This article attempts to respond to Ostrom’s call for a behavioral model of collective action by generalizing the collective interest model of mass political action to explain citizen policy support and personal behavioral intentions in the context of air quality policy. The collective action problems inherent in air quality policy provide a critical research setting for testing hypotheses of the collective interest model. Key elements of the collective interest model—perceived risk, trust in policy elites, knowledge of the policy problem, and efficacy—are found to be directly, and positively, related to support of government policies and intentions to engage in personal behaviors that might improve air quality. The article discusses the implications for using the collective interest model as general behavioral theory of collective action.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Ajzen, I., and Fishbein, M.1980. Understanding Attitudes and Predicting Social Behaviors. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
2.
Allen, David W.2001. “Social Class, Race, and Toxic Releases in American Counties, 1995.”Social Science Journal38 (1): 13-25.
3.
Asch, Peter, and Joseph L. Seneca. 1978. “Some Evidence on the Distribution of Air Quality.”Land Economics54 (3): 278-297.
4.
Axelrod, Robert M.1984. The Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Basic Books.
5.
Brady, Henry E., Sidney Verba, and Kay Lehman Schlozman. 1995. “Beyond SES: A Resource Model of Political Participation.”American Political Science Review89 (2): 24-24.
6.
Bullard, Robert D.1983. “Solid Waste Sites and the Black Houston Community.”Sociological Inquiry53 (2/3): 273-288.
7.
Bullard, Robert D.1990. Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality. Boulder, CO: Westview.
8.
Colquette, Kelly Michele, and Elizabeth A. Henry Robertson. 1991. “Environmental Racism: The Causes, Consequences, and Commendations.”Tulane Environmental Law Journal5 (1): 153-207.
9.
Cutter, Susan L., and William D. Solecki. 1996. “Setting Environmental Justice in Space and Place: Acute and Chronic Airborne Toxic Releases in the Southeastern United States.”Urban Geography17 (5): 20-20.
10.
Davidson, Debra J., and William R. Freudenburg. 1996. “Gender and Environmental Risk Concerns: A Review and Analysis of Available Research.”Environment and Behavior28 (3): 302-339.
11.
Diekmann, Andreas, and Peter Preisendörfer. 1998. “Environmental Behavior: Discrepancies Between Aspirations and Reality.”Rationality and Society10 (1): 79-102.
12.
Dunlap, Riley E., and Robert Emmet Jones. 2002. “Environmental Concern: Concept and Measurement Issues.” In R. E. Dunlap and W. Michelson, eds., Handbook of Environmental Sociology. Westport, CT: Greenwood.
13.
Elliott, Euel, Barry Seldon, and James Regens. 1997. “Political and Economic Determinants of Individuals’ Support for Environmental Spending.”Journal of Environmental Management51 (1): 15-27.
14.
Everett, Jess W., and J. Jeffrey Peirce. 1992. “Social Networks, Socioeconomic Status, and Environmental Collective Action: Residential Curbside Block Leader Recycling.”Journal of Environmental Systems21 (1): 65-84.
15.
Finkel, Steven E. 2005. Personal communication with author via email, March 18, 2005.
16.
Finkel, Steven E., and Edward N. Muller. 1998. “Rational Choice and the Dynamics of Political Action: Evaluating Alternative Models with Panel Data.”American Political Science Review92 (1): 7-49.
17.
Finkel, Steven E., Edward N. Muller, and Karl-Dieter Opp. 1989. “Personal Influence, Collective Rationality, and Mass Political Action.”American Political Science Review83 (3): 885-903.
18.
Gale, Richard P.1986. “Social Movements and the State: The Environmental Movement, Countermovement, and Government Agencies.”Sociological Perspectives29 (2): 202-240.
19.
Gelobter, Michel. 1987. “The Distribution of Outdoor Air Pollution by Income and Race: 1970-1984.” Master’s thesis. Energy and Resource Group, University of California, Berkeley.
20.
Gianessi, Leonard P., Henry M. Peskin, and Edward Wolff. 1979. “The Distributional Effects of Uniform Air Pollution Policy in the United States.”Quarterly Journal of Economics93 (2): 281-301.
21.
Gibson, James L.1997. “Mass Opposition to the Soviet Putsch of August 1991: Collective Action, Rational Choice, and Democratic Values in the Former Soviet Union.”American Political Science Review91 (3): 671-684.
22.
Godwin, Kenneth, and Robert Cameron Mitchell. 1982. “Rational Models, Collective Goods, and Non-Electoral Political Behavior.”Western Political Quarterly35 (2): 161-181.
23.
Griffith, Daniel A., Philip G. Doyle, David C. Wheeler, and David L. Johnson. 1998. “A Tale of Two Swaths: Urban Childhood Blood-Lead Levels across Syracuse, New York.”Annals of the Association of American Geographers88 (4): 640-665.
24.
Gutierrez Karp, David. 1996. “Values and Their Effect on Pro-Environmental Behavior.”Environment and Behavior28 (1): 111-133.
25.
Hamilton, James T.1995. “Testing for Environmental Racism: Prejudice, Profits, Political Power?”Journal of Policy Analysis and Management14 (1): 107-132.
26.
Jones, Robert Emmet. 1998. “Black Concern for the Environment: Myth Versus Reality.”Society & Natural Resources11 (3): 209-228.
27.
Jones, Robert Emmet, and Riley E. Dunlap. 1992. “The Social Bases of Environmental Concern: Have They Changed Over Time?”Rural Sociology57 (1): 28-47.
28.
King, Gary, James Honaker, Anne Joseph, and Kenneth Scheve. 2001. “Analyzing Incomplete Political Science Data: An Alternative Algorithm for Multiple Imputation.”American Political Science Review95 (1): 49-69.
29.
Klandermans, Bert. 1984. “Mobilization and Participation: Social-Psychological Expansisons of Resource Mobilization Theory.”American Sociological Review49 (5): 583-600.
30.
Lubell, Mark. 2002. “Environmental Activism as Collective Action.”Environment and Behavior34 (4): 431-454.
31.
Lubell, Mark, Mark Schneider, John T. Scholz, and Mihriye Mete. 2002. “Watershed Partnerships and the Emergence of Collective Action Institutions.”American Journal of Political Science46 (1): 148-163.
32.
Mohai, Paul. 1985. “Public Concern and Elite Involvement in Environmental Conservation Issues.”Social Science Quarterly66 (4): 820-838.
Mohai, Paul, and Bunyan Bryant. 1998. “Is There a ‘Race’ Effect on Concern for Environmental Quality?”Public Opinion Quarterly62 (4): 475-505.
35.
Mohai, Paul, and Ben W. Twight. 1987. “Age and Environmentalism: An Evaluation of the Buttell Model Using National Survey Evidence.”Social Science Quarterly68 (4): 798-815.
36.
Morrison, Denton E., and Riley Dunlap. 1986. “Environmentalism and Elitism: A Conceptual and Empirical Analysis.”Environmental Management10 (5): 581-589.
37.
Musick, Marc A., John Wilson, and William B. Bynum, Jr.2000. “Race and Formal Volunteering: The Differential Effects of Class and Religion.”Social Forces78 (4): 1539-1570.
38.
Niemi, Richard G., Stephen C. Craig, and Franco Mattei. 1991. “Measuring Internal Political Efficacy in the 1988 National Election Study.”American Political Science Review85 (4): 1407-1413.
39.
Olson, Mancur. 1971. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
40.
Ostrom, Elinor. 1998. “A Behavioral Approach to the Rational Choice Theory of Collective Action.”American Political Science Review92 (1): 1-22.
41.
Parker, Julia Dawn, and Maureen H. McDonough. 1999. “Environmentalism of African Americans: An Analysis of the Subculture and Barriers Theories.”Environment and Behavior31 (2): 155-177.
42.
Pastor, Manuel, Jim Sadd, and John Hipp. 2001. “Which Came First? Toxic Facilities, Minority Move-In, and Environmental Justice.”Journal of Urban Affairs23 (1): 1-21.
43.
Pelletier, Luc G., Louise R. Legault, and K. M. Tuson. 1996. “The Environmental Satisfaction Scale: A Measure of Satisfaction with Local Environmental Conditions and Government Environmental Policies.”Environment and Behavior28: 5-26.
44.
Putnam, Robert D.2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster.
45.
Ringquist, Evan J.1997. “Equity and the Distribution of Environmental Risk: The Case of TRI Facilities.”Social Science Quarterly78 (4): 811-819.
46.
Ringquist, Evan J.1999. “Environmental Justice: Normative Concerns and Empirical Evidence.” In N. J. Vig and M. E. Kraft, eds., Environmental Policy: New Directions for the Twenty-First Century. Washington, DC: CQ Press.
47.
Rohrschneider, Robert. 1990. “The Roots of Public Opinion Toward New Social Movements: An Empirical Test of Competing Explanations.”American Journal of Political Science34 (1): 1-30.
48.
Samdahl, Diane M., and R. Robertson. 1989. “Social Determinants of Environmental Concern: A Specification and Test of the Model.”Environment and Behavior21 (1): 57-81.
49.
Sanchez-Burks, Jeffrey, Richard Nisbett, and Oscar Ybarra. 2000. “Cultural Styles, Relational Schemas, and Prejudice against Out-groups.”Journal of Personality and Social Psychology79: 174-189.
50.
Schafer, Joseph L.1999. NORM: Multiple imputation of incomplete multivariate data under a normal model, version 2. Available from http://www.stat.psu.edu/%7Ejls/misoftwa.html.
51.
Scholz, John T., and Mark Lubell. 1998a. “Adaptive Political Attitudes: Duty, Trust, and Fear as Monitors of Tax Policy.”American Journal of Political Science42 (3): 903-920.
52.
Scholz, John T., and Mark Lubell. 1998b. “Trust and Taxpaying: Testing the Heuristic Approach to Collective Action.”American Journal of Political Science42 (2): 398-417.
53.
Seguin, Chantal, Luc G. Pelletier, and John Hunsley. 1998. “Toward a Model of Environmental Activism.”Environment and Behavior30 (5): 628-652.
54.
South, Scott J., and Glenna Spitze. 1994. “Housework in Marital and Nonmarital Households.”American Sociological Review59 (3): 327-347.
55.
Steel, Brent S.1996. “Thinking Globally and Acting Locally?: Environmental Attitudes, Behavior and Activism.”Journal of Environmental Management47 (1): 27-36.
56.
Stern, Paul. 1992. “Psychological Dimensions of Global Environmental Change.”Annual Review of Psychology43: 269-302.
57.
Stern, Paul. 2000. “Toward a Coherent Theory of Environmentally Significant Behavior.”Journal of Social Issues56 (3): 407-424.
58.
Stern, Paul C., and Thomas Dietz. 1994. “The Value Basis of Environmental Concern”. Journal of Social Issues50 (3): 65-84.
59.
Tarrant, Michael, and H. Ken Cordell. 1997. “The Effect of Respondent Characteristics on General Environmental Attitude-Behavior Correspondence.”Environment and Behavior (5): 618-637.
60.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 2004a. Air Trends. Available from http://www.epa.gov/air/airtrends/
61.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 2004b. Toxics Release Inventory Explorer. Available from http://www.epa.gov/triexplorer/
62.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 2004c. Air Quality Index Summary Report. Available from http://www.epa.gov/air/data/monaqi.html?st%7ETX%7ETexas
63.
U.S. General Accounting Office. 1983. Sting of Hazardous Waste Landfills and Their Correlation with Racial and Economic Status of Surrounding Communities. Washington, DC: GAO.
64.
Walsh, Edward J., and Rex H. Warland. 1983. “Social Movement Involvement in the Wake of a Nuclear Accident: Activists and Free Riders in the TMI Area.”American Sociological Review48 (6): 764-780.
65.
Weigel, R. H., and L. S. Newman. 1976. “Increasing Attitude-Behavior Correspondence by Broadening the Scope of the Behavioral Measure.”Journal of Personality and Social Psychology33: 793-802.
66.
Wilson, William Julius. 1991. “Studying Inner-City Social Dislocations: The Challenge of Public Agenda Research.”American Sociological Review56 (1): 1-14.
67.
Zaller, John R.1992. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. New York: Cambridge University Press.
