Collective action asks a fundamental question in social science: How do sets of actors choose courses of action and work together to achieve desired outcomes, often in opposition to other coalitions? Psychological and economic rationality explanations are incomplete in emphasizing the mental decision processes of individuals. Collective action must be understood at the level analysis of interpersonal and interorganizational relations. Social network theories and methods provide optimal frameworks for explaining collective action in a variety of settings. This book reviews theories and empirical research on collective action in several substantive areas, demonstrates how agent-based models can analyze collective action networks (pandemics, riots, social movements, insurrections, insurgencies), and concludes with speculations about future research directions.

Autorentext

David Knoke is a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota, where he teaches courses in social networks, organizations, healthcare systems, terrorism, social science fiction, and statistics. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1972 and was professor of sociology at Indiana University from 1972 to 1985. Knoke was a Fulbright research scholar at Kiel University in Germany (1989) and a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (1992). In 1996-99 he was named a University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts Scholar of the College. In 2008, he received the University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts' Arthur "Red" Motley Exemplary Teaching Award. With various colleagues, David Knoke received several National Science Foundation research grants and published the results in research monographs on political, organizational, and social network behavior. Some of these books are The Organizational State, Organizing for Collective Action, Political Networks, Organizations in America, Comparing Policy Networks, Changing Organizations, Social Network Analysis, Economic Networks, and Multimodal Political Networks. His current research investigates diverse social networks, including intra- and interorganizational, healthcare, economic, financial, terrorist and counterterror networks.