Collective Empowerment

Individual action has its limits. When systems in our social world are designed to concentrate power in the few, extract value from the many, or perpetuate inequality for a relative advantage even though it makes the world worse overall, personal choices alone won’t shift the broader structure. Substantive change in workplaces, communities, and broader institutions requires people to organize together and build coalitions to exert collective pressure.

Collective action is hard in some ways, easier than individual action in other ways. It faces coordination problems, free-rider dynamics, internal tensions, and power asymmetries within the coalition. Groups splinter over debates about strategy. Coalitions dissolve when the initial urgency fades. Movements sometimes struggle to sustain momentum or translate energy and passion into concrete wins.

The resources below explore what makes collective action work (or fail). They examine labour organizing, social movement coalitions, community campaigns, and the practical challenges of building power when you’re starting from a position of relative powerlessness. Some are theoretical frameworks and others are accounts of actual organizing drives. Together, they offer a starting point for learning about how groups coordinate to overcome barriers and push for structural change.

Collective Action#

• Building towards collective action
  Explores how labour organizing strategies extend beyond workplace contexts.

• Anatomy of a union organizing drive
  Daisy Pitkin’s account of organizing janitors in Rhode Island, and the granular, often messy reality of building worker power. The one-on-one conversations, setbacks, and trust-building that make or break campaigns.

• Social movement coalitions: Formation, longevity, and success
  A review of literature examining what makes coalitions stick together and achieve goals, addressing practical challenges of maintaining unity across diverse groups with overlapping but not identical interests.

• Coalitions and the organization of collective action
  Theoretical framework for understanding how organizations coordinate action, manage internal tensions, and sustain momentum over time.

• What explains community coalition effectiveness?:
  A review of the literature
  A systematic review of factors that predict whether community coalitions actually accomplish goals or dissolve and become ineffective over time.

• Limitations of the theory and practice of mobilization in union organizing
  Critical examination of the ‘organizing model’ in labour movements, questioning whether standard mobilization frameworks adequately address power dynamics and structural constraints that organizers actually face.

• Pushing the envelope on youth civic engagement
  Paper on how young people develop political consciousness and collective action capacity, with implications for building movements that meaningfully include marginalized youth voices.

• The dynamics and dilemmas of collective action
  A classic analysis of the free-rider problem and other coordination challenges that make collective action difficult, even when everyone would benefit from cooperation.

• Moral testimony and epistemic privilege
  A philosophy paper of who has authority to speak about moral/political issues; relevant for understanding whose voices count in defining collective action goals and strategies.

Power & Social Inequality#

• Global social theory

• ThoughtMaybe
  An online library of films and video essays to inspire critical thinking and direct action. Focuses on topics that challenge modern society, industrial civilization, globalization and dominant cultural narratives.

• Anti-racism and anti-oppression resource list curated by Mehrgol Tiv
  A growing collection of resources to actively challenge racism and oppression in academia and scientific communities.

• Social justice resources curated by Joel Martinez
  Fantastic collection of resources and reading lists on topics related to social justice.

• Social inequality, power, and politics:
  Intersectionality and American Pragmatism in dialogue

• Mapping the margins:
  Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color

• Racism within the sciences

• Concrete steps for recruiting, supporting, and advising
  underrepresented minoritized scientists

• Antiracist resource guide

• Epistemic injustice: Power and the ethics of knowing
  See also this ~1000-word summary.

• Marginalised ideas are key to scientific progress
  “Young scientists are deterred from conducting pivotal science on topics essential to societal progress by the pressure to publish in high-tier journals that neglect and marginalise these issues”, argue Marginalia Science, a group dedicated to further scientific diversity.

• A socioecological psychology of racism:
  Making structures and history more visible

• Race as a bundle of sticks:
  Designs that estimate effects of seemingly immutable characteristics

• Narrative power: The struggle for human value

• Moral testimony and epistemic privilege

• Equity & diversity checklist for event planning