Collective action (online version)

This article examines collective action, focusing on the role of social interactions, conflict, and the dynamics of interpersonal influence in shaping collective identities and interests. The discussion is based on the co-occurrence of individuals’ interest and group identity through a consistent course of action and begins with an overview of analytical models used to investigate extraordinary forms of collective action. The article then describes formal models and the problem of cooperation between self-interested actors, along with the notion of free-riding and the origin of shared interests and collective identities, paying attention to the importance of conflict, social networks, and interpersonal influence. It also explores the role of multiple levels of decision-making and actors’ consciousness in collective action before proposing a formal approach to collective action that is simultaneously less and more rational than the one currently employed in analytical sociology.