Leadership and Its Basis in Problems of Social Coordination
| Author | Randall Calvert |
| Published date | 01 January 1992 |
| DOI | 10.1177/019251219201300102 |
| Date | 01 January 1992 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
1,
Leadership
and
Its
Basis
in
Problems
of
Social
Coordination
RANDALL
L.
CALVERT
ABSTRACT.
Leadership
is
a
means
by
which
social
groups
attempt
to
realize
gains
from
cooperation,
coordination,
and
efficient
allocation.
The
attempt
to
achieve
such
gains
gives
rise
to
further,
overarching
problems
of
coordination.
The
latter
problems
are
recurrent
but
are
likely
to
vary
from
one
situation
to
the
next;
this
makes
decentralized
methods
of
solution
especially
difficult,
and
provides
the
ultimate
reason
leadership
is
needed,
invented,
and
accepted.
Solution
of
such
overarching
problems
makes
leadership
possible
in
the
basic
problems
in
which
social
gains
are
available,
including
activities
such
as
organizing,
sanctioning,
communicating,
and
allocating.
The
stability
of
leadership
is
based
on
the
group’s
need
to
solve
coordination
problems;
as
a
result,
a
leader
has
discretion
or
"power,"
and
can
get
away
with
less-than-maximal
service
of
group
goals.
This
approach
to
understanding
leadership
suggests
several
useful
techniques
for
the
study
of
political
leadership
in
particular
settings.
Introduction
By
definition,
a
leader
causes
people
to
do
things
that
they
might
not
otherwise
wish
to
do;
but
often
leaders
are
voluntarily
created,
accepted,
and
even
revered.
Sometimes
leadership
is
a
matter
of
helping
people
see
where
their
true
interests
lie.
But
in
other
instances,
leaders
coerce
or
threaten
coercion.
Does
a
group
of
rational
individuals
need
leadership?
What
are
the
responsibilities
and
capabilities
of
leaders
in
various
settings?
Why
are
leaders
able
to
remain
leaders
even
though
they
may
displease
followers
or
fail
to
serve
their
interests?
How
can
a
leader
parlay
meager
resources
into
strong
powers?
My
purpose
here
is
to
address
these
questions
from
a
perspective
that
unifies
leadership
phenomena
in
a
great
variety
of
political
and
social
settings.
In
particular
I
will
argue
that
leaders
are
needed
because
of,
and
derive
their
powers
and
capabilities
from,
their
ability
to
solve
problems
of
coordination.
Another
well
known
rational
choice
model
of
leadership
holds
that leaders
exist
to
provide
&dquo;selective
incentives&dquo;
that
solve
collective
action
problems.
I
will
argue,
8
however,
that
outside
of
some
special
cases
the
selective
incentives
model
is
insufficient
to
explain
the
existence
and
persistence
of
leadership.
Instead,
collective
action
is
just
one
of
a
variety
of
social
dilemmas
that
social
and
political
groups
face.
The
solution
to
any
of
these,
from
a
rational
choice
standpoint,
depends
on
establishing
a
favorable
equilibrium
behavior
pattern.
Sometimes
that
pattern
involves
selective
incentives,
and
sometimes
it
does
not.
Moreover,
any
solution
is
likely
to
generate
an
overarching
problem
-
what
I
will
call
the
derived
problem
-
of
coordination.
While
institutions
other
than
leadership
are
often
available
to
solve
individual
social
dilemmas,
this
overarching
problem
generally
requires
leadership
-
that
is,
it
requires
that
some
individual
regularly
suggest
actions
to
be
taken
by
group
members,
and
that
those
suggestions
be
voluntarily
followed.
This
coordination
role
accounts
for
a
lot
of
what
leaders
do,
and
for
much
of
the
&dquo;power&dquo;
that
a
leader
has
-
the
ability
to
get
people
to
do
things
not
in
their
immediate
interest,
and
the
ability
to
retain
their
position
over
time.
From
this
viewpoint,
we
should
study
instances
of
leadership
by
studying
the
coordination
problems
that
a
leader
solves
or
that
a
particular
group
faces,
and
the
nature
of
the
solutions
that
the
leader
brings
about.
Such
an
approach
offers
a
unified
framework
in
which
to
analyze
and
compare
much
of
what
leaders
do,
from
brokering
or
organizing
in
very
small
groups
to
the
moral
leadership
of
nations.
The
next
section
examines
the
nature
of
social
dilemmas
and
derives
the
overarching
coordination
problem
from
them.
The
third
section
explains
the
role
of
leadership
in
resolving
those
dilemmas,
and
the
fundamental
nature
of
leadership
in
solving
the
derived
coordination
problem.
In
the fourth
section,
I
use
the
concepts
developed
in
the
earlier
sections
to
look
more
closely
at
what
leaders
do
and
how
they
retain
office.
The
final
section
offers
some
additional
conclusions
about
the
nature
of
leadership
and
the
value
of
the
model
for
studying
it.
Social
Dilemmas
in
Ongoing
Groups
Members
of
ongoing
social
groups
often
have
opportunities
to
achieve
mutual
gains
over
what
would
be
available
to
individuals
acting
independently.
When
the
actions
necessary
to
realize
these
gains
are
consistent
with
individual
autonomy
and
self-
interest,
there
is
no
problem:
independent
action
makes
each
member
better
off.
Often,
however,
achieving
the
potential
gain
requires
individuals
to
take
actions
that
depend
on
the
essentially
simultaneous
actions
of
others,
or
actions
not
in
the
immediate
interest
of
the
individual.
The
result
is
a
&dquo;social
dilemma&dquo;:’
how
can
individuals
overcome
confusion
or
greed
to
act
in
a
manner
that
provides
gains
for
them
all?
Political
leadership
is
often
instrumental
in
the
solution
of
social
dilemmas.
Common
social
dilemmas
can
be
distinguished
by
the
structure
of
incentives
or
information
that
causes
the
difficulty;
accordingly,
this
section
describes
problems
of
cooperation,
coordination,
and
allocation.
Moreover,
as
we
will
see,
the
repeated
occurrence
of
these
dilemmas
gives
rise
to
overarching,
deriaed problems
of coordination
as
well,
which
subsumes
the
original
social
dilemmas,
or
primary
problems.
Problems
of
Cooperation
The
importance
of
cooperation
problems,
or
collective
action
problems,2
in
politics
is
widely
appreciated,
and
its
nature
as
a
problem
for
rational
actors
well
understood
(Olson,
1965;
Frohlich
and
Oppenheimer,
1978;
Hardin,
1982).
There
are
two
general
ways
of
solving
such
problems
if
the
participants
are
assumed
to
be
selfishly
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