Project in Progress, Please Do Not Circulate or Cite
Collective Action and Regimes of Property Governing :
Research of Political Transformation
Evgeniya V. Popova
Director of Research Center for
Policy Analysis and Studies of Technology
Tomsk State University, Russian Federation
Lenina st., 36, building 2, room 405
Tomsk 634050, Russia
pevgen@eu.spb.ru
13 April 2013
The process of collective action provides a key perspective to our theme, which is the problem of stability
and change, especially of change, of human communities. The paper asserts the duality of collective action
problem. On the one side, we can observe the human behavior paradox named by M.Olson, the “free-rider
problem,” connected with human motivations and activities. On the other hand there is a problem of the
connection of type of goods and collective action. And what happens with property regimes and collective
action during political, economic and technological transformations.
Our question is how people face utilities reforms in a city conducted by Russian government. It is
appropriate to treat these reactions as instances of collective action. But given that we want to take seriously
how human beings are intertwined with technologies and this process influent on politics, how should we
modify our view of collective action in order to include this aspect in our conception? It is worth noting that
the need of redefinition along these lines seems very obvious in Russia, because there the transformation
both political and economic intertwined with material dimension.
Key terms: collective action, public utility, actor-network analysis, Russian social movements
Paper prepared for presentation at the 2013 Midwest Political Science Association National
Conference, Chicago, USA, April 11-13, 2013
E.Popova Collective action and Regimes…
Collective Action and Regimes of Property Governing :
Research of Political Transformation
Problem Statement: Brining Things Back to the Social World
The classic social science considers collective action to be intrinsic to an individual or a social
group, and attributes origins and outcomes of the action exclusively to characteristics of the
individual or the group. Collective good is traditionally defined as the result of what individuals do
or do not do together. Such an approach to social action seems to be limited, given that social action
is hardly ever seen beyond the realm of the material world. Hence, in our opinion, many social
scientists overlook the problem of the dualistic nature of collective action. On one hand, we
encounter evidence of behavioural paradoxes, defined by Mancur Olson as the free-rider problem,
or unwilingness to act if no incentives are available. On the other hand, there is an issue which goes
unmentioned by many social science scholars, i.e. the nature of public goods that brings about
collective action per se and may account for action / inaction and the form the action takes1. This
calls forth an insight into correlation between social rules, forms of political behavior, governance
and types of goods.
Collective action is a principal concept of political sociology and political science in whole,
particularly when applied to the problem of political stability and political changes. “The theory of
collective action is the central subject of political science. It is the core of the justification for the
state. Collective-action problems pervade international relations, face legislators when devising
public budgets, permeate public bureaucracies, and are at the core of explanations of votings,
interest group formation, and citizen control of governments in a democracy” (Ostrom, 2009).
However, the classical social science perceives social action as an attribute of an individual or
social group, and considers the origins and outcomes of the actions without regard to the material
world.2 Conventionally, collective action is defined as the way “people act (fail to act) together in
pursuit of shared interests” (Tilly 1978: 5). However, will collective action be perceived any
differently if the definition accounts for things and technologies? Bruno Latour rightfully states that
it is the involvement of things in everyday social interactions that differentiates humans from
primates, viz. social action from any other action (See Latour 2006). The author undertakes to look
into the correlation between various property regimes identified in classical economics and forms of
governance and nature of things, and to contemplate how particular collective actions correspond to
different types of things. For this purpose, the ideal-type approach was applied to singularize the
most common types of group actions and individual actions as applied to things within urban
infrastructure in Russia. Given the drastic changes occurring in the material world and property
regimes in post-Soviet states, their urban infrastructure is of specific interest. According to the
initiators, the changes are expected to effect the individuals’ actions in respect to multi-occupancy
buildings and municipal things. Data were collected through analysis of local mass media and
Internet publications, field studies, including over 40 interviews with respondents from public
1
This article is a follow-up study of correlation between collective action and material and political realms which was
first addressed in “Self-Governing Associations in Northwestern Russia: Common Things as the Foundation for Res
Publica” О. Kharkhordin, R. Alapuro, О.Bychkova (Kharkhordin, Alapuro 2010)
2
See B.Latour, J. Law, K. Knorr-Cetina for in-depth criticism of the mainstream sociological paradigm
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3
utilities, municipal government, mass media .
Correlation of collective action and recognition of the diversified nature of goods bring about a new
approach to governance and management of rivalrous common resources. Economic theories of
collective (common, public) property state that the need to govern and allocate such property
necessitates the state per se, whereupon it gets acknowledged by economists as a given. One of the
first scholars who brought the problem forward was Elinor Ostrom. In contrast, political science
takes the existence of the state or political system for granted, and does not correlate types of
property with the political realia, which also limits our perception of political or, sensu lato, social
action.
Specific property regimes other than private will be described in more detail below. Meanwhile I
offer a review of the sociological literature relevant to collective action problem.
Things as Part of Collective Action
The first scholar to acknowledge correlation between collective action and material goods was
Mancur Olson (See Olson 1965). Olson correlated collective action / inaction with the nature of ex
ante good, i.e. divisible or non-divisible, common or private. The classic definition of the free rider
paradox refers to the goods which Olson identified as collective, viz. inclusive and non-divisible.
Essentially, the paradox boils down to this. If a member of a community can get goods at no cost
(financial, participatory, time contribution, etc), he will shirk the collective action in accordance
with rational actor logic. This was the starting point of his study which was focused on the
possibility of collective action.
Thus, on one hand, there is a paradox of human motivation and actions, enunciated and studied by
Olson and his disciples. On the other hand, there is an issue which goes unmentioned by many
social science scholars, of the nature of goods which gives rise to collective action. Other than
Olson, few scientists attempted to tackle the issue.
In mid 1960s, a biologist named Garrett Hardin studied interactions between biological ecosystems
and human being. According to Hardin, a rational individual who has no external motivation to
preserve natural resources tends to over-use, thus contributing to depletion of resources. In other
words, things which are not private property and are in public use, are not property stricto sensu.
The situation was succinctly named by Hardin as the ‘Tragedy of the Commons’. This ‘rational
individual’ approach gave rise to an idea which dominated the economics, political science,
sociology and policy for a long time. The idea is that depletion of resources can only be prevented
by either private property or, when inapplicable, government regulation or even international
regulation.
However, empirical evidence offered by other disciplines such as anthropology and sociology,
prove this approach to be rather insular. The evidence suggests that local knowledge and local
communities are quite capable of regulating the use of collective goods. Elinor Ostrom, winner of
the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics, collected the wealth of empirical data and evidence from other
3
Russia case data were collected in Cherepovets in 2005-2006 supported by Academy of Finland. Project of University
of Helsinki and European University at St. Petersburg .
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academic disciplines and spent her last years studying the issue of governance and use of such
goods (See Ostrom 1990). Ostrom sought to identify “the qualities of the goods and institutional
arrangements accompanying their use, which shape the inclusion of non-contributors and the
allocation of the benefits of, and consequently the incentives for, collective actions”. Her findings
challenge Hardin’s stance and the subsequent political decisions: it is unacceptable to assume that
each type of goods has a befitting property regime, however, it is possible to look into relation
between goods and specific collective action or inaction. The duality of this social and political
problem offers a frame of reference to consider collective action in the paradigm of economic
typology of goods.
Classification of Urban Things: Consumption and Governance
Nowadays, there is a generally accepted approach in economics to divide all goods into four
classes: private, club, common and public. This classification is based on two inherent attributes of
goods. The first is whether or not the good is rivalrous, in other words, if the quantity of the good is
limited, viz. “if the marginal costs of providing the good to an additional individual is zero” (See
Ostrom 2003). The second is whether or not someone can be excluded from benefiting the good,
and the cost of the exclusion. These attributes are commonly referred to as rivalry and exclusion.
(See Bychkova 2010 for more details).
Table 1 below was compiled based on the research by Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom, and shows
classes of goods adopted in many economics and public choice textbooks (See Hess and Ostrom
2003). Ostom subdivided goods based on the two above-mentioned attributes: type of good –
competitive or not, and exclusion from consumption.
Table 1.
Classification of Goods in Economics
EXCLUSION
COMPETITION
Rival / finite
Non-rival / infinite
Easy
Private goods – finite goods
produced for profit
Difficult
Common goods – finite natural or
human-produced goods with free
access
Club goods – infinite goods which
Public goods – goods from which all
can be excluded from consumption if members of a group benefit if any one
using special techniques and
member receives the benefit
technologies
The definition of public goods emphasizes their source and resource: public goods are goods that “if
it is by nature available to all; if one man uses it, everyone can use it”. (Feldman 1980: 107)
Another class of collective goods is public goods. The major problem with public goods, or
common pool resources (CPR), is their high cost and the difficulty of subtraction from individual
consumption. Unlike purely public goods, common goods are threatened by depletion and pollution
unless their over-use is prevented.
There are four attributes that differentiate club goods from public goods (See Bychkova 2010): first,
unlike public goods which can be consumed unintentionally or involuntary, club goods are
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consumed willingly, members of the club associate themselves with the groups and therefore expect
benefits from the participation. Second, club goods overlap common goods in terms of rivalry of
common goods. Third, the main feature of clubs is the subtractability mechanism which allows
rationing of the goods and exclusion of non-members and non-contributors from consumption.
Forth, two types of decisions are made in respect of admitting new members into a group –
decisions made by members (participants) on admitting or rejecting and alleged choice (the
expected number of contributing users). Such decisions in respect of public goods are merely a
convention, given that the membership covers the entire population.
It should be noted, however, that the above-mentioned is subject to some reservations. First,
economic literature offers no established classification of goods. For instance, there is a confusion
related to definitions of public goods, common goods and collective goods. Second, there has been
much discussion on classification of goods that can be attributed to more than one class. Different
authors or consumers may attribute the same good to different classes, also, such re-classification
may appear completely valid due to changes and advances in technology (See Pindyck and
Rubinfeld 2001).
In my opinion, the drawback of economy-based approach to classification of things also rests in the
fact that it is limited to things which someone has organized and managed, as if there is another
class of things eagerly waiting to be classified and decided upon the proper method of management.
Having reviewed how things are involved in social urban interactions, I came to believe that the
existing classification of goods needs to be extended to include more classes of things which affect
individual and social group behavior and determine the type of collective action. Such extension
rests upon two sources. The first is the Roman law which offers a detailed classification of nonexcludable goods. The classification goes far beyond common and public goods mentioned above.
Second, if the actor network approach is applied, we have a specific class of objects that came into
interaction without human involvement (See Latour 2005), which gives rise to individual or group
action. This is the most challenging aspect of my classification, given that the long-established
classification a priori allows attributing objects to a certain class (however, empirical studies show
that things can migrate from one class to another depending on the context). Unintentional
interaction 4 between things is a dynamic characteristic which can not be attributed to an object
before it occurs, however, the interaction may cause technical problems which give rise to
collective actions. The latter can be illustrated by interaction between television network and water
supply network. A significant increase in water intake is observed during commercials or when a
movie ends, and sometimes the increased intake strains the water supply equipment to an extent
where its performance has to be adjusted to account for the eventuality. “There are many complaints,
particularly when the water intake rates are the highest… And there is a human factor involved as
well. Everybody watches TV series and then all at once start cooking and wash dishes. No kidding,
I mean it … if you watch the water flow meter, … when a movie is on TV, the indicator hardly stirs,
nobody takes water. Then the movie is over. People start bustling in and out the bathroom and
kitchen and the flowrate is very high. This goes on only for two hours, yet, the peak flow-rate
situations have to be handled” (Interview with the senior engineer of Water Supply Plant, 2005).
For fairness' sake, I must mention that such interactions tend to become evident to technical
4
See Bychkova, Popova 2010 for more details and examples
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services in the first place, and the services handle problems before they cause any public discontent.
However, if response of utility services is inadequate, it may give rise to collective action. And,
given the plight of the post-Soviet public utility sector, the action is likely to take the form of a
protest.
Given below is the categorization of non-subtractable things in terms of Roman jus publicum, or
public law. Roman law subdivided impersonal property into the following sub-classes: res
communis, res universitatis, res publicae and res sanctae5. A sub-class of objects that Roman law
did not differentiate within the “private-or-public” dichotomy, was added into the classification.
The author believes that the sub-class is essential to describe the diversity of collective actions as
applied to urban infrastructure. The sub-class is res nullius, the things that are unowned or have not
yet been appropriated. Thus, the author draws on Roman law to add the “management concept” into
the long-established classification of goods adopted in economics, i.e. political and social groups
forming in the material environment.
Table 2.
Classification of Things in Roman Law
Governance
Organized,
easy exclusion
Rival / finite
resourse
Private things /
goods
Organized, non-excludable
Collective goods – public and
common, Res Universitatis/ res
publicae: public utilities (electricity,
water, heat supply), well-tended
yards, hallways, staircases
Unorganized,
non-excludable
Res Nullius:
unregulated parking
lots
Rivalry
Collective goods, Res sanctae: parks,
gardens of historic value; possibly
issues of utility bills payment if
ideology is involved
Non-rival /
infinite resource
Club things,
(some Res
Universitatis), if
the group is
condominiumlevel or
community-level
Public goods-res communis street
and house lighting; decorating
common areas, facades, indoor notice
boardа, condominium TV channel,
website
Res Nullius –
untended yards,
abandoned cables,
buried infrastructure
elements of unnown
ownership
Characterization is provided below, and in the next section I will give examples of how collective
action correlate with objects shown in Table 2.
Roman law introduced the concept of res nullius, or “unowned things”. The concept of unowned
things implies that changing the property regime is a matter of human intention, time and effort. In
my study, “unowned things” include untended yards, hallways, buried cables that do not give rise
5
See Rose 2003; Dormidontov 1910 for detailed classification
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collective action, but cause many troubles for public utilities.
Res communes are things open to all by their nature. In economics they are referred to as “public
property”. Res publicae are things that are publicly owned and made open by law. In economics
they are referred to as “common goods”. In the material world the true value of res publicae is the
possibility of their collective use rather than the exclusivity of their use. The importance of social
capital in pursuing social, economic and political development and the benefits (See Putnam 1993),
of upkeeping common goods (res publicae) are good arguments for the existence of such goods.
Res publicae is what ensures the possibility of collective actions, ante omnia, material infrastructure
– roads, lighthouses, ports etc. Today intellectual networks are also included in common goods. The
distinctive feature of res publicae is that only small communities are able to self-organize to make
and upkeep such things. Also, it is important to note that existence of res publicae is dependant
upon abundance of private property (See Rose 2003 for more details), and only this abundance can
provide incentive to upkeep common goods. Another class of collective goods in Roman law is res
universitatis, i.e. things owned by a (public) group, most commonly by a municipality and
sometimes by a private community. In economics, this class is attributable both to club goods and
public goods. Given that such common pool resources imply a more limited membership compared
to the population in general, they may have more rules and limitations compared to pure res
publicae. Elinor Ostrom devoted her researches to management of such goods. Res sanctae are
“unownable” things because of their sacred, religious or sensu lato ideological nature. Examples of
res sanctae given by Gaius and Justinian include city walls, gates, later examples include landmarks,
ditches, state and community border marks. Nowadays res sanctae may include historic districts,
large parks, deserts and seaside given their spiritual and historic value. The public activists have to
protect them and allocate resources for their development6.
Classification of Individual Actions as Applied to Things
Social movements studies have a special focus on mobilizing structures which are “those collective
vehicles, informal as well as formal, through which people mobilize and engage in collective
action” (McAdam, McCarthy, Zald 1996: 3). While the classic approach accentuates the
communicative aspect of mobilizing structures, I would like to focus on the material aspect of
collective action and political protest movements. Table 3 gives the classification of collective
action taken by both formal and informal institutions that mobilize collective action. As applied to
urban material environment, collective action can be divided into positive and negative, i.e. protest
actions against the status quo and affirmative actions. The latter implies improving the status quo
through changes in the material world rather than clamoring against actions or inactions of social
groups. Examples of such actions are drawing lots in allocating parking places, decorating common
areas, etc. Below I will show how these actions correlate with things to which they are related.
6
See Alston Chase (1987) for more details
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Table 3.
Collective Actions as Applied to Urban Things
Individual Action
Nonrecurring Collective Action
Positive collective actions
Informal
mobilization
mechanisms
Decorating of common
areas,
Violent actions to
protect garages in
common areas
Subbotniki, collective upkeep of
Social networks,
co-owned common elements,
message boards
building of playgrounds;
Actions to protect parks and public
gardens, including physical
encounters (fights)
Type of objects :
Public, club things or
res communis and res
universitatis
Type of objects :
Common and public things, or
res publica and res communes
Type of objects :
Club things, common things or
res publicae
Negative collective actions
Formal
mobilization
mechanisms
Type of objects :
Any objects
Organized allocation of parking
Residents committees,
spaces, action protecting common condominium associations,
elements or their status
residents meetings, public
organizations protecting owners
rights, interest groups within
condominium
Formal
mobilization
mechanisms
Informal
mobilization
mechanisms
Social Movement
Type of objects :
Common and public things, or
res publicae and res communes
Suicides, hunger strikes, Collective hunger strikes,
one-man picketing
blocking of roads …
Social networks,
message boards
Type of objects :
Type of objects :
Sacred things, ideology- Public things - res communes,
related things
private things, res nullius
res sanctae, private
property
Type of objects :
Any property
Complaints, lawsuits
Picketing, mass rallies, signing-in Public organizations protecting
to protest / support; collective
owneres rights, interest groups
complaints, letters and appeals to within condominium
international institutions, including
the European Human Rights Court,
the UN, etc.
Type of objects :
Any property
Type of objects :
Collective property,
private property
Type of objects :
Common things, private
property
In 2000s Russia had seen an upturn in collective action related to multi-occupancy buildings and
urban objects, e.g. parks, roads etc., as well as radicalization of such actions, i.e. upsurge in public
protests, hunger-strikes, suicides and conflicts with local authorities7. The underlying reason was
changes in the federal housing policy.
7
Visit the Collective Action Institute website at www.ikd.ru for examples and news archive.
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During the Soviet era housing and public utility services were intrinsic to the social policy and were
mostly provided by the state. Such arrangement was inherent to the policy of the government (the
Communist Party) which controlled every aspect of life of its citizens, and housing could not be left
out. Residents of multi-occupancy buildings had no say in operations of public utilities and had
relatively good value-for-money given the low prices for utility services. The Soviet-era housing
policy was mostly aimed to create futuristic dwellings for citizens of the future communist society,
the dwellings were meant to have the necessary infrastructure, including utility services. This
approach was incorporated into the system of urban interactions where the state ensured free
tenancy for its citizens. The ownership was vested in the state or state-owned entities that employed
the residents, and maintenance and services were provided on behalf and at expense of the state or
the state-owned entities (the only possible form in the USSR). The prices for utility services
remained unchanged for decades.
In early 1990s a reform in the public utility sector was initiated. The reform was meant to change
property regime and the attitude of individuals to the housing issues, viz. transfer of apartment
ownership from the state into private hands starting from 1991, and transfer of common elements
from municipal care into co-ownership of residents. However, in 1990s the reform was not
completed stricto sensu. Most of housing in Russia was transferred to private ownership once
privatization was sanctioned. However, the lingering ideals of the Soviet-style welfare state were
not shed, and common elements and utility infrastructure were expected to be owned and
maintained at cheap rates by the state (though, in 1990s ownership was transferred from the state to
municipalities) rather than the property co-owners. In early-mid 2000s (depending on the region:
the political climate and consolidation of elites in different regions) (See Institute 2003) some
efforts were made to change the situation, e.g. in 2005 the Housing Code was enacted. The code de
jure validated transfer of common elements to apartment owners. De facto, however, common
elements were transferred to private or, in public opinion, pseudo-private8 public utility companies.
Prices for utility and maintenance services have increased manifold and the annual increase is at
least 10-15 percent. These circumstances stimulate owners to pursue a property management
strategy and also give rise to a wider repertoire of collective actions related to municipal things and
multi-occupancy buildings.
It is also important to mention that only condominium partnerships (tovarischestva sobstvennikov
zhil’ya) and cooperative houses tend to take collective actions aiming to upkeep common and
collective property. Yet, decorating common areas and volunteer clean-ups (subbotnik) 9 are not
8
Throughout Russia people believe that public utilities are owned by local officials or give bribes to them. This causes
discontent and gives rise to actions against the status quo. Fraudulent schemes in the utility sector and corruption among
local officials fuel the belief. President Putin and General Prosecutor Chaika name housing and utility sector as the most
corrupt
one.
See
http://argumentiru.com/society/2013/02/234439?type=all#fulltext;
http://www.baltinfo.ru/2012/10/02/putin-vlastyam-ne-udalos-reformirovat-zhkkh-308050, access 20.02.2013). There
are many well-publicized bribery scandals involving housing and utility officials. Internet search returns many links
including links to reputable media sites. Some scandals, both confirmed and unconfirmed, get blown out of proportion
by the opposition.
9
Clean-ups (Subbotniki) date back to the Soviet Union and imply voluntary collective work on Saturday or public
holidays to create / upkeep collective goods. The tradition originated from unpaid volunteered work on weekend. (See
Chase 1989), then it extended to include city-level or condominium-level events. Neighbors built playgrounds, cleaned
common areas in spring, decorated yards. Subbotniki were commonplace events to upkeep houses and were normally
organized by public utility companies or companies that owned the houses. Also, there were “workplace subbotniks”,
but they are beyond the scope of this study.
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unheard of in houses previously owned by municipalities or companies, if their residents had
experience in neighbor-to-neighbor mobilization in the Soviet era. Residents of former municipallyowned multi-occupancy houses with mixed private and municipal ownership or company-owned
houses tend to take protest actions if their tenancy rights are breached or prices for housing and
utility services go up. In this case protest is bound to turn into political one and political demands
are brought forward.
Positive Collective Actions Aiming to Upkeep Things
Positive collective actions aiming to make, upkeep or protect things, are possible at the grassroot
level, e.g. house, hallway, less often protection of a park or public garden. I believe I can leave out
mechanisms and logistics of social movements – condominium partnerships, general owners
meetings, civil initiatives - as there is a wealth of in-depth researches in this area (For example,
Vihavainen 2011; Malyutina 2009; Kornev 2006; Polischuk, Borisova, Peresetskii 2010). Instead I
will focus on positive collective actions, both formal and informal. These actions include one-timeonly events and recurring actions which require special mobilization.
Individual action, included into the collective action class, imply actions by an individual aiming to
make, upkeep or protect collective and public goods. The most common example of such actions
found in the former Soviet Union is decorating of yards and hallways. Normally the decorating is
done by one or two women, usually retired, who lay out flower beds and plant trees in the yard and
take care of potted plants in the entrance areas. Sometimes they cover entrance areas and yards with
amateur art, paint benches etc. Such actions are strongly encouraged by local authorities. Contests
for “best-kept yard” and “best-kept hallway” are held in many cities. The most commonly occurring
example is when an enthusiastic woman starts the decorating efforts, and a few neighbors also get
engaged in this “movement”.
A less-common example of individual action was reported by an informant who witnessed how
owners protected their club property, a parking garage located in curtilage. The conflict broke loose
when the general meeting of residents resolved to tear down the unauthorized parking garage. The
car owners stood up against the decision and the informants reported that the former cooperative
house chairperson who initiated the tear-down got assaulted10 by a member of the garage group.
The court dismissed the assault charge, however, the issue had haunted the general meetings and
affected the tear-down decision.
Still, the most common examples of collective actions are one-time-only actions by a group of
individuals. Compared to individual action, these actions are more diversified, because they may
involve making and upkeeping common and public goods, as well as protecting private and
collective goods.
Examples of pure positive collective mobilization include volunteer clean-ups (subbotnik),
collective repairs of co-owned common elements, building of playgrounds. Typically such actions
can be expected from residents of wholly-owned condominiums who perceive common elements to
be part of property they own.
10
Cooperative houses are houses built using the prospective owners’ investments, a rare occasion in the Soviet Union
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One-time-only mobilization often occurs when co-owned common elements or the ownership rights
are compromised. Any attempts to appropriate some co-owned common elements, e.g. curtilage,
attics or basements cause mobilization of the co-owners (See Vihavainen 2011). However, this is
only true for cooperative houses and condominium associations where owners recognize common
elements as their co-owned property. This is not the case for houses which used to be municipallyowned. Despite the de jure ownership, the residents of such houses fail to perceive common
elements as their collective property. Perceived as res nullius the common elements may get
improperly used by public utility companies or fraudulent condominium associations or
municipalities. However, such misuse is unlikely to cause any actions other than discussions among
residents and on Internet message boards. Thus, there is enough evidence to believe that
condominium associations help their members embrace the concept of collective ownership and
may form the cornerstone of some rudimentary civil awareness.
When collective goods get compromised, the owners almost never resort to protest actions, i.e. they
do not challenge the status quo. Instead they seek protection of their ownership rights with
government agencies and municipal authorities. The repertoire of actions includes filing complaints,
a time-honored tradition of Soviet people, or filing lawsuits against public officials or legal entities.
The latter is rather unusual.
When it comes to protection of parks or protests against infill development, the campaigners
balance between positive and protest actions. They tend to overstep the limits of positive collective
actions, i.e. filing complaints and lawsuits. All too often campaigners resort to political protests and
include anti-government and anti-regime slogans into their “common-property-protection” agenda.
A good example of positive collective action is the Taganski Park protection movement in
Moscow11. The campaign goes on for ten years, and the weaponry includes complaints, appeals to
municipal authorities, petitions to courts, peaceful picketing and meetings without political agenda.
Whichever the case, there is always a two-way dialogue between citizens and government regarding
the alleged transgression of the citizens’ rights. In contrast, the Khimki Forest protection movement
is an example of protest action which snowballed into a full-blown confrontation with the entire
governmental system of Russia. Even foreign officials get engaged in the campaign 12 . In such
circumstances collective actions may get rather radical and include street protests, blocking of roads
and armed encounters. Thankfully, the campaigners have not resorted to self-harm yet, which is not
unheard of when individual action is related to an idea. Gruesome details are provided below. There
have been instances of violent deaths, physical assaults, but no self-harm yet. In the Roman law
sense of the term, parks are not res sacrae. Originally res sacrae included city walls and landmarks.
Damaging the city walls was punishable by death.
Collective Protest Action
Noteworthy is the fact that protection of the private property is a more common incentive for
collective protest action. Collective protest actions are often caused by rise in utility bills, fraudulent
11
In 2003-2008 private developers laid claims on the park (visit http://www.taganka.ulin.ru/tagtoday.htm;
http://taganskii.narod.ru/ for details). The claims were rejected. Today the plan is to transfer the park to the Russian
Orthodox Church (http://taganskiypark.ru ).
12
http://www.khimkiforest.org/
11
E.Popova Collective action and Regimes…
condominium schemes and eviction of residents, i.e. issues related to private property and survival
of individuals. Such actions may range from traditional peaceful Soviet-style complaints and
appeals to various authorities and institutions including international ones, discussions on Internet
message boards to mass rallies, picketing and radical actions including hunger strikes and suicides.
13
The commonplace rhetoric in the appeals against rises in utility bills and eviction of residents
include such expressions as “unlawful actions” and “outrage upon justice”, social justice problem
which seems to correlate with justifiability of collective property ensured by a collective political
body rather than an individual pursuant to the theory of “custom where the public asserts ownership
of property under some claim so ancient it antedates any memory to the contrary” (Rose 1993, 714).
It is important to note that in the former Soviet Union protests against rises in utility bills and
failures in public utility operation (power outages, cutting off heating in winter season) often
transform into anti-government and anti-regime political protests. Recent developments in Russia
and resignation of Bulgaria’s government are good examples of such transformation. Theoretical
studies of housing and public property management issues let us see the water divide between the
civil and political realms which bring political items onto social society agenda, i.e. bring private
issues up to the “common goal” level - the “voice” mechanisms in Hirschmann’s terminology (See
Hirschmann 1970).
The most common form of protest action is filing complaints with the executive bodies or, less
often, legislative bodies (See Friedgut 1979; Bogdanova 2005; Reisinger, Miller, and Hesli 1995).
However, in mid 1990s Russian citizens were given the right to recourse to a court for justice, and
they have been using the right rather actively. The lawsuits related to housing and public utility
services range from urban infrastructure failures (most of lawsuits in the 1990s) to unjustified prices
for utility services (in the 2000s). The pricing policy, which had caused so much turmoil in urban
economic life in early 2000s and mid 2000s, also triggered a few lawsuits. For example, in 2004
Murmansk citizens won a lawsuit. The court judgment says: “On Wednesday, April 18 the district
court cancelled the decision to increase prices for utility services made by the municipal
administration” (Chervyakova 2004). In contrast to Anglo-Saxon law and practice, public officials
were a named defendant in the lawsuit rather than the municipality.
The few lawsuits of early 2000s proved to be inadequate as the long-term strategy in different
regions, and starting from mid 2000s there has been a steady upsurge in public protests, including
mass rallies, picketing etc. The mass rallies against rising utility bills were most prominent during
the first year of the rise when prices increased manifold throughout Russia (See data of the
Collective Action Institute at www.ikd.ru). Protest actions were sparse in 2004 - 2005 - during the
period the prices increased in economically and politically stable cities where regional and
municipal authorities had a tight hold on political agenda. In early 2007 Russia witnessed the
greatest number of mass rallies against yet another rise in utility bills. Thousands of people joined
rallies in Sterlitamak (Bashkiria), Lipetsk, Ryazan, Blagoveshchensk, Saratov, Cherepovets,
Ulyanovsk, Yekaterinburg, Kurgan, Saint-Petersburg, Yaroslavl and other cities. The tide of mass
rallies and picketing has been ebbing and flowing ever since. There is a consensus among social
13
Condominium projects in Russia usually imply that individuals make investments into construction. The intention is to convert
investments into ownership of apartments once the condominium is commissioned. Investors believe that they pay for an apartment
in the condominium they invest in. However, developers give no warranties the apartment will be provided. The price may change
too.
12
E.Popova Collective action and Regimes…
movement researches that housing and utility services issues are the most prominent items on the
mass protest agenda (See, for example, Civil and Political 2013).
Meanwhile, over the last couple of years has been an increase in individual protest actions – fatal
self-immolations and suicides – triggered by housing and public utility issues. People kill
themselves in the centers of Russian cities (See Pinkus 2011), people from the provinces come to
Moscow to make a stand and meet a spectacular death near the Kremlin 14 . Another suicide
happened near Lenenergo building15. In Novosibirsk, a woman arranged media coverage of her
suicide in the “United Russia” office and invited journalists to arrive at a certain time16. Another
woman set herself on fire in protest against the court decision to levy a distraint on her property.
She blamed local authorities of connivance and informed them in advance of her self-immolation.
Rising utility bills, corrupt practices in housing and utility services and seizure of property are just a
few formal motives of the suicides. Yet, such desperate actions have a certain odor of sanctity about
them, reminiscent of the Roman res sacrae, rather that the mundanity of private or collective
property. Death of an individual always has some ideological motives of upholding justice on
behalf of a collective cause. Being collective action, death of an individual seeks publicity. Suicides
motivated by housing and public utility issues are carefully planned, and suicide notes include
description of problems and name the culprits.
Such actions become trending topics on the Internet, have wide media coverage and a great deal of
sympathy. “The old woman was forced to commit suicide, she just sought justice and appealed to
courts, law enforcement and authorities. Her last desperate action shows how much our people and
our nation lack integration. All of us will burn one by one”17. “People are getting desperate, no
doubt… ”18. “Russia is no Czechoslovakia where self-immolation of Jan Palach caused nation-wide
uproar and no Tunisia where self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi inspired the Arab Spring… We
will just swallow it ….”19. The sympathy with the self-immolators who seek to uphold justice and
moral order gets exploited in campaigns against the housing policy which include threats of
collective self-immolations20.
In recent years near-fatal hunger strikes are also turning into means of protecting ownership rights.
Strike participants always provide rationale of the strike and name the culprits: “The public
prosecutor is to be notified to assign responsibility for possible deaths to public officials on the list.
The list includes governor, major, public prosecutor and other officials who refused to negotiate
14
November 2011. Moscow-Chuvashia. A victim of fraudulent property scheme attempted self-immolation in Red Square
(http://регнум.рф/news/fd-volga/chuvashia/1623778.html)
15 February 2013. St. Petersburg. Director of one of Lenenergo’s subcontractors shot himself near Lenenergo office building. He sent
out suicide notes blaming corruption in the public utility sector, i.e. how Lenenergo contracts are awarded.
(http://lenta.ru/news/2013/02/15/lensvet/).
16 July 2012. Novosibirsk. A victim of an alleged fraudulent property scheme killed herself. Lawyers and the United Russia officials
were of opinion that the woman was unhinged and beyond salvation. According to them, there was no corpus delicti in the property
scheme. (http://www.newsru.com/russia/20jul2012/noer.html)
17
Comments regarding self-immolation in Chelyabinsk on a message board, Nizhny
http://www.nn.ru/community/gorod/main/?do=read&thread=1893251&topic_id=40177420&archive=1
18
Ibid
19
http://vk.com/wall-23477308_88012
20
December 2012. Revda, Sverdlovsk Oblast, http://zastupnik.org/novosti/12623.html
Novgorod).
13
E.Popova Collective action and Regimes…
unjustified utility bills with citizens and failed to provide adequate response to the appeals”21.
Conclusion
The mainstream sociology and political science believe that collective action in all its diversity is
attributed to individuals and their motivation, whereas the repertoire of action is shaped by political
environment. Studies thus far have focused on the rationale of active individuals, forms of
mobilization, both formal and informal, and technologies that give rise to new forms of collective
action. For my part, I believe that studies should include a wide spectrum of things that give rise or
prevent actions. Without denying the traditional approach to social action I merely suggest a new
dimension, viz. the material one.
A closer-focus study of collective action as applied to housing and public utility sector in Russia
shows that the number of such actions has increased significantly over the last 5-7 years due to
adoption of the new Housing Code and changes in the pricing policy. It is important to note that the
degree of political acuity of urban infrastructure problems is lower than in mid 2000s. However,
there has been an upsurge of civil awareness, which is evident from the numerous publications in
blogs and on message boards where the Internet community discusses housing and public utility
problems. A further proof is the number of mass rallies over housing and utilities problems (See
reports of the Collective Action Institute, Civil and Political 2013). Noteworthy is the fact that in
mid 2000s the protest rallies or mass rallies for civil rights were organized by opposition parties.
These days, the driving force of collective action is self-motivated citizens rather than political
parties. Recently there has been a noticeable increase in upkeep-oriented collective actions rather
than protest-oriented ones. Such upkeep-oriented actions include building of playgrounds,
landscaping and clean-ups of common areas etc.
The mainstream scholars focus on collective action as applied to collective (common and public)
goods and therefore overlook the potential of collective action to bring about other types of goods.
However, examples given above show that individual actions over housing and public utilities are
mostly related to private property or accompanying public goods. In the context of civil awareness
in Russia there has been an increase in individual and collective actions related to collective things
that have ideological concepts embedded in them. Oleg Kharkhordin shows that in Cicero’s
republic common things, or res publicae, offer a common cause and induce feelings that may
transform into something worth dying for. (Kharkhordin 2010). The recent events demonstrate that
urban objects offer a similar common cause giving rise to civil or, less frequently, political action.
It should be noted that this article merely outlines the issues for further study. I believe that
classification of things suggested by neoclassical economics enables further research of both
collective actions related to certain class of objects and the correlation between the nature of objects
and the possibility to develop democratic institutions in transitional countries. The author was
unable to locate any in-depth studies of characteristics of things that account for the role of common
things in political sphere and political reforms in particular. No one seems to pay attention to things
that make people act together and enhance or reduce effects of democratization.
21
January 2013. Zverevo, Rostov Oblast. http://u-f.ru/News/u200/2013/01/21/650584
14
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