One would expect that a group of people with a common interest would naturally coordinate to exercise their common goal. However, this is generally not the case, as Mancur Olson, the author of The Logic of Collective Action, argues. Olson (2004: 2) states that "it is not in fact true that the idea that groups will act in their self-interest follows logically from the premise of rational and self-interested behavior." Collective action groups, without some sort of coercion or special device to make individual participants act in the interest of the group, will not succeed because "rational, self-interested individuals will not to act to achieve their common or group interests." Not every attempt at collective action has failed, however, and it is these successful cases that require further examination. The government had an impact on many of these cases, and from studying these events we can see that governments can solve collective action problems through the use of incentives......

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Title: Collective Action
Approximate Word Count: 944
Approximate Pages: 4 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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