How Bumble-Bees Fly: Accounting for Public Interest Participation
| Published date | 01 September 1996 |
| Author | William A. Maloney,Grant Jordan |
| Date | 01 September 1996 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1996.tb01748.x |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Political Studies
(1996),
XLIV,
668-685
How
Bumble-bees Fly: Accounting
for Public Interest Participation*
GRANT
JORDAN
AND
WILLIAM
A.
MALONEY
University
qf
Aherdeen
This paper confirms the existence of public interest groups as
a
theoretical puzzle for
an Olson type (economically-driven) rational choice explanation. It systematically
reviews different theoretical approaches that challenge this appearance of paradox.
The paper also introduces some British survey data. It concludes that rational
choice analysis must subsume non-material incentives, but shows that discussions
predicated on conceptions
of
rationality other than that used by Olson do not imply
that participation is a problem
to
be
explained. It also points to the importance of
group activity in shaping the preferences of potential members and in stimulating
membership.
The
poliriral
ssstern
is
beset
bj.
a
swarni
of
organizational
bumble-bees
that
ure
busil!.
Ji!itig
ahour
in
spite
qf
the
fact
that
political scientists cannot
uplain
how
they
manage
it.'
The rational choice approach has nowhere been more significant than in the
study
of
interest group membership. Since the publication of Olson's
The Logic
oj'Collective
Action
in
1965
the literature has in large part been responding to
his key proposition that
'.
. .
rational, self-interested individuals
will
not
act
to
achieve their common or group interests'.'
Olson believed the limitations
of
the
economics derived approach to be remote and
his
rational choice perspective
seemed
to
rule out the successful mobilization of public interest groups. Thus
groups, particularly public interest groups, appear to prosper in defiance
of
Olson's theory.
Olson's discussion about group membership rests on two principal types
of
incentives
-
selective and collective.3 The pursuit of collective goods will not, in
his view secure rational membership: potential members will free ride. Rational
individuals will decline
to
contribute to the costs
of
collective action. Unless
there
is
coercion (e.g. a trade union's 'closed shop'), then 'Only a
separate
and
*
We
would like to thank the referees
of
this article, and members
of
the ECPR Workshop on
Rational Actor Models of Political Participation, Madrid, April
17-22,
1994,
for
assistance in the
development and organization of this paper.
I
J.
L.
Walker, Mobilizing
Interest Groups in Americu
(Ann Arbor MI, University of Michigan
Press.
1991).
D.
77.
'
M. Olson;
The
Logic
oJCoNective Action
(Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 2nd ed.,
'
Olson,
The
Logic
of Collective Action,
p.
5
1,
1971),
p
2.
L
Political
Studies
Arsociatwn
1996.
Published
by
Blackwell
Publishers.
108
Cowley
Road,
Oxford
OX4
IJF.
UK
and
238
Main
Street.
Cambridge.
MA
02142.
USA.
GRANT
JORDAN
AND WILLIAM A.
MALONEY
669
“selective” incentive
will stimulate a rational individual in a latent group to act
in a group-oriented way’.4
Prior to Olson’s contribution the most influential propositions about group
development ignored the problem
of
free-riding. Truman’s
The Governmental
Process
(1951) advanced the ‘proliferation’ thesis
-
as social and economic
differentiation occurred, more potential groups emerged
-
and the ‘equil-
ibrium’ theory suggested that economic or social change led to a disequilibrium
in the set of organized groups; consequently new organizations emerged to
re-establish the balan~e.~ Olson rejected this broadly pluralist perspective
arguing that many interests would not find effective expression. His thesis did
not simply examine the mechanics of group mobilization; it challenged
important assumptions about the nature of the political system. Consequently,
if Olson’s thesis is flawed then access in the political system might be less
restricted than he allowed. This has consequences for the critique of pluralism.
There is then a mobilization paradox: Olson’s theory predicts the under
mobilization of public interest groups but this seems contradicted by their
empirical proliferation. Contemporary interest groups have strikingly high
memberships (e.g. the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has nearly one
million). How do we account for the proliferation of interest groups of all
kinds
-
and the particular expansion of public interest groups (for instance on
environmental or consumer issues) which pursue collective goods?
Our central proposition is that potential members do not engage in the
intellectual gymnastics of the
economically
rational choice approach, costing
their contribution against the likely personal return on the investment. Such an
exercise may well be intellectually impossible, because the benefits are difficult
to quantify and the sheer effort of the calculation appears to be more than it is
worth.6 Or to put the argument more cautiously, the public interest group
expansion and proliferation in the past decades suggests that sufficiently large
numbers of sympathizers do not engage in such reasoning. Thus, the problem is
how to amend the theory to relate to the practice.
This article highlights the limitations of rational choice accounts of public
interest group membership and challenges the belief that the ‘by-product’ and
‘imperfect information’ theses
on
interest group membership are adequate to
account for the scale of the phenomenon. It draws on ‘new’ data from surveys
of Amnesty International (British Section) and Friends of the Earth (FOE).’
Our data suggests that members believe that campaigning is more important
than Olson’s model allows. We review non Olsonian explanations of group
membership and argue that nonmaterial, soft, incentives (i.e. purposive,
Olson,
The Logic
of
Collective Action,
p.
51.
Olson also noted that there are special conditions
relating to small groups with relatively large members which allows them to mobilize successfully
despite the free rider problem.
D.
B.
Truman,
The Governmental Process: Public Interests
and
Public Opinion
(New
York,
Alfred
A.
Knopf,
1951),
see pp.
25
and
31.
See also
D.
Marsh, ‘On joining interest groups: an empirical consideration of the works of
Mancur Olson’,
British Journal
of
Political Science,
6 (1976), 257-71.
’
We carried out a postal survey (funded by an
ESRC
grant
-
R
000
23
3025)
of 500 Amnesty
International (British Section) members, and 1,500 members and ex-members
of
Friends
of
the
Earth (FOE) with offices in London. FOE [Scotland]
is
a separate organization based in Edinburgh
but
some of the members of the London-based organization reside in Scotland. The sample names
and addresses were provided by the organizations.
Our
FOE
sample was divided into three main
C
Political Studies Association,
1996
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