Clark University

Collective Action and Rational Choice: Place, Community, and the Limits to Individual Self-InterestAuthor(s): Byron MillerSource: Economic Geography, Vol. 68, No. 1, Rational Choice, Collective Action, TechnologicalLearning (Jan., 1992), pp. 22-42Published by: Clark UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/144039 .Accessed: 07/04/2011 18:48

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at .http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=clark. .

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Clark University is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Economic Geography.

http://www.jstor.org

Collective Action and Rational Choice: Place, Community, and the Limits to Individual Self-Interest*

BYRON MILLER Department of Geography, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455

Abstract: Despite geographers' increasing concern with place-based politics, the effects of place-based social relations on collective political action remain largely untheorized. By emphasizing the free rider problem-why a rational, self-interested individual would engage in collective action when his/her impact is negligible and the benefits of collective action are public and* free-rational choice theory correctly problematizes collective action. Its reliance on the essentialist homo economicus model of human nature, however, often leads to untenable solutions that do not consider nonstrategic forms of rationality, collective identity formation, and the crucial effects of place-specific social relations. Habermas's The Theory of Communicative Action, in contrast, provides a broader conception of rationality that recognizes communicative as well as strategic and instrumental forms of rationality and focuses on social interaction rather than on isolated individuals. Individuals reach common understandings, form communal bonds, and construct collective identities through communica- tive action. The relative importance of communicative versus strategic forms of action coordination varies geographically and historically and cannot be understood apart from systemic processes. As communicative forms of action coordination (based on communicative rationality) are "colonized" by systemic forms of action coordination (based on strategic and instrumental rationality) and destabilized by capital hypermobility, communal bonds break down. Places become less significant as bases for community and more significant in corporate location and investment decisions. These processes, however, engender resistance. Strong place-based communities mobilize when threatened and new forms of collective identity arise through channels created by time-space compression.

Key words: capital hypermobility, collective action, collective identity, communicative rationality, community, politics, Habermas, lifeworld coloniza- tion, place, rational choice theory, strategic rationality.

In recent years, geographers' concerns with economic restructuring have ex- panded to include related issues of collective action. Hudson and Sadler (1986), Harvey (1987), Cox and Mair (1988), and Leitner (1990) have examined relationships between economic restruc-

* I would like to thank Bruce Baum, Stuart Corbridge, Helga Leitner, Roger Miller, Eric Sheppard, and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. I am, of course, responsible for any errors and shortcomings.

turing and local political behavior. Their work has stressed the importance of place-defined interests as well as the broader economic and social restructuring processes shaping political behavior. The role of place-specific relations in the development of class and territorial soli- darity has also been a principal concern of many geographers (e.g., Cox 1989; Cox and Mair 1988; Harvey 1987; Hudson and Sadler 1986; Walker 1985). Still others (Gaston and Kennedy 1987; Savage 1987;

22

COLLECTIVE ACTION 23

Thrift 1983; Thrift and Williams 1987) have illustrated how everyday place-based social practices shape the consciousness and identities upon which collective ac- tion is based. All of these authors demon- strate a sensitivity to the relationship between local and global processes, the recursive relationship between structure and agency, and the crucial roles that place and community play in collective action. As Harvey (1987, 281) argues, "a global strategy of resistance and transfor- mation has to begin with the realities of place and community."

Nonetheless, the effects of place and community on the origins and dynamics of collective action remain, in large part, untheorized. The existing geographical literature focuses primarily on the forma- tion of class and territorial alliances in movements resisting or adapting to eco- nomic restructuring; that collective action will occur at all is simply assumed. Given the tremendous geographic and temporal variability in collective action, this as- sumption is untenable.

The problematic nature of collective action has been explicitly recognized in several disciplines other than geography. In the past decade, sociology, anthropol- ogy, political science, and history have developed substantial literatures attempt- ing to explain various forms of collective action: voting behavior, protest behavior, state formation, the growth of organiza- tions, even altruism. These literatures rely heavily on rational choice theory, which was imported from economics during the 1980s.'

The tenets of rational choice theory are not unfamiliar to geographers. Those working within the spatial science tradi- tion, and many economic geographers in

1 Adherence to rational choice theory is not restricted to positivist scholars trained in neoclassical economics. Indeed, some of the most eloquent proponents of rational choice theory in sociology and political science are Marxist scholars such as Roemer, Elster, Przeworski, and Wright. For a detailed discus- sion, see Barnes and Sheppard (1992).

particular, have long accepted rational choice theory's epistemology of method- ological individualism and its homo eco- nomicus model of human nature. Much like the spatial science tradition in geography, rational choice theory posits strategically rational actors. On this basis, it seeks "to construct a more general account of human behavior in which the concept of rationality will have a privi- leged but not exclusive role" (Elster 1986, 21).

Yet geographers have been slow to embrace rational choice accounts of collective action. This may, in large part, stem from a fundamental incompatibility between certain forms of rational choice theory and the lessons of the past decade's geographical debates. The no- tion that (1) a general account of human behavior can be constructed rooted in (2) the strategic rationality of (3) individual actors contradicts many of the central insights of the structure-agency, realism, and postmodernism debates. Through these debates, geographers have become wary of "grand" or "totalizing" theory, singular motives for human action, and individualistic conceptions of human agency.

Accordingly, many geographers have adopted a more skeptical stance toward methodological individualism (see Sayer 1984) and the homo economicus account of human nature (Barnes 1988; 1989; Barnes and Sheppard 1992) upon which rational choice theory rests. The homo economicus assumption has come under especially strong criticism for ignoring the importance of place, space, and interaction in shaping human behavior. It should be added that the homo economicus model is essentialist in its exclusive focus on strategic rationality. By allowing for only strategic rationality, it portrays human beings as, in essence, manipulative; even collective action is viewed as advancing the individual's self-interest.

The fact remains that rational choice theory is one of the few approaches that seriously and rigorously treat collective

24 ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

action as problematic. In particular, it addresses the problem of free ridership: why should rational, self-interested indi- viduals participate in collective action when each individual's impact on large- scale collective action is negligible and the benefits of collective action are public and free? Geographers have not adequately addressed this question.

This paper focuses on the participation of individuals in collective political ac- tion. As will be made clear below, the rational choice account is less than satisfactory. Still, rational choice theory represents perhaps the best starting point for considering the collective action problem. Identifying the deficiencies in the rational choice solution to the free rider problem makes apparent the cru- cial roles of place and community in collective action. A richer theorization of collective action, as Harvey enjoins, must begin with the realities of place and community.2 A broader conception of rationality-one that recognizes the pro- cess by which understandings are reached, communal bonds formed, and collective identities constructed-is also needed to correct for deficiencies of models that assume pure strategic rationality. Haber- mas's theory of communicative action, with its differentiated conception of rationality, plays a central role in the retheorization of collective action offered here. The dynamics of collective action, of course, cannot be understood apart from broader systemic considerations. Accordingly, the final sections of this paper focus on the political economy of identity construction and the role of place in political movements resisting shifts from communicative to strategic forms of rationality.

2 This argument supports Giddens's (1984) and Soja's (1989) position that space and time are integral to the constitution of social processes. Sayer's (1984) relegation of geogra- phy to a nontheoretical realm of the concrete and contingent is, accordingly, rejected.

Rational Choice Theory and the Free Rider Problem

Significant variations exist within ra- tional choice theory.3 A principal distinc- tion is between "strong" and "weak" rational choice approaches. The strong form views social and institutional con- straints as products of rational action and themselves amenable to rational choice analysis. While it is assumed that all social and institutional constraints can be sub- sumed within the analytical framework, few have offered explanations of such constraints. The weak form takes social and institutional constraints as a given framework within which rational actors maximize benefits or minimize costs. Constraints may be viewed as distinct and not necessarily analyzable in terms of a universal strategic rationality.

Olson's The Logic of Collective Action (1965) is perhaps the most celebrated strong analysis of collective action. Aside from considering the effects of small group size, Olson ignores all social and institutional constraints on (and enabling institutions for) collective action. Olson considers only self-interested individuals lacking any social or community bond. Given the assumption of isolated, self- interested economic persons, Olson asks what conditions are necessary for such persons to act collectively. Because an individual has a negligible impact in large-scale collective actions, and because the benefits obtained in such actions are public and cannot be withheld from those who do not participate, Olson argues, the rational individual will not participate in collective action. The strategically rational individual will be a free rider. "Unless there is coercion or some other special device to make individuals act in their common interest, rational, self-interested individuals will not act to achieve their common or group interest" (Olson 1965, 2).

3 Nicolaides (1988) summarizes the tenets of neoclassical economics and its homo eco- nomicus model of human nature upon which rational choice theory rests.

COLLECTIVE ACTION 25

Olson's work has been severely criti- cized. From a strictly strategic perspec- tive, DeNardo (1985, 54) observes that "the trouble with this definition of rational behavior is that a theory based upon it appears to predict that no one ever votes, and that strikes, protests, and revolutions never occur!" Because the individual's expected utility of participation in collec- tive action is essentially zero (because he/she can obtain all the benefits of collective action through free riding), the costs and benefits of spending a day in the streets or going to the polls come to the fore, and they are likely to have a negative net utility.4

It is precisely this discrepancy between the theoretical implications of rational choice theory and radically differing em- pirical observations that drives the now considerable debate around rational choice theory.

"Strong" internal solutions (involving no changes in beliefs and preferences) to the free rider problem have been pro- posed. DeNardo (1985) identifies two possibilities: (1) individuals could overes- timate the importance of their participa- tion in collective action such that the expected utility of their actions becomes positive rather than zero; (2) a sense of gratification and the opportunity to meet people can make the utility of participa-

4 Despite these problems, much of the rational choice literature adopts Olson's frame- work in which all aspects of human behavior are taken to be explicable under the homo economicus assumption. Popkin's The Rational Peasant (1979) represents an attack on Scott's The Moral Economy of the Peasant (1976). Popkin argues that moral considerations are incompatible with rationality and that the only acceptable framework for analysis is that of rational choice. Such positions are not re- stricted to neoclassicists. Roemer's (1988) ostensibly Marxian analysis of ideology and the Russian revolution strains to fit all dimensions of consciousness into the strategic-rational mold. Roemer asserts that Lenin's commit- ment to the redistribution of resources was derived from strategic rather than moral/ normative considerations.

tion positive regardless of the outcome of the action. There is, however, little evidence to support the first solution and, as both Barry (1970) and DeNardo (1985) note, the second solution ignores the importance of political issues in motivat- ing participation. DeNardo (1985, 56) explains that:

If taken seriously, the revised theory implies that socialists will gladly partic- ipate in fascist demonstrations, and vice versa, if the organizers simply provide coffee and doughnuts to the marchers. After all, why not enjoy the selective incentives when it is obvious that one extra person will not affect the outcome of the demonstration?

A third internal solution is proposed by Taylor (1987) and Elster (1989) who argue that the incorporation of time into the prisoner's dilemma game allows for the evolution of "mutual conditional coopera- tion." Actors engage in "selfishly rational" cooperative behavior pledging "I'll coop- erate if and only if you do." Hector (1990, 241), however, argues that repeated games yield "precious little in the way of solutions to such collective action prob- lems" because of multiple equilibria and the assumption that players have perfect information.

Various "weak" external solutions are somewhat more plausible. A central au- thority (e.g., the state or a union), may provide selective incentives that reward those who participate in collective action and/or punish those who refuse (Olson 1965; Elster 1989). This solution, how- ever, appeals to nonrational choice mech- anisms in that it presupposes the creation of the central authority.

Another external solution relies on a decentralized community rather than a central authority. Michael Taylor (1982; 1987; 1988) argues that cooperation is conditional and ultimately derives from rational self-interest; it is most likely to succeed when relations between people are characterized by community. In Tay- lor's scheme, cooperation is a self- interested response to the community's

26 ECONOMIc GEOGRAPHY

positive and negative sanctions-the lat- ter including gossip, ridicule, and sham- ing (M. Taylor 1990).

Other solutions are not based on self-interest. Some are recognized by rational choice theorists; Przeworski (1985) and Elster (1989), for instance, acknowledge altruism. Elster (1989, 17), in particular, recognizes that "nonrational [normative] motives . .. enter powerfully into the decision to cooperate." Critics of rational choice theory such as Sen (1978) and Jencks (1979) discuss the importance of sympathy, commitment, empathy, and morality. Nonetheless, rational choice theorists ultimately downplay unselfish forms of behavior because they make modeling too complicated. As Przeworski (1985, 386) puts it, "a realistic description of society, in which selfish, altruistic, and ideological individuals coexist at any time may make any deductive analysis next to impossible." He suggests we discard such "complications" and construct our expla- nations assuming self-interested strategi- cally rational individuals. But Przeworski's position is unconvincing. The "complica- tions" inherent in a "realistic description of society" may actually be critical to understanding many instances of collec- tive action. Indeed, some of the solutions to the free rider problem proposed by rational choice theorists strongly suggest nonstrategic forms of rationality and col- lective, as well as individual identity constructions.

Communicative Rationality

In his brief discussion of altruism and preference change, Przeworski (1985) con- siders Offe and Wiesenthal's (1980) notion of preference change through dialogue "particularly interesting." Other theorists (M. Taylor 1990; Moore 1966) have emphasized the role that political entre- preneurs can play in solving collective action problems by changing preferences, attitudes, and beliefs. These changes may sometimes involve strategic manipulation, but they may also represent the discursive

achievement of new understandings with- out strategic ulterior motives.

Many adherents of rational choice theory acknowledge and discuss notions of nonstrategic discourse and non-self-inter- ested behavior, yet none has systemati- cally integrated such notions into theory. Such concerns, where addressed, are usually relegated to a secondary realm of "nonrational" behavior (e.g., Elster 1989). Drawing on communications-theoretic notions implicit in the works of Dewey and Arendt, Habermas has provided a formally differentiated conception of ra- tionality that allows for both strategic and nonmanipulative forms of social interac- tion.

In The Theory of Communicative Ac- tion (1984), Habermas identifies two separate but interdependent spheres within society-the system and the life- world. The "system" is the sphere of material production and reproduction and entails action oriented toward success- including both strategic and instrumental action (Figure 1). Action is considered strategic when it follows the rules of rational choice and aims at influencing the decisions of a rational opponent. Action is instrumental when it follows technical rules and intervenes in material circum- stances and events.5

The "lifeworld" forms a symbolic space of collectively shared background convic- tions within which cultural traditions, social integration, and normative struc- tures (values and institutions) are repro- duced and transformed through an ongo- ing interpretive process of communicative action. Communicative action is distin- guished from communication in general in that it is oriented toward reaching under- standing (rather than strategic manipula- tion) and is rooted in communicative rationality. Communicative action "em- phasizes the interaction in which two or more subjects seek to reach an under- standing concerning their shared situa- tion" (Thompson 1983, 279).

5Such action may include the instrumental use of human beings.

COLLECTIVE ACTION 27

Action Orientation Oriented to Success Oriented to Reaching

Action Understanding Action \(system) Situation (lifeworld)

Nonsocial Instrumental action

Social Strategic action Communicative action

Figure 1. Types of Action. Based on Habermas (1984).

Communicative rationality is based on the raising of validity claims between two or more subjects. These claims have a rationally motivating force. "A speaker can rationally motivate a hearer to accept his . . . [statement] because . . . he can assume the warrant for providing, if need be, convincing grounds which would stand up to the hearer's criticism of the validity claim" (Habermas 1984, 406). Speakers implicitly claim that their state- ments are: (1) true (that the existential presuppositions are satisfied); (2) correct (in accord with prevailing norms); and (3) sincere (that the subjective experiences and intentions of the speaker are as he or she says).

A prominent theme in Habermas's work is the central role played by communicative action in the reproduction and transformation of cultural traditions, values, collective identities, and social integration. Communicative action also permits a collective critique of systemic social problems by rational-moral actors drawing on the normative structures of their lifeworld. Habermas's focus on com- municative action and the distinct logic of communicative rationality, then, repre- sents a shift away from individualistic and self-interested philosophies of conscious- ness-in which rational choice theory is grounded-and toward a philosophy ac-

knowledging consensus and the collec- tive/cooperative origins of human action.6

Although Habermas does not specifi- cally develop his work along these lines, his differentiated conception of rationality provides an opening for a nonessentialist conception of human reason. His commu- nicative rationality is always relative to lifeworld normative structures that vary geographically and historically. "What counts in a given case as a reason or ground . . . depends of course on the background cultural knowledge that the participants in communication share as

6 Fraser (1987) and Berger (1991) criticize Habermas for his seemingly categorical dis- tinction between the lifeworld and the system. The distinction between symbolic reproduc- tion, based on action oriented toward under- standing (in the lifeworld), and material reproduction, based on action oriented toward success (in the system), may be sound on an abstract level, but to consider them as separate concrete spheres of action is untenable. Fraser makes this point particularly clearly with regard to women's unpaid labor. Berger offers a similar critique regarding virtually all social institutions. Habermas (1991) has clarified his view in his more recent work, arguing that communicative as well as strategic actions are intertwined in complex ways in both lifeworld and system institutions.

28 ECONOMIc GEOGRAPHY

members of a particular lifeworld" (Hab- ermas 1982, 270).

Explicitly discussing collective will for- mation, Habermas observes that all rela- tively stable social formations rely on reaching understanding as well as strate- gic manipulation to coordinate action:

[I]nteractions are spread over a contin- uum, bordered on the one side by value-oriented and on the other by interest-based actions. In the one case, an intentional coordination of different plans of action is achieved on the basis of a value consensus, in the other via a balancing of interests (Habermas 1989, 145).

Given this continuum of communica- tive and strategic action coordination, the question is why rational choice theory has focused exclusively on strategic ac- tion. One obvious answer is that rational choice theorists have simply not con- ceived of nonstrategic, non-self-inter- ested action as representing a different form of rationality. For rational choice theorists, it has remained an amorphous and messy "complication." More signifi- cantly, communicative rationality does not easily lend itself to decontextualized analysis. By positing an essentialist self- interested social atom, rational choice theory ostensibly provides a framework for analysis that can be applied in all places at all times. Communicative ration- ality does not permit such a framework. The lifeworld values that actors draw upon in communicative action vary geo- graphically and temporally.7 These val- ues, moreover, are drawn upon and shaped in interaction with others. There

7 Acknowledgment of a multiplicity of life- worlds implies a recognition of their geo- graphic and temporal differences. Habermas, curiously, has long avoided the implications of the geographic and temporal structuring of social processes. He has done so by unrealisti- cally focusing on "the" system and "the" lifeworld. His more recent work on communi- cative ethics, however, shows a greater sensi- tivity to different lifeworlds and their geo- graphic constitution.

is no social atom; individual actions are always grounded in dynamic social struc- tures.

Rational choice theory has overlooked the fact that individuals come to interpret their social situations in communicative interaction with others. Not surprisingly, the theory has been severely criticized for its extremely circumscribed, economistic treatment of collective action (Calhoun 1988; Cohen 1985; Eder 1985; Melucci 1985). Cohen represents the position of several critics when he argues that the Olson-inspired collective action tradition has:

thrown the baby out with the bathwa- ter by excluding the analysis of values, norms, ideologies, projects, culture, and identity in other than instrumental [and strategic] terms. . . . [I]t is necessary to analyze those aspects of experience that shape the interpreta- tion of interests, individual and collec- tive, and affect the very capacity of actors to form groups and mobilize (Cohen 1985, 688).

The conception of action coordination found in rational choice theory is funda- mentally flawed. By ignoring the social context in which identities are formed, values learned, and interests interpreted, rational choice theory excludes what many would argue are the necessary preconditions for overcoming the free rider problem. Habermas's work, on the other hand, points directly to such consid- erations, while retaining the insights into strategic action that rational choice theory provides. Although those working within the rational choice paradigm have over- looked Habermas's work, many scholars analyzing collective action (from weak rational choice as well as communitarian and feminist perspectives) have turned to the concept of "community" to overcome the free rider dilemma. "Community," at least as it is employed by communitarian and many feminist theorists, has strong parallels to Habermas's concept of life- world.

COLLECTIVE ACTION 29

Community, Place, and Collective Action

Two diametrically opposed conceptions of "community" within the collective action literature stem from the term's rather ambiguous meaning and its confla- tion with "place." Advocates of "weak" versions of rational choice theory ac- knowledge the existence of communal bonds but view them strictly as a back- drop against which individuals determine their self-interests. In the weak rational choice scheme, community is composed of strategically rational individuals who participate in collective action because they wish to avoid sanctions or receive incentives from the community. Actors engage in collective action because it is in their individual self-interest. In this ap- proach, the free rider problem is solved by bringing community, culture, and social norms in through the back door while the strictly self-interested individ- ual remains intact.

Communitarian and many feminist the- orists, on the other hand, adopt a concept of community similar to Habermas's "life- world." They argue that collective, com- munal identities are formed through communication. Common understandings arrived at consensually provide the basis for a morally valued way of life and the construction of collective identities that transcend the individual. These moral bonds and collective identities can form bases for collective action. Although both solutions to the free rider problem are plausible, the weak rational choice ap- proach leaves the formation of communal bonds themselves unexplained.

Closer examination of these two con- ceptions of community reveals two differ- ent mechanisms underlying collective action. The work of Michael Taylor perhaps best exemplifies the approach of "weak" rational choice theorists who look to notions of place-based community (Calhoun 1988; Elster 1989; M. Taylor 1988; 1990) or place-specific social inter- action (Axelrod 1984; Coleman 1990) to overcome free ridership.

Michael Taylor (1988, 64) argues that "peasant collective action in revolutions and rebellions [is] based on community and this is mainly why the large numbers of people involved [have been] able to overcome the free rider problem." "Pre- existing rural community [makes] it ra- tional for the individual peasant to partic- ipate in revolutionary collective action" (M. Taylor 1988, 77). Taylor defines community as a group of people (1) who share common beliefs and values, (2) whose relations are direct and multiple, and (3) who practice generalized and balanced reciprocity among members. Attention to Taylor's analysis, however, reveals that the second and third criteria are emphasized whereas the first criterion is only nominally considered. Taylor is concerned with community to the extent that it provides the conditions necessary for conditional cooperation. Community is important because it means that "individ- ual behavior can more easily be moni- tored" and because "a strong community has at its disposal an array of powerful, positive and negative social sanctions which [are] highly effective in maintaining social order" (M. Taylor 1988, 67). Indi- viduals always act strategically and "coop- erate" only for reasons of individual self-interest; they engage in what Elster (1989) terms "selfishly rational coopera- tive behavior." Axelrod (1984, 100) elabo- rates: "The basic idea is that an individual must not be able to get away with defecting without the other individuals being able to retaliate effectively. The response requires that the defecting indi- vidual not be lost in a sea of anonymous others." "Cooperation," in this scheme, requires repeated interactions with the same individuals as well as the memory of both the identity and actions of those individuals (Coleman 1990).

Taylor also stresses the importance of the time-space continuity of community. The effectiveness of social sanctions, the knowledge that others are engaged in conditional cooperation, and the experi- ence of conditional cooperation itself "all derive from the fact that the participants

30 ECONoMic GEOGRAPHY

in the rebellion are members of a pre-existing community and will continue to be members of the same community after the rebellion" (M. Taylor 1988, 69). When an actor's ontological security is inextricably bound to a temporally contin- uous, place-specific community, the sanc- tions and surveillance that foster "selfishly rational cooperation" become extremely efficacious.

Community, then, is fundamental to Taylor's solution to the free rider prob- lem. But Taylor uses a very specific notion of community. For him, community is not primarily a moral set of relations rooted in communicative understanding but rather a collection of people who interact with each other in a common territory. Taylor uses the term community to emphasize that the common occupance of a particular place influences individuals' strategic ac- tions.

Calhoun (1988) also stresses the impor- tance of community in revolutionary mobilizations. Echoing Taylor in several respects, Calhoun sees preexisting com- munal organization and the powerful selective incentives it can provide as crucial to overcoming free ridership; he also emphasizes the importance of inter- action in common communal places. But simply concentrating people together in place so that they can apply sanctions and monitor one another is not sufficient to bring about collective action. A common consciousness must be developed.

As Calhoun observes, Marx and Engels assumed that class consciousness would simply arise from workers' common pro- ductive activity:

The concentration of workers in facto- ries and large towns and the increasing organization of the workplace itself would help to mold the workers to- gether and provide the social basis for their activity. . . . Through everyday interactions based on their common interests, and especially through con- tinuous political activity in opposition to their exploiters, the workers would

develop a class consciousness (Calhoun 1988, 134-35).

This process, however, has clearly not been sufficient. Collective consciousness is not simply a function of material interests or social interaction. Calhoun argues that a shared social existence is rarely sufficient to mobilize revolutionary collective action. Rather, communal bonds are required. They are not the communal bonds rooted in self-interest to which Taylor appeals, but rather ones in which "individuals are committed to the long-term view of their activity which is implied by the notion of moral responsi- bility" (Calhoun 1988, 147). These com- munal bonds, moreover, are not simply handed down across generations, but are continually produced and reproduced through consensus in "practical, everyday social activity" (Calhoun 1988, 147).

Calhoun's conception of the production of community resembles that of many communitarian theorists. Williams (1989) grounds community in communication. Bowles and Gintis (1986, 160-61) argue that "bonding is constitutive of, rather than merely instrumental to, social ac- tion" and that "solidarity and common interest come into being only through concrete communicative and organiza- tional practices." Communication and the formation of communal bonds are clearly enhanced by propinquity, though increas- ing accessibility make such place-specific interactions less critical in modern socie- ties. What is central to community in the communitarian account are the bonds formed in communicative interaction, whether within or across places.8

8Community is also based, in part, on affective/aesthetic bonds that cannot be re- duced to communicative action in the linguis- tic sense. The two, however, are not entirely unrelated. "If aesthetic experience is incorpo- rated into the context of individual life- histories, if it is utilized to illuminate a situation and to throw light on individual life-problems-if it at all communicates its impulses to a collective form of life . . . it reaches into our cognitive interpretations and

COLLECTIVE ACTION 31

Habermas (1989) and Elster (1989) stress a continuum of forms of action coordination may guide collective action. They range from narrowly conceived self-interest conditioned by selective in- centives or the imposition of sanctions, to unselfish motivations rooted in moral commitment and collective identity. Where along this continuum specific collective actions derive their impetus (and if they occur at all) is determined, in large part, by the characteristics of com- munity and place. But the importance of community and place would be better understood if the terms themselves were clearly defined. As Agnew (1989) notes, and the above examples illustrate, the use of the two terms is by no means consistent and the concepts are often conflated.

The meaning of community is espe- cially ambiguous. Its two distinct connota- tions are: (1) "a morally valued way of life" and (2) "social relations in a discrete geographical setting" (Agnew 1989, 13). Taylor and many "weak" rational choice theorists emphasize the second connota- tion while only nominally considering the first.

Place also has multiple definitions. It is most commonly thought of in terms of: (1) a sense of place, affective bonds devel- oped toward a territory through living in it and (2) locale or "the settings for everyday routine social interaction pro- vided in a place" (Agnew and Duncan 1989, 2).

The source of confusion over the terms community and place is clear: the second definitions of both terms are, for all practical purposes, the same. If, however, we recognize two different forms of social interaction based on reaching understand- ing and strategic manipulation, as well as the fact that social relations are consti- tuted in discrete geographical settings and stretched, increasingly, across space, a more sensible distinction between com- munity and place can be made.

normative expectations and transforms the totality in which these moments are related to each other" (Habermas 1985, 202).

Community understood in the sense of a "morally valued way of life" rooted in mutual understanding strongly parallels Habermas's concept of lifeworld. Commu- nity can be place-specific (in the sense of being constituted in a discrete geographi- cal setting) or geographically extensive (shared by dispersed populations). Sys- tems rooted in strategic manipulation and instrumental action can also be place- specific-as in the actions of a local state or the institutions that reproduce a local labor pool-but often are more geograph- ically extensive and involve flows of commodities or the projection of instru- mental power across space.

The notions of community and place under this formulation are analytically distinct, which is not to deny that strong communities are usually rooted in specific places. The characteristics of place and community and the manner in which they are intertwined have clear implications for the shaping of consciousness, the forma- tion of bonds among individuals, and the potential for collective action.

Place, Community, and Collective Identity Construction

Numerous geographers and sociologists have argued that consciousness and iden- tity are constituted in place (Agnew 1989; Giddens 1984; Gregory 1989; Kirby 1989; Pred 1986; Rustin 1987; Thrift 1983; 1985; Thrift and Williams 1987). As Thrift and Williams (1987, 16) explain:

Particular practices, encapsulating so- cial relations, are generated by institu- tions which provide people with other people to intermix with through the course of their lives; home, work, school, shop and so on. These practices impart accounts of the world, drawing upon particular institutional stocks of knowledge in doing so. Since institu- tions both produce and are produced by social divides like class it follows that different persons will be consti- tuted differently by them. There is a

32 ECONOMIc GEOGRAPHY

'political economy of [consciousness] development opportunities.'

Such practices are clearly routinized in time and space. Hagerstrand's well known conceptualization of daily time- space paths can be viewed as a represen- tation of the material structuring of consciousness and identity construction in place. The coupling of time-space paths sets material preconditions. Individuals who come to share domains of particular places must necessarily confront the meaning of such interactions. In each person's individual biography, "language is acquired, personality is developed, a not always articulated or self-understood ideology evolves and consciousness devel- ops" (Pred 1986, 18). When such time- space bundles are relatively stable and continuous, communicatively negotiated understandings, meanings, and values may become deeply ingrained; individuals may come to see commonalities in their experience. They may come to consider themselves members of a community and view themselves in collective terms.'0 As

Rustin (1987, 34) observes, "collective identities are formed through the com- mon occupancy of space.

Community, which implies collective identity, is "not necessarily an additional good to be valued beyond other selfish interests, but in many cases a condition of continuous selfhood for [its] members" (Calhoun 1988, 161). The fact that we may identify with people other than ourselves provides a basis for unselfish forms of behavior; we may "incorporate [others'] interests into our subjective welfare func- tion, so that their interests become our own" (Jencks 1979, 54).

Jencks (1979, 54) terms unselfish be- havior toward other members of a social group "communitarian unselfishness." It involves:

identification with a collectivity rather than with specific individuals. This collectivity can take virtually any form, but the most common examples in modern societies are probably the family, the work group, the nation- state, and the species. In each case we redefine our "selfish" interest so that it includes our subjective understanding of the interests of a larger collectivity of which we are a part. In large complex societies we usually identify at least partially with more than one such collectivity.

Other communitarian theorists such as Unger (1975), Sandel (1982), Balbus (1983), and Charles Taylor (1989) put "collective attributes at the core of indi- vidual identity, pointing out that the self must always be 'situated' and 'encum- bered,' and that many goods, like lan- guage, are irreducibly social" (Mansbridge 1990, 20). Feminist theorists especially have stressed the importance of relation- ships, mutuality, and community (Alison

9 I do not deny the increasing significance of mass communications, which entails a primar- ily one-way, nondialogic flow of information from a producer to receivers in diverse places. With the global reach and homogenizing tendencies of the media, it can no longer be unequivocally asserted that consciousness is constructed in place. To greater or lesser degrees, we are all exposed to a common popular culture, politics, and coverage of world events, regardless of place. Nonetheless, place still plays a crucial role in structuring daily lives and understandings. It is in the context of discrete geographical settings that information is received, opportunities for genuine dialogue arise, and interpretations are formed. For further discussion see Calhoun (1986), Kirby (1989), Meyrowitz (1989; 1990), Sack (1988; 1990), and Thompson (1990).

10 The construction of community and com- mon identity cannot be simply "read off' material co-presence; construction of common identities is ultimately an interpretive, com- municative process. Path coupling, moreover, cannot be viewed in voluntarist terms. Daily life paths are often fraught with social relations

of domination, in particular the systemic manipulation of individuals' labor. Nonethe- less, when people are brought together for any reason, they may come to see the commonality of their experience. This perception, in turn, may provide the foundations for a common identity and sense of community.

COLLECTIVE ACTION 33

1978; Benhabib 1986; Boyte and Evans 1984; Gilligan 1981; Gould 1978; Young 1986).

Collective identity has been directly linked to communicative interaction and the solving of the free rider problem (Calhoun 1988; Dawes et al. 1990; Kanter 1972; Mansbridge 1990). Controlling for communication among participants, Dawes et al. (1990) conducted a series of prisoner's dilemma experiments with over 1,100 college students. Subjects in groups were allowed to talk for up to ten minutes about the dilemma they faced; the deci- sions of those who were allowed to communicate were then compared to the decisions of those who were not. Dawes et al. (1990, 109) found that:

in discussion, people immediately start discussing what 'we' should do, and spend a good deal of time and effort persuading others in their own group to cooperate (or defect!), even in situa- tions where these others' behavior is irrelevant to the speaker's own payoffs.

Cooperative behavior does occur without discussion and group identity, but, "with no discussion, egoistic motives explain cooperation; with discussion, group iden- tity . . . explains its dramatic increase." The experiments of Dawes and his col- leagues lead to the conclusion that "coop- eration rates can be radically affected by one factor in particular, which is indepen- dent of the consequences for the choosing individual. That factor is group identity" (Dawes et al. 1990, 109, 99) 11

The construction of collective identi- ties, then, is a crucial moment in many forms of collective action. When the self is viewed as fundamentally grounded in a collectivity, collective interest becomes self-interest and the free rider problem

"Regarding "theorists who have been concerned with speculating about what leads to sociality-usually in the form of some individual incentives for becoming social," Dawes et al. (1990, 109) "point out that there have been no findings indicating that humans ever were not social."

disappears (Cohen 1985; Jencks 1979; Mansbridge 1990). Questions remain, however, about which collectivities indi- viduals will identify with and what the interests of those collectivities will be.

Place-based communal bonds have provided the basis for solidarity in numerous social movements. Michael Taylor (1988) and Calhoun (1988) discuss the central role of communal bonds in 18th and 19th century revolutionary movements in France and England. Kornblum (1974) stresses the central role of working-class community in union and ethnic politics in South Chicago. Hudson and Sadler (1986) discuss working-class campaigns "grounded in the spatially defined routine of everyday life" aimed at keeping open factories and mines in the workers' own spatially delimited communities and places. Epstein ob- serves that "[t]he labor movement of the thirties and the civil rights movement of the early sixties grew out of existing communities that became deeply politi- cized in the course of the struggles of those periods; this gave those move- ments a great deal of resilience" (1990, 47). But communally based movements are not necessarily progressive. The role of place-based communal bonds in NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) and antibusing movements is well established.

Communal ties are generally, though not necessarily, strongest when the op- portunity exists for local interaction. Larger-scale interactions hinder commu- nication with others as well as obscure others' actions and experiences. Smaller- scale interactions make the formation of dense community relations more likely.

Communities have long been consid- ered a normal base for solidarity and collective action, yet in this century place-based communities have undergone relative decline as bases for collective action (Agnew 1989; Tilly 1973; Webber 1964; Wellman 1979). This decline can be traced, in large measure, to changes in place-based social relations-relations that cannot be comprehended apart from the larger systems in which they are

34 ECONoMic GEOGRAPHY

imbedded.12 Not surprisingly, as the characteristics of place-based social rela- tions change, daily life-paths, opportuni- ties for communicative interaction, and the formation of collective identities also change, affecting in turn, actors' propen- sity to act collectively.

Lifeworld Colonization, Capital Hypermobility, and the Political Economy of Collective Identity Construction

Disentangling the causes of the decline of collective action rooted in place-based communities is a difficult task compli- cated, again, by confusion over the notions of community and place. Giddens (1990, 108), for instance, argues that "[t]he primacy of place in pre-modern settings has been largely destroyed by disembed- ding and time-space distanciation." Read- ing further, however, one discovers that his notion of place actually refers to community.

Somewhat paradoxically, several geog- raphers argue that place is becoming increasingly important (Harvey 1989; 1990; Swyngedouw 1989; Leitner 1990). Their arguments, however, are concerned with why the characteristics of place are increasingly critical to capital accumula- tion; their analyses focus on systemic considerations rather than place-based communities. It seems, though, that the decline of place-based communities as bases for collective action and the increas- ing significance of places as sites of capital accumulation are closely intertwined.

I argue that two distinct but interre- lated processes are leading to the decline of place-based community: colonization of

12I do not argue that all changes in collective action can be traced to systemic processes. Variations in the structure of political opportunities and the ability of organizations to mobilize resources are also important. But the observation of a general, century-long decline in collective action rooted in place-based communities strongly indicates macrolevel systemic change.

the lifeworld and capital hypermobility. Both derive from the expansionary logic of capitalism and represent an increase in the relative importance of strategic and instrumental forms of action coordination. Expansion of systemic forms of rationality and the destabilization of communicative interaction entail a significant change in the political economy of identity construc- tion. If social interaction is increasingly based on monetary exchange and state coercion, if place-based communities be- come increasingly unstable because of increasing capital mobility, and if social contact becomes increasingly ephemeral as individuals follow the imperatives of ever-accelerating systemic processes, op- portunities are diminished for reaching understanding and forming collective identities through communicative pro- cesses.

While all forms of action coordination must ultimately be rooted in lifeworld (community) norms and values, their relationships are not static. Habermas uses the term "the colonization of the lifeworld" to describe the expansion of systemic forms of rationality into realms previously coordinated through communi- cative action. Through the "media" of money and power, the scope of strategic and instrumental rationality expands and more and more aspects of daily life become commodified and bureaucratized. While Habermas does not view rational- ization processes per se as problematic, systemic steering crises and lifeworld pathologies can arise when the media of the system-money and power-expand beyond acceptable levels. When commu- nicative rationality is replaced by systemic rationality, decision making "can no longer be brought into the intersubjective context of relevance of subjectively mean- ingful action" (Habermas 1987a, 311). In the realm of culture, the result can be the loss of meaning; on the personal level, a variety of psychopathologies. Moreover, the solidarity of members of the lifeworld (or lifeworlds) can be threatened by alienation, anomie, and the unsettling of collective identity (Habermas 1987b).

COLLECTIVE ACTION 35

Harvey provides a clear illustration of the colonization process in his discussion of the "impoverishment and informaliza- tion" of the lives of the urban poor under flexible accumulation. At the same time that wage labor is expanding into the homes of the poor, traditional systems of mutual aid are increasingly becoming commodified. "Baby-sitting, laundering, cleaning, fixing up, and odd jobs, which used to be swapped more as favours are now bought and sold, sometimes on an entrepreneurial basis" (Harvey 1987, 273).

Such processes are at least as clear in the lives of the middle and upper classes. Sack (1988, 646, 660), for instance, docu- ments the ways in which mass produced commodities have become a primary cultural mechanism for defining "'self' from 'others' and 'we' from 'they."' The meanings with which they are imbued through advertising are idealizations that promise to create a social context. In certain respects they succeed, but these meanings, including the meanings of places they refer to, "are becoming more generic, more superficial or 'inauthen- tic."' Bourdieu (1977, 188) similarly ar- gues that "symbolic capital" as a marker of cultivated taste serves to define, without words, the identity of the self. It asks "no more than complicitous silence." Debord (1983, 68) states the impact of commodifi- cation on communication most strongly:

The abundant commodity stands for the total breach in the organic develop- ment of social needs. Its mechanical accumulation liberates unlimited artifi- ciality, in the face of which living desire is helpless. The cumulative power of independent artificiality sows every- where the falsification of social life.

Social bonds become replaced by depth- less commodified images-spectacles- that unify society while foreclosing genu- ine communication (Debord 1983).

Habermas's concept of the colonization of the lifeworld can be viewed as the deepening of capitalist commodification and bureaucratization in place. It helps to clarify one of the central processes by

which communities, collective identities, and the communicative processes on which they are based are undermined. But because his work is aspatial, Haber- mas overlooks a second process producing similar effects: capitalism's spatial dynam- ics.

The increasing spatial mobility of capi- tal does not, in itself, represent an expansion of systemic rationality; capital- ist decision making has always been based on strategic and instrumental rationality. But changes in the nature of production processes and financing have allowed capital to relocate more readily. This relocation, in turn, can destabilize or destroy the lifeworld institutions that depend upon capital.'3

Since the breakdown of the Fordist regime of accumulation in the early 1970s, capital has increasingly turned to spatial fixes to counteract declining rates of profit (Harvey 1982; 1989; Swyngedouw 1989). The relative spatial stability of Fordism has been replaced by accelerated spatial restructuring as firms search the globe for places favorable to capital accumulation. Diminished transportation costs, im- proved communications technology, and the dominance of highly mobile finance capital have facilitated this search.

The hypermobility of capital, however, has not been matched by a hypermobility of people. As Cox and Mair (1988, 312) argue, people are more locally dependent:

[P]ractices tend to get routinized, and for very good reasons. Once settled, they not only facilitate realization of individual ends, but in addition they create a world of predictability and confidence. There is then resistance to change, including spatio-temporal change. Regardless of the precise social relationships at issue, therefore, there is a material basis for people to be locally dependent.

13 Lifeworld institutions, though a commu- nicative realm of symbolic reproduction, de- pend on systemic institutions for their material reproduction.

36 ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

As evidenced by the frequent conflation of the terms "community" and "place," communities are often founded upon such locally routinized practices. It is not surprising, then, that communities can be destroyed by capital hypermobility. Dein- dustrialization, lack of capital investment, and declining governmental funding can destroy many of the institutions of every- day social interaction, produce or accentu- ate conflicts among community members, force people to move elsewhere in search of a livelihood, and otherwise break down or preclude the formation of collective identities. The increasing spatial fluidity of the economy also forces local states to forge entrepreneurial development strate- gies (Cox and Mair 1988; Leitner 1990), frequently at the expense of working-class and minority communities located within them. Local states' accentuated need simply to maintain a stable economic base often raises systemic considerations above all others.

The hypermobility of capital and the colonization of the lifeworld destabilize or displace lifeworld forms of action coordi- nation rooted in communicative rational- ity. Though the expansion of systemic forms of action coordination need not necessarily involve spatial restructuring, under post-Fordist accumulation the two processes are tightly intertwined. Castells (1985, 33) speaks to this point when he observes the ominous implications of economic and technical restructuring pro- cesses "substituting a space of flows, whose meaning is largely determined by their position in a network of exchanges," for a "space of places."14 The conse- quences could be "the destruction of human experience, therefore of communi- cation, and therefore of society" (Castells 1983, 4).

It would, however, be a gross oversim- plification to portray this process as geographically ubiquitous. In their work on flexible production complexes, Storper and Scott (1989, 33-34) stress the signifi-

14 Castells's "place" can be equated with the term 'place-based communities" used here.

cance of geographic differences in the relationship between production systems and communities. They argue that, in response to the demands of production systems, a spatial "sorting out" of commu- nities occurs "according to the differenti- ated social norms, individual characteris- tics, and economic capabilities of various occupational groups and social strata." In different ways in different place-based production complexes, "community life . . . takes on a significant logic of its own, and it in turn begins to feed back upon and to re-structure the development of the production system." Their argument corresponds to that of Piore and Sabel (1984), who identify four types of flexible specialization: regional conglomerations, federated enterprises, "solar" firms, and workshop factories. Of them, regional conglomerations-specialized industrial districts composed of relatively small enterprises that both compete and coop- erate with each other-actually require community ties (ethnic, political, and/or religious) to stabilize wages and working conditions and ensure production stan- dards. At the other extreme, "solar" firms and workshop factories-which outwardly resemble mass production firms-exhibit little imbedding in community relations and tend to be paternalistically organized. The preservation of certain lifeworld (community) forms may be instrumentally rational for some firms in particular types of production complexes; indeed, life- world forms may influence industrial development. But this point should not be overstated. The significance of communal relations may be important in some production complexes and relatively un- important in others. Moreover, much of the discussion of "community" in the flexible production literature refers to a "culture" of firms and other institutions that bears no necessary relation to the communal bonds among individuals. It is the communal bonds among individuals that may provide a basis for overcoming the free rider problem and lead to collective political action.

Radical changes in place-based social

COLLECTIVE ACTION 37

relations brought about by the coloniza- tion of lifeworld institutions and spatial restructuring have clear implications for the viability of place-based communities and the construction of collective identi- ties. As Entrikin (1991, 64) observes:

the [modern] attachment to place seems less an unselfconscious associa- tion of habitual action and local ways of life, and more a strategy for resisting the alienation and isolation of modern life through the self-conscious creation of meaning. Such strategies have been characterized by their inherent individ- ualism.

Such individualism unavoidably affects collective action. But the implications may not be as severe as they first appear. The expansion of systemic forms of action coordination is met with resistance, and while the system rests upon an expansion- ary logic, such expansion is by no means assured.

Place and Resistance Movements Place-based communities are increas-

ingly undermined through colonization and capital hypermobility. Castells's pes- simistic view-of the end of communica- tion and the end of society-would seem to imply the elimination of social move- ments rooted in a sense of community. Yet such an extreme scenario is highly unlikely. While modernity has clearly brought an expansion of systemic forms of action coordination, it has also entailed an expansion of communicative action; many aspects of daily life that were previously unspeakable-such as patriarchal social relations and religious doctrine-are now discussed, questioned, and challenged. Societies do not remain fixed along the continuum of value-oriented and interest- based forms of action coordination. More- over, colonization processes can never completely overtake the lifeworld bases of societies. "Cultural tradition, social inte- gration, and socialization . . . can be -fulfilled only via the medium of communi- cative action and not via the steering

media of money and power: meaning can neither be bought nor coerced" (Haber- mas 1991, 259).

Resistance movements frequently arise in response to the colonization and disruption of social life in particular places. Harvey (1990, 18), for instance, asserts that:

the increasing penetration of techno- logical rationality, of commodification and market values, and capital accumu- lation into social life (or into what many writers, including Habermas, call 'the lifeworld') together with time-space compression, will likely provoke in- creasing resistances that focus on alter- native constructions of place (under- stood in the broadest sense of that word). The search for an authentic sense of community and of an authentic relation to nature among many radical and ecological movements is the cut- ting edge of exactly such a sensibility.

Strong communities clearly do mobilize and resist when threatened. Indeed, the extensive literature on "new social move- ments"-the antinuclear, peace, environ- mental, women's, gay and lesbian, and civil rights movements-documents the importance of shared identity, culture, and community in movements aiming to preserve or create new social spaces for groups threatened by the instrumental and strategic actions of the system. Such movements are widespread and have been effective when organizationally linked.

The globalization of the mass media contains contradictions that may also provide openings for resistance move- ments. While the separation of social interaction from discrete places hinders dialogue, it implies a level of global visibility never before possible. Global communication and scrutiny may allow individuals to form empathic bonds, albeit weak ones, with distant others, and even to act for them (Thompson 1990). Haber- mas (1987b, 197) finds that the "media publics hierarchize and at the same time remove restrictions on the horizon of

38 ECONOMic GEOGRAPHY

possible communication. The one aspect cannot be separated from the other-and therein lies their ambivalent potential."

But resistance to systemic expansion and restructuring clearly cannot be sepa- rated from the lives people live in place. Lefebvre (1979, 241) emphasizes that:

[t]he essential spatial contradiction of society is the confrontation between abstract space, or the externalization of economic and political practices origi- nating with the capitalist class and the state, and social space, or the space of use values produced by the complex interaction of all classes in the pursuit of everyday life.'5

Reliance on place-based relations, nonetheless, has been problematic for movements seeking large-scale social change. Local mobilization to address local issues may be highly desirable, but in an increasingly global capitalist system, "community life is not a microcosm of the whole but a compartment" (Calhoun 1988, 172). Large-scale formal organiza- tions extending beyond the boundaries of local communities are needed to address the issues of modem capitalist societies. Many radical populist movements have been ineffective because they failed to build organizations addressing issues at the appropriate scale. "[W]hen people find themselves unable to control the world, they simply shrink the world to the size of their community. Thus, urban movements do address the real issues of our time, although neither on the scale nor terms that are adequate to the task" (Castells 1984, 331). While local commu- nity and collective identity may be helpful or necessary in mobilizing for collective action, communities need to be linked to larger-scale organizations that can act strategically and effectively to achieve

15 Drawing on Lefebvre, Gottdiener (1985, 127) observes that, "[i]n modern society, abstract space-a homogeneous, fragmented, hierarchical space-has come to dominate social space, or the integrated space of social communion.

community goals. Such a strategy implies the building of nonexclusionary and geo- graphically extensive communities based in mutual understanding.

An important cautionary note is in order regarding place-based, identity- oriented collective action. Although such movements have often been progressive and highly effective, they can also be reactionary and exclusionary . (Harvey 1989; Young 1990). Harvey (1989, 273) warns that the "links between place and the social sense of personal and communal identity . . . [can] entail the aestheticiza- tion of local, regional, or national politics." Nationalist and fascist movements, as well as NIMBY movements, have traditionally been grounded in a place-based sense of community. Young (1990) is especially critical of identity-based community poli- tics, drawing strong parallels between the social boundaries of community and the exclusionary practices of racism and sex- ism. Instead of a politics of community, she calls for a politics of difference rooted in the notions of justice and respect for all. Both Harvey and Young would appear to be calling for what Jencks (1979, 55) terms "moralistic unselfishness [involving] the subordination of self to . . . principle." They make it clear that while collective identity may be a powerful basis for collective action, it does not automatically lead to progressive politics.

Conclusion

In most of the social sciences, collective action has come to be treated as a problem of rational choice. Relying on the homo economicus assumption, "strong" rational choice theory allows for the rigorous modeling of exclusively self- interested individuals who are unaffected by place-specific social relations. Such models, however, are unpersuasive. "Weak" rational choice models have been developed that incorporate community and place-specific social relations. These models, nonetheless, still emphasize stra- tegic rationality and relegate nonstrategic

COLLECTIVE ACTION 39

action to an inexplicable secondary realm of "nonrationality."

Clearly, not all human action can be considered rational. Yet we need not fall into either-or conceptions of rationality and nonrationality (or irrationality). Hab- ermas provides a differentiated concep- tion of rationality that serves to clarify much of what has been subsumed under the rather vague term "community" Habermas's theory of communicative ac- tion clarifies the rationality of action oriented toward understanding. The grounding of communicative action in lifeworld values also points toward a nonessentialist conception of rationality sensitive to differences among lifeworlds.

In light of Habermas's work, it seems that a realistic theory of collective action would recognize the unselfish as well as the selfish motivations of human beings, communicative as well as strategic ration- ality, and actors' collective, as well as individual, identities. Of equal impor- tance, it would recognize the central role of place-specific social relations in shaping actors' conceptions of what constitutes strategically rational behavior, actors' abil- ity to reach understandings, and the construction of collective identities, which often prefigure collective action.

But collective action cannot be under- stood apart from the dynamics of the system. The colonization of the lifeworld and capital's search for spatial fixes can have adverse consequences for collective action. It is perhaps no coincidence that place-based communities have declined historically as bases for collective action while the characteristics of places have become significantly more important in corporate location and investment deci- sions. Yet by no means have collective action or struggles over social space come to an end. New social movements, espe- cially, are defined by attempts to defend or claim new lifeworld spaces.

If, however, we wish to overcome what Corbridge calls the "distance decay func-

tion of morality,"16 we must find ways to separate the understandings and bonds of community-which are not necessarily place-specific-from the sometimes paro- chial and exclusionary concerns of dis- crete places. The bonds and concerns of community, as Jencks shows, need not be totalizing and exclusionary. Indeed, most of us belong to, and identify with, a multiplicity of communities and collectiv- ities ranging from our partners and friends to, perhaps, the human species. It is these bonds with distant others-both literally and metaphorically-that need to be developed and strengthened, while al- ways recognizing and respecting differ- ence. The time-space compression of modernity has created new avenues of communication that present new, though by no means unproblematic, opportuni- ties for understanding.

References Agnew, J. 1989. The devaluation of place in

social science. In The power of place, eds. J. Agnew and J. Duncan, pp. 9-29. Boston: Unwin Hyman.

, and Duncan, J., eds. 1989. The power of place. Boston: Unwin Hyman.

Alison, D. 1978. Weaving the web of commu- nity. Quest: A Feminist Quarterly 4: 75-92.

Axelrod, R. 1984. The evolution of coopera- tion, New York: Basic Books.

Balbus, I. 1983. Marxism and domination. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Barnes, T. 1988. Rationality and relativism in economic geography. Progress in Human Geography 4: 473-96.

. 1989. Place, space, and theories of economic value: Contextualism and essen- tialism in economic geography. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 14: 299-314.

, and Sheppard, E. 1992. Is there a place for the rational actor? A geographical critique of the rational choice paradigm. Economic Geography, this issue.

16 Comments given in the session: "The Geography of Rationality," annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Miami, Florida, April, 1991.

40 ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

Barry, B. 1970. Sociologists, economists, de- mocracy. London: Collier-Macmillan.

Benhabib, S. 1986. The generalized and concrete other: Toward a feminist critique of substitutionalist universalism. Praxis Inter- national 5: 402-24.

Berger, J. 1991. The linguistification of the sacred and the delinguistification of the economy. In Communicative action, eds. A. Honneth and H. Joas, pp. 165-180. Cam- bridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Bourdieu, P. 1977. Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge and New York: Cam- bridge University Press.

Bowles, S., and Gintis, H. 1986. Democracy and capitalism: Property, community, and the contradictions of modern social thought. New York: Basic Books.

Boyte, H., and Evans, S. 1984. Strategies in search of America: cultural radicalism, pop- ulism, and democratic culture. Socialist Review: 73-100.

Calhoun, C. 1986. Computer technology, large-scale social integration, and the local community. Urban Affairs Quarterly 22: 329-49.

. 1988. The radicalism of tradition and the question of class struggle. In Rationality and revolution, ed. M. Taylor, pp. 129-175. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

Castells, M. 1983. Crisis, planning, and the quality of life: Managing the new historical relationships between space and society. Society and Space 1: 3-21.

__ . 1984. The city and the grassroots. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

. 1985. High technology, economic restructuring, and the urban-regional pro- cess in the United States. In High technol- ogy, space, and society, ed. M. Castells, pp. 11-40. Beverly Hills: Sage.

Cohen, J. 1985. Strategy or identity: New theoretical paradigms and contemporary social movements. Social Research 52: 663- 716.

Coleman, J. 1990. Norm-generating structures. In The Limits to Rationality, eds. K. Cook and M. Levi, pp. 250-273. Chicago: Univer- sity of Chicago Press.

Cox, K. 1989. The politics of turf and the question of class. In The power of geogra- phy: How geography shapes social life, eds. J. Wolch and M. Dear, pp. 61-90. Winches- ter, MA: Unwin Hyman.

_____, and Mair, A. 1988. Locality and

community in the politics of local economic development. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 78: 307-25.

Dawes, R., van de Kragt, A., and Orbell, J. 1990. Cooperation for the benefit of us, not me. In Beyond self-interest, ed. J. Mans- bridge, pp. 97-110. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Debord, G. 1983. Society of the spectacle. Detroit: Black and Red.

DeNardo, J. 1985. Power in numbers, Prince- ton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Eder, K. 1985. The "new social movements": Moral crusades, political pressure groups, or social movements? Social Research 52: 869-900.

Elster, J. 1985. Making sense of Marx. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

__ . 1986. An introduction to Karl Marx. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

__ . 1989. The cement of society. Cam- bridge and New York : Cambridge Univer- sity Press.

Entrikin, J. N. 1991. The betweenness of place. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Epstein, B. 1990. Rethinking social movement theory. Socialist Review 20: 35-65.

Fraser, N. 1987. What's critical about critical theory? In Feminism as critique, eds. S. Benhabib and D. Cornell, pp. 31-56. Minne- apolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Gaston, M., and Kennedy, M. 1987. Capital investment or community development? The struggle for land control by Boston's black and Latino community. Antipode 19: 178-209.

Giddens, A. 1984. The constitution of society. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. __ . 1990. The consequences of modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Gilligan, C. 1981. In a different voice. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

Gottdiener, M. 1985. The social production of urban space. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

Gould, C. 1978. Marx's social ontology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Gregory, D. 1989. The crisis of modernity? Human geography and critical social theory. In New Models in Geography: Vol. II, eds. R. Peet and N. Thrift, pp. 348-85. Boston: Unwin Hyman.

Habermas, J. 1982. A reply to my critics. In

COLLECTIVE ACTION 41

Habermas: Critical debates, eds. J. Thomp- son and D. Held, pp. 219-283. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

. 1984. The theory of communicative action: Vol. I. Boston: Beacon Press.

. 1985. Questions and counterquestions. In Habermas and modernity, ed. R. Bern- stein, pp. 192-216. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

. 1987a. The theory of communicative action: Vol. II. Boston: Beacon Press.

. 1987b. The tasks of a critical theory of society. In Modern German Sociology, eds. V. Meja, D. Misgeld, and N. Stehr, pp. 187-212. New York: Columbia University Press.

. 1989. Towards a communication- concept of rational collective will formation. Ratio Juris 2 (2): 140-152.

. 1991. A reply. In Communicative action, eds. A. Honneth and H. Joas, pp. 214-64. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Harvey, D. 1982. The limits to capital. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

. 1987. Flexible accumulation through urbanization: Reflections on 'post-modern- ism' in the American city. Antipode 19: 260-86.

. 1989. The condition of postmodernity. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell.

. 1990. From space to place and back again: Reflections on the condition of post- modernity. Presented at the symposium on Futures, Tate Gallery.

Hector, M. 1990. Comment: On the inade- quacy of game theory for solution of real-world collective action problems. In The limits to rationality, eds. K. Cook and M. Levi, pp. 240-49. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Hudson, R., and Sadler, D. 1986. Contesting works closures in western Europe's old industrial regions: Defending place or be- traying class? In Production, work, terri- tory, eds. A. Scott and M. Storper, pp. 172-94. London: Allen and Unwin.

Jencks, C. 1979. The social basis of unselfish- ness. In On the making of Americans, eds. H. Gans, N. Glazer, J. Gusfield, and C. Jenks, pp. 63-86. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Kanter, R. 1972. Commitment and community: Communes and utopias in sociological per- spective. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer- sity Press.

Kirby, A. 1989. A sense of place. Critical Studies in Mass Communications 3: 322-26.

Kornblum, W. 1974. Blue collar community. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lefebvre, H. 1979. Space: Social product and use value. In Critical sociology, ed. J. Freiberg, pp. 285-95. New York: Irvington.

Leitner, H. 1990. Cities in pursuit of economic growth: The local state as entrepreneur. Political Geography Quarterly 9: 146-170.

Mansbridge, J. 1990. On the relation of altruism and self-interest. In Beyond self interest, ed. J. Mansbridge, pp. 133-146. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Melucci, A. 1985. The symbolic challenge of contemporary movements. Social Research 52: 789-816.

Meyrowitz, J. 1989. The generalized else- where. Critical Studies in Mass Communi- cations 3: 326-34.

. 1990. On "The consumer's world: Place as context" by Robert Sack. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 80: 129-32.

Moore, B., Jr. 1966. Social origins of dictator- ship and democracy. Boston: Beacon Press.

Nicolaides, P. 1988. Limits to the expansion of neoclassical economics. Cambridge Journal of Economics 12: 313-28.

Offe, C., and Wiesenthal, H. 1980. Two logics of collective action: Theoretical notes on social class and organizational forms. In Political power and social theory, ed. M. Zeitlin, pp. 67-115. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

Olson, M. 1965. The logic of collective action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Piore, M., and Sabel, C. 1984. The second industrial divide. New York: Basic Books.

Popkin, S. 1979. The rational peasant. Berke- ley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Pred, A. 1986. Place, practice, and structure. Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble.

Przeworski, A. 1985. Marxism and rational choice. Politics and Society 4: 379-409.

Roemer, J. 1988. Rationalizing revolutionary ideology: A tale of Lenin and the Tsar. In Rationality and revolution, ed. M. Taylor, pp. 229-44. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

Rustin, M. 1987. Place and time in socialist theory. Radical Philosophy 47: 30-36.

Sack, R. 1988. The consumer's world: Place as context. Annals of the Association of Ameri- can Geographers 78: 642-64.

. 1990. Reply: Strangers and places without context. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 80: 133-35.

42 ECONOMic GEOGRAPHY

Sandel, M. 1982. Liberalism and the limits of justice. Cambridge and New York: Cam- bridge University Press.

Savage, M. 1987. The dynamics of working class politics: The labor movement in Pre- ston 1880-1940. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

Sayer, A. 1984. Method in social science. London: Hutchinson.

Scott, J. 1976. The moral economy of the peasant. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Sen, A. 1978. Rational fools: A critique of the behavioral foundations of economic theory. In Scientific models and men, ed. H. Harris, pp. 317-44. London: Oxford University Press.

Sheppard, E., and Barnes, T. 1991. The rational actor in space and place: A re- evaluation of the rational choice paradigm. Working papers of the history and society program, University of Minnesota.

Soja, E. 1989. Postmodern geographies. New York: Verso.

Storper, M., and Scott, A. 1989. The geograph- ical foundations and social regulation of flexible production complexes. In The power of geography, eds. M. Dear and J. Wolch, pp. 19-40. Boston: Unwin Hyman.

Swyngedouw, E. 1989. The heart of the place: The resurrection of locality in an age of hyperspace. Geografiska Annaler 71B: 31- 42.

Taylor, C. 1989. Sources of the self. Cam- bridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Taylor, M. 1982. Community, anarchy, liberty. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

. 1987. The possibility of cooperation. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

. 1988. Rationality and revolutionary collective action. In Rationality and revolu- tion, ed. M. Taylor, pp. 63-97. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

. 1989. Structure, culture and action in the explanation of social change. Politics and Society 17: 115-62.

. 1990. Cooperation and rationality: Notes on the collective action problem and its solution. In The limits to rationality, eds. K. Cook and M. Levi, pp. 222-39. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Thompson, J. 1983. Rationality and social rationalization: An assessment of Haber- mas's theory of communicative action. Soci- ology 17: 278-94.

. 1990. Ideology and modern culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Thrift, N. 1983. On determination of social action in space and time. Society and Space 1: 23-57.

. 1985. Flies and germs: A geography of knowledge. In Social relations and spatial structures, eds. D. Gregory and J. Urry, pp. 366-403. London: Macmillan.

, and Williams, P. 1987. The geography of class formation. In Class and space: The making of urban society, eds. N. Thrift and P. Williams, pp. 1-22. London and New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Tilly, C. 1973. Do communities act? Sociolog- ical Inquiry 43: 209-40.

Unger, R. 1975. Knowledge and politics. New York: The Free Press.

Walker, R. 1985. Class, division of labour and employment in space. In Social relations and spatial structures, eds. D. Gregory and J. Urry, pp. 164-89. London: Macmillan.

Webber, M. 1964. Explorations into urban structure. Philadelphia: University of Penn- sylvania Press.

Wellman, B. 1979. The community question. American Journal of Sociology 84: 1201-31.

Williams, R. 1989. Resources of hope. New York: Verso.

Young, I. 1986. Impartiality and the civic public: Some implications of feminist cri- tiques of modern political theory. Praxis International 5: 381-401.

. 1990. The ideal of community and the politics of difference. In Feminism/postmod- ernism, ed. L. Nicholson, pp. 300-23. New York: Routledge.