially depend on collective processes, that affect preference formation and characterize rationality as ecological.