Networks and Collective Action

35 Pages Posted: 1 Apr 2012

See all articles by Ramon Flores

Ramon Flores

Charles III University of Madrid

Maurice Koster

University of Amsterdam - Department of Quantitative Economics (KE)

Ines Lindner

Free University Amsterdam

Elisenda Molina

Charles III University of Madrid - Department of Statistics and Econometrics

Date Written: March 29, 2012

Abstract

This paper proposes a new measure for a group's ability to lead society to adopt their standard of behavior, which in particular takes account of the time the group takes to convince the whole society to adopt their position. This notion of a group's power to initiate action is computed as the reciprocal of the resistance against it, which is in turn given by the expected absorption time of a related finite state partial Markov chain that captures the social dynamics. The measure is applicable and meaningful in a variety of models where interaction between agents is formalized through (weighted) binary relations. Using Percolation Theory, it is shown that the group power is monotonic as a function of groups of agents. We also explain the differences between our measure and those discussed in the literature on Graph Theory, and illustrate all these concerns by a thorough analysis of two particular cases: the Wolfe Primate Data and the 11S hijackers' network.

Keywords: Collective action, Social networks, Influence and diffusion models, Network intervention, Group centrality measures

JEL Classification: C79, D01, D71

Suggested Citation

Flores, Ramon and Koster, Maurice and Lindner, Ines and Molina, Elisenda, Networks and Collective Action (March 29, 2012). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2030970 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2030970

Ramon Flores (Contact Author)

Charles III University of Madrid ( email )

CL. de Madrid 126
Madrid, Madrid 28903
Spain

Maurice Koster

University of Amsterdam - Department of Quantitative Economics (KE) ( email )

Roetersstraat 11
Amsterdam, North-Holland 1018 WB
Netherlands

HOME PAGE: http://www.uva.nl/profiel/k/o/m.a.l.koster/m.a.l.koster.html

Ines Lindner

Free University Amsterdam ( email )

De Boelelaan 1105
1081 HV Amsterdam
Netherlands

Elisenda Molina

Charles III University of Madrid - Department of Statistics and Econometrics ( email )

c/ Madrid 126
Getafe (Madrid), 28903
Spain

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