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Collective Action, Environmental Activism, and Air Quality Policy

University of California Davis

Arnold Vedlitz

Texas A&M University

Sammy Zahran

Texas A&M University

Letitia T. Alston

Texas A&M University

This article attempts to respond to Ostrom’s call for a behavioral model of collective action by generalizing the collective interest model of mass political action to explain citizen policy support and personal behavioral intentions in the context of air quality policy. The collective action problems inherent in air quality policy provide a critical research setting for testing hypotheses of the collective interest model. Key elements of the collective interest model—perceived risk, trust in policy elites, knowledge of the policy problem, and efficacy—are found to be directly, and positively, related to support of government policies and intentions to engage in personal behaviors that might improve air quality. The article discusses the implications for using the collective interest model as general behavioral theory of collective action.

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