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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Collective action | 4/4 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T07:13:09.558887+00:00 | kb-cron |
=== Methods and techniques === Due to the interdisciplinary nature of both the mechanisms as well as the applications of spontaneous consensus, a variety of techniques have been developed to study the emergence and evolution of spontaneous cooperation. Two of the most widely used are game theory and social network analysis.
==== Game theory ==== Traditionally game theory has been used to study zero-sum games but has been extended to many different types of games. Relevant to the study of spontaneous consensus are cooperative and non-cooperative games. Since a consensus must be reached without the presence of any external authoritative institution for it to be considered spontaneous, non-cooperative games and Nash equilibrium have been the dominant paradigm for which to study its emergence. In the context of non-cooperative games, a consensus is a formal Nash equilibrium that all players tend towards through self-enforcing alliances or agreements. An important case study of the underlying mathematical dynamics is the coordination game. Even when coordination is desired, it can be difficult to achieve due to incomplete information and constrained time horizons.
==== Social network analysis ==== An alternative approach to studying the emergence of spontaneous consensus—that avoids many of the unnatural or overly constrained assumptions of game theoretic models—is the use of network based methods and social network analysis (SNA). These SNA models are theoretically grounded in the communication mechanism of facilitating consensus and describe its emergence through the information propagation processes of the network (behavioral contagion). Through the spread of influence (and ideas) between agents participating in the consensus, local and global consensus can emerge if the agents in the network achieve a shared equilibrium state. Leveraging this model of consensus, researchers have shown that local peer influence can be used to reach a global consensus and cooperation across the entire network. While this model of consensus and cooperation has been shown to be successful in certain contexts, research suggest that communication and social influence cannot be fully captured by simple contagion models and as such a pure contagion based model of consensus may have limits.
== See also == Anti-corruption collective action Collaborative innovation network Collective intelligence Collective intentionality Common property resource Constitutional economics Coordination good Free rider problem Group action (sociology) Mass collaboration Nash equilibrium Outline of organizational theory Pareto efficiency Polytely Prisoner's dilemma Private-collective model of innovation Public good Social fact Tragedy of the commons Tragedy of the anticommons
== Footnotes ==
== Bibliography ==
== External links ==