POL 166
Professor Murdaco
December 12, 2015
Joan Callahan

Assignment # 10

Choose a passage from this weeks assigned readings and explain the meaning of the passage and why you chose this passage.


Taken from The Logic of Collective Action, by Mancur Olson, 1971

        The casual variant of the theory assumed a propensity to belong to groups without drawing
any distinctions between groups of different size. Though the more sophisticated variant may be credited with drawing a distinction between those functions that can best be served by small groups
and those that can best be served by large associations, it nonetheless assumes that, when there is a need for a large association, a large association will tend to emerge and attract members, just as a small group will when there is a need for a small group. Thus in so far as the traditional theory draws any distinction at all between small and large groups, it is apparently with respect to the scale of the functions they perform, not the extent they succeed in performing these functions or their capacity to attract members. It assumes that small and large groups differ in degree, but not in kind.


       This passage discusses the casual variant of the theory of group participation as an instinctual need to belong as opposed to the formal variant which is that individuals need to be coerced into participation. I subscribe to the former in that we are, as individuals drawn to a group to fulfill our own intrinsic need to be apart of a group along with the passion towards a cause or goal. The size of the group, I do believe matters because smaller groups do have a more free flowing exchange due to a more narrow focus of needs. I have seen that when smaller groups have reached their limit due to the small number of participants they reach out to become members of larger associations because there is strength in numbers. The dynamics change within larger associations and coercion becomes more necessary to due the detachment that occurs among individuals in larger groups.When this occurs the smaller group must embrace the overall ideology of the association and quite possibly abandon some of their own goals to reach the goals for the sake of the greater good. I chose this passage because there is a combination of both the casual and formal  variants within both small and large groups but if a distinction must be made their is a stronger  prevalence of instinctual need in small groups and  coercion more prevalent in large groups.