Collective Action and the Civil Rights Movement is a theoretical study of the dynamics of public-spirited collective action as well as a substantial study of the American civil rights movement and the local and national politics that surrounded it. In this major historical application of rational choice theory to a social movement, Dennis Chong reexamines the problem of organizing collective action by focusing on the social, psychological, and moral incentives of political activism that are often neglected by rational choice theorists. Using game theoretic concepts as well as dynamic models, he explores how rational individuals decide to participate in social movements and how these individual decisions translate into collective outcomes. In addition to applying formal modeling to the puzzling and important social phenomenon of collective action, he offers persuasive insights into the political and psychological dynamics that provoke and sustain public activism. This remarkably accessible study demonstrates how the civil rights movement succeeded against difficult odds by mobilizing community resources, resisting powerful opposition, and winning concessions from the government.

Certain to open new avenues for future research, Collective Action and the Civil Rights Movement presents an original model of the process of political mobilization and refines rational choice theory by expanding and elaborating on its motivational assumptions.

"An illuminating marriage of theory and history from which students of social movements and collective action of all kinds can learn. It is one of the best books on social movements I have ever seen." -- Michael Taylor, author of The Possibility of Cooperation

"A splendid effort to work through the problem of collective action in the context of a real and important instance of it in American political life." -- Russell Hardin

"Dennis Chong provides his readers with a rare product: a treatment of collective action that is simultaneously both systematic and analytic and realistic. The result is a convincing contribution to the riddle of why people contribute to causes from which they often seem to have little to gain." -- Neil Smelser