Using the assumptions of rationality and self-interest common to economic analysis, Professors Frohlich, Oppenheimer, and Young develop a profit-making theory of political behavior as it pertains to the supply of collective goods—defense, law and order, clean air, highways. Originally published in 1971. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This book develops an original theory of group and organizational behavior that cuts across disciplinary lines and illustrates the theory with empirical and historical studies of particular organizations. Applying economic analysis to the subjects of the political scientist, sociologist, and economist, Mancur Olson examines the extent to which the individuals that share a common interest find it in their individual interest to bear the costs of the organizational effort. The theory shows that most organizations produce what the economist calls “public goods”—goods or services that are available to every member, whether or not he has borne any of the costs of providing them. Economists have long understood that defense, law, and order were public goods that could not be marketed to individuals, and that taxation was necessary. They have not, however, taken account of the fact that private as well as governmental organizations produce public goods. The services the labor union provides for the worker it represents, or the benefits a lobby obtains for the group it represents, are public goods: they automatically go to every individual in the group, whether or not he helped bear the costs. It follows that, just as governments require compulsory taxation, many large private organizations require special (and sometimes coercive) devices to obtain the resources they need. This is not true of smaller organizations for, as this book shows, small and large organizations support themselves in entirely different ways. The theory indicates that, though small groups can act to further their interest much more easily than large ones, they will tend to devote too few resources to the satisfaction of their common interests, and that there is a surprising tendency for the “lesser” members of the small group to exploit the “greater” members by making them bear a disproportionate share of the burden of any group action. All of the theory in the book is in Chapter 1; the remaining chapters contain empirical and historical evidence of the theory’s relevance to labor unions, pressure groups, corporations, and Marxian class action.

With this volume, the author demonstrates how a collective goods approach to higher education research can alleviate problems of rising costs, declining resources, and growing concerns about undergraduate learning. In taking this approach, the author presents new tools of analysis—borrowed from cognitive science, economics, data analytics, education technology and measurement science—to investigate higher education’s place in society as a public or private good. By showing how these tools can be utilized to re-orient current research, this volume offers scholars and policy makers an argument for the large-scale use of scientific and economic approaches to higher education’s most pressing issues.

Leadership in Democracy develops and applies an innovative leadership theory of democracy and political evolution, based upon Schumpeter's famous theories of democracy and economic entrepreneurship. The new theory is applied to the US and British democracies in an assessment of how much entrepreneurial-style, pioneering leadership occurred from the 1960s to the 1990s in the electoral, governmental, legislative, administrative and policy-advocacy sectors of democracies. The assessment leads on to a wide-ranging appraisal of the prospects for 'entrepreneurial' democracy in the twenty-first century.

The study of social and popular movements continues to attract great interest, but little is known of political activity which takes place outside of traditional political structures. Tnis volume looks at informal political action which arises when conventional frameworks, such as those provided by welfare states, are in crisis or decline. At such times the usual expectations about politcal action may not apply, so what actually goes on? Greatly expanding the scope for research into collective action, this volume will be of great interest to students and researchers of politics and sociology interested in this important area.

Public choice has been one of the most important developments in the social sciences in the last twenty years. However there are many people who are frustrated by the uncritical importing of ideas from economics into political science. Public Choice uses both empirical evidence and theoretical analysis to argue that the economic theory of politics is limited in scope and fertility. In order to arrive at a more comprehensive understanding of political life, political scientists must learn from both economists and sociologists.

This book presents a theory of behaviour in coalitions and presents an application of the theory to Indian political party coalitions.