Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Wages of Altruism: Solidarity and the Organizational Structure of American Communes

集体行动的利己主义理论假定这种行动是在个人追求自身利益的过程中产生的。社区组织对这一观点提出了一个具有挑战性的难题，因为许多社区组织在没有正式激励（如工资或罚款）的情况下实现了非常高水平的合作。本文从社区的团结问题入手，提出非正式社会控制理论，将群体团结解释为成员之间基本社会交换的产物。它模拟了组织结构的各个方面，这些方面制约和协调这些交流，导致模拟群体中的顺从、渎职或派系主义。在宏观层面上，它将把组织生态学的动态模型与最近研究交换关系中的“退出选择”的实验工作结合起来。这两个框架的结合将把群体过程的微观模型置于人口生态学的宏观模型中，通过选择加入和退出群体的模拟代理人将其联系起来。为了检验这些正式模型的拟合性，预测结果将与观察到的2000多个成立于1609年至1997年间的社区组织的解散进行比较。虽然该数据库包括1200多个社区的记录，但该项目将通过访问几个历史档案和对当代社区的调查来扩展和验证现有数据库。除了测试组织团结的两层理论外，该项目还将为近四个世纪以来的社区组织提供前所未有的结构趋势和人口动态记录。

Egoistic theories of collective action assume that such actions arise in the course of individuals pursuing their own interests. Communal organizations present a challenging puzzle for this view, as many of these organizations achieve very high levels of cooperation without formal incentives, such as wages or fines. This dissertation begins with the problem of solidarity in communes and provides a theory of informal social control, explaining group solidarity as a product of elementary social exchanges between members. It models aspects of organizational structure that condition and coordinate these exchanges, leading to compliance, malfeasance, or factionalism in simulated groups. On a macro-level, it will integrate dynamic models of organizational ecology with recent experimental work examining "exit options" in exchange relations. The marriage of these two frameworks will situate the micro-model of group processes in a macro-model of population ecology, as linked by choices of simulated agents to join and exit groups. To test the fit of these formal models, predicted outcomes will be compared against observed dissolutions of over 2,000 communal organizations, founded between 1609 and 1997. While the database includes records of over 1,200 communes, this project will expand and validate the existing database through visits to several historical archives and a survey of contemporary communes. In addition to testing a two-tiered theory of organizational solidarity, this project will provide an unprecedented record of structural trends and population dynamics for communal organizations over a span of nearly four centuries.