Exploring Conditions of Cooperation and Sacrifice in Political and Social Settings

左翼的长岸工会成员放弃了时间和金钱，为社会正义事业而战，而他们却不能指望从中得到任何个人的物质回报。什么样的信念和偏好引导着这些选择，它们是如何形成的？本调查的因变量是组织成员对他们将为之贡献金钱和时间的目标以及他们愿意参与的行动所做的选择。他们选择了四组配对比较的工会本地成员，其成员在加入之前在社会人口统计学特征和兴趣方面表现相似，但研究人员假设：(1)发展不同的偏好(2)作为组织文化的结果，产生对领导及其目标的偶然同意。“列宁问题”是如何将狭隘的唯物主义或所谓的“经济主义”偏好排序转变为包括对社会正义和改善他人（包括陌生人）的承诺的排序。从经济主义到阶级意识的转变在美国相对罕见，而在其他发达的工业民主国家则更有可能（尽管这种可能性越来越小）。但当这种转变发生时，它提供了个人如何改变他们的偏好排名或可能发展新的偏好的见解。工会是重要的集体行动组织，成员与工会形成身份认同和道德互惠的基础。它们在成员之间产生的偏好方面也各不相同。对工会的调查允许探索“商业工会”诱导经济偏好和“社会运动工会”的阶级意识和意识形态承诺，以改善他人和自己的物质福利的机制。研究人员感兴趣的是组织文化是如何创建和维持的，它是如何以及何时产生偶然同意的，以及组织文化和偶然同意的结合使成员能够相互学习和向领导学习的机制，并在此过程中发展出新的偏好排名、信念和目标。直觉是，民主制度和实践，特别是那些促进成员参与和使领导人负责任的制度和实践，是解决“列宁问题”的关键。调查人员通过整合详细的案例研究和理性选择账户来创建分析叙述，以提供因果解释和对论点合理性的评估。智力上的优点：该项目承诺在理论和经验上的进步，为那些在广泛的学科中发展一个更强大的、可测试的、可测试的合作和牺牲模型。它还旨在改进分析叙事方法，这是一种越来越重要的定性、比较和历史研究工具。最后，它应该对工会和其他跨国组织提供更清晰的把握。通过参加多学科会议，并将他们的发现发表在期刊上和成书，他们希望影响社会科学家如何理解理性的行为，但也受到道德、意识形态、身份和背景考虑的驱动。更广泛的影响：PI与高级顾问的合作增强了国际影响。还将建立和传播新的数据库；使学生融入研究性学习；以及潜在的政策影响。作者将通过开发网站以及将数据存入相关档案，广泛而迅速地共享这些数据。本科生和研究生的研究助理将很好地融入研究工作，并在可行的情况下成为作者或共同作者。私家侦探和高级顾问已经参与了渴望从研究结果中学习的政策团体。关于工会的工作将为目前关于工会的未来、最佳宪法、腐败和不民主行为的争论提供信息。本文提出的研究及其对民族主义、宗教和政治团体的扩展将有助于理解组织文化及其治理结构如何影响行为的偏好和行为。

Left-wing long shore union members give up time and money to fight on behalf of social justice causes from which they can expect no personal material return. What beliefs and preferences guide those choices, and how are they formed? The dependent variables in this investigation are the choices organizational members make in regard to the kinds of goals to which they will contribute their money and time and the actions in which they are willing to engage. They have selected four sets of paired comparisons of union locals whose members appear similar in sociodemographic characteristics and interests before joining but, the researchers posit: (1) develop different preferences (2) as a consequence of an organizational culture that produces contingent consent with leadership and its goals. "The Lenin Problem" is how to transform narrowly materialist or, what are labeled "economistic" preference orderings into a ranking that includes commitments to social justice and the betterment of others-including strangers. The transformation from economism to class consciousness is relatively rare in the United States and only somewhat more likely (although decreasingly so) in other advanced industrial democracies. But when this transformation takes place, it offers insight into how individuals change their preference rankings or possibly develop new preferences. Labor unions are important collective action organizations with which members form identifications and grounds for ethical reciprocity. They also vary in terms of the preferences they engender among members. Investigations of unions permit exploration of the mechanisms by which "business unions" induce economistic preferences and "social movement unions" class consciousness and ideological commitments to improving the material well-being of others as well as themselves. The researchers are interested in how an organizational culture is created and maintained, how and when it produces contingent consent, and the mechanisms by which the combination of the organizational culture and contingent consent enable members to learn from each other and leaders and, in the process, develop new preference rankings, beliefs, and goals. The intuition is that democratic institutions and practices, particularly those that facilitate member participation and that make leaders accountable, are key to solving the "Lenin Problem". The investigators create analytic narratives by integrating detailed case research and rational choice accounts to provide causal explanation and assessments of the plausibility of the argument. Intellectual merit: The project promises theoretical and empirical advances for those in a wide range of disciplines concerned with developing a more powerful, testable, and tested model of cooperation and sacrifice. It also aims at improving the analytic narrative approach, an increasingly important tool for qualitative, comparative, and historical studies. Finally, it should offer a sharper grasp of labor unions and other organizations cross-nationally. By participating in multi-disciplinary conferences and by publishing their findings in journals and as a book, they hope to influence how social scientists understand actions that are rational but also motivated by ethical, ideological, identity, and contextual considerations. Broader impact: The collaboration between the PI and the senior consultant enhances the international impact. There will also be the creation and dissemination of new data bases; integration of students into research-based learning; and potential policy impacts. The authors will share the data widely and quickly by developing web-sites as well as by depositing the data in relevant archives. Undergraduate and graduate research assistants will be well integrated into the research effort and become authors or co-authors when feasible. The PI and the senior consultant are already involved with policy communities eager to learn from the results of the research. The work on labor unions will inform current debates about the future of unions, their optimal constitution, and corrupt and undemocratic practices. The research proposed here and its extensions to nationalist, religious, and political groups will contribute to understanding how organizational cultures and their governance structures affect the preferences and behavior of behavior.