The Netherlands is a woefully small nation, with woefully few universities and ditto publications. So whenever a question becomes specific, I have to look for publications in English.
I hope someone on the Dope can help with providing the proper term for the concept I’m looking for, and maybe with some literature recommendations.
We want people to band together to save energy. We see that that often does nog succeed, no matter how high the subsidized grants we throw at them. W don’t know what makes such a project succeed or fail. What social factors come into play in picking projects likely to succeed? How can the government increase the likelyhood of success?
For instance, our provincial government can subsidize a public housing corporation to isolate houses and put solar panels on the roof, but only if 70% of the renters agree. Often, such a project falls flat halfway through because the corporation gets too little participation.
What is the proper search term for this in English? “Social formation” seems too broad. Can anyone help?
I’m not even clear on which concept you’re trying to find a name for, so I thought I’d toss a few questions.
You’re trying to convince the public to band together, and what you want to know is whether there’s a name for the concept of “getting people to cooperate”? Or for “getting people to realize that the subsidies are there for them”? Or for “realizing that the government works for you”?
Just FTR and for sympathy, the factors which came into play for my neighbors not wanting to put in a lift were things it would be very hard for the government to do anything about:
the people in the first floor are convinced that a lift does not benefit them. This includes a woman who hasn’t left the house in two years except with the help of EMTs, as she cannot navigate the stairs.
two people “can’t afford to pay any more” for flats they inherited with no transmission taxes and that they’ve got rented out. One of them is already paying three mortgages, you see! (Her vacation house, her house and another rental).
We’re 12, so that put us at 6:6, which is a “no”.
Most other buildings in the same development have or will be getting lifts. Ours? Not until the first-floor oldsters die… at least. Not much the government can do about it.
ETA: you want people to insulate houses, not isolate. Isolate would be “separate”, which is a bit more complex than shooting foam into the walls.
I want people to band together to go for the subsidies together.
We are alraedy targeting housing corporations and companies, but the idea is to upscale smaller organisations and individuals. I assumed there’s a boatload of social science abut that, if only I knew the proper word for it.
I found a book (way too expensive and elaborate) that touches on a few things of what I’m looking for:
A helpful text would be Ostrom, Gardner, and Walker’s inquiry (1994) on the conditions of human cooperation:
Ostrom, Elinor, Roy Gardner, and James Walker. 1994. Rules, Games, and Common-Pool Resources. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
It discussed “state-incentivized cooperative practices”.
By the way, sociobiologist E.O. Wilson recently observed:
“I see human nature as hung in the balance between these two extremes. If our behavior was driven entirely by group selection, then we’d be robotic cooperators, like ants. But, if individual-level selection were the only thing that matered, then we’d be entirely selfish. What makes us human is that our history has been shaped by both forces. We’re stuck in between”.
You might try adding the term ‘critical mass’ into your searches - as it’s used colloquially in English to describe things that have enough participation/subscription to be viable. It’s not what you’re looking for, but it might help you find case studies that are relevant.
And also search for “free rider problem” and “tragedy of the commons”. The first relates to a phenomenon where many people will accept the benefit of some cooperative arrangement that has a broad community effect beyond those who actually participate, but they will not actually participate (i.e. sacrifice) to make it a reality. This is why most governments fund police and the military through mandatory taxes and not through voluntary donations. The second relates to the tendency for people to exploit and deplete a shared resource when nobody actually owns the shared resource (or it is owned collectively), but there is not enough of the shared resource for everybody to take as much as they want.
Community organizing, civic engagement, capacity and asset enhancement are general terms you can search with that may help out. I studied Macro Social Work, which is essentially the theory and practice of evaluating social systems and leveraging/mobilizing community assets to better address social, environment and political problems. social capitalmay be a good term to start with as many sociology concepts have been tied to it. Checkthis out too. Robert Putnam (at Harvard) is one of the better known sociologist who writes about this stuff.
If I can come up with anything more specific, I’ll let you know…
You might also take a look at “Community-based social marketing.” This is an approach that starts by researching the barriers and benefits to something like energy conservation from the perspective of the people whose behavior you are trying to change, and then basing your persuasive tactics on addressing those concerns.
Wow, that led to a wellspring of information, most of it pertaining directly to the topic I was looking for, energy saving. This site I found googling it, for instance, is exactly what I need. I’ll cross reference it with the terms supplied by ecoaster and the other Dopers who were kind enough to answer. Thanks all !