Collective action

DEFINITION

Traditionally, under the term "collective action", one refers to the action taken by a group of people, who need to reach a common goal, and improvement of the situation for all the group members (ideally).

This term has special formulations and theories in many areas of the social sciences such as sociology, psychology, anthropology, political science, economics etc.

The definition itself is quite abstract, as well as the possible ways to implement the most positive and efficient decision for every unique situation. Despite the seemingly simple appearance, the whole process of the collective action is a multi-disciplinar issue, which has not been developed enough neither by the state, nor by the market, to create a succesfully working strategy, equally efficient for most of the situations emerging.

One of the latest researches made on the subject was implemented by Dr. Elinor Ostrom in her book "Governing the Commons", which describes the evolution of institutions for collective action. According to Dr.Ostrom, the necessary tools or models for the governing the whole block of the common actions system, have not yet been created. Nowadays we have only partial attempts for solutions of the actions of the commoms, which do not cover the entire array of actions involved.