Vacancy

• MA/MSc degree in sociology, economics or social psychology; interest in, and ideally some familiarity with philosophy
• Interest in the topic of social cohesion and in collaborating in a broad research consortium with academic and non-academic stakeholders
• Strong interest in interdisciplinary research, including analytical and theoretical dimensions
• Professional competence in English
• Professional competence in Dutch
• Strong skills in quantitative social science methods
• Interest in theoretical questions about social cohesion and collective action
• Familiarity with experimental methods and familiarity with Python programming is a plus
• We look for team players who want to play an active role in an inter- and transdisciplinary research community and training programme

The aim of this project is to understand the interplay between economic inequality, social relations and collective action through behavioural experiments informed by sociological theory as well as philosophical perspectives. Currently, this relation is unclear: inequality is sometimes argued to promote collective action, but it may also undermine networks of social relations necessary for collective action. Thus, the project seeks to understand the causal mechanisms through which inequality in resources and social relations interact in the emergence or breakdown of collective action. This particularly applies to societal challenges that require wide societal buy-in and have long-term effects. The project will situate this research within philosophical discussions and discuss its implications for the value of (in)equality and its relationship to collective action and community.

Inequality, Social Relations and Collective Action

Meeting large-scale challenges (such as climate adaptation) requires technical progress and policy expertise, but these are often insufficient. Successful societal change also requires suitable social conditions – such as cooperation by all parties involved and societal buy-in – within which effective solutions take shape. This project is motivated by the following preliminary causal hypotheses: 1) Successful cooperation requires some degree of social cohesion between cooperators in the form of what we might call positive social relations. Highly fragmented societies, for example, might find it much harder to cooperate on shared purposes. 2) Inequality in resources (i.e., financial and human capital) can undermine such positive ties. Therefore, 3) inequality might reduce the type of social cohesion necessary for successful cooperation and collective action. Some mechanisms underlying hypothesis 2 could be that inequality might lower trust between individuals or create differences in opportunities to form social relations. At the same time, inequality might also affect collective action via other mechanisms, for example by reducing trust in institutions (i.e., vertical ties), or hamper buy-in because the less well-off might view additional sacrifices as no longer meeting normative conditions such as fairness or ‘fair reciprocity’ (to use Rawls’s term). For example, a collective effort to reduce activities linked to carbon emissions may be harder to achieve if this requires a much larger sacrifice (in relative terms) of resources from some than from others. Finally, these mechanisms might also interact, for instance, social networks may shape perceptions as well as normative evaluations of inequality, which in turn affects the emergence of collective action.

Philosophical Perspectives

The project approaches such empirical hypotheses in conjunction with the philosophical debate on the function and value of equality. In the philosophical debate, some egalitarians argue that distributive equality has intrinsic value (distributive egalitarianism), while others foreground its external instrumental effects (instrumental egalitarianism) or the way inequality shapes social relations (relational egalitarianism). Moreover, most theories focus on egalitarian justice rather than on the value of community and social cohesion. The latter focus is found more in communitarian theories. If we uncover causal mechanisms through which equality and social cohesion enable societal conditions to meet societal challenges (here conceptualized as collective action), then this might constitute an important addition to the philosophical literature on the value of equality and cohesion. Specifically, it provides a new argument against inequality and might give egalitarianism a better understanding of what type of inequality to tackle. Moreover, if the causal mechanism runs or does not run through cohesion, we might obtain a new understanding of the relationship between the value of equality and that of community and cohesion.

The State of the Art

The empirical social science literature so far provides only a limited and not entirely coherent understanding of potential causal relations between inequality, social relations and cooperation, particularly at the microlevel. While some evidence supports the hypothesis that inequality is detrimental to collective action, other evidence implies that under some conditions, inequality in resources can promote collective action. Similarly, some strands of sociological theory predict that the presence of status hierarchies may promote collective action. Most of this research focuses on the direct relation between inequality and collective action; the potential mediating or moderating role of social relations remains largely unexplored. For instance, a lack of social cohesion caused by inequality in resources or education may undermine the emergence of common goals, because information and coordination cannot spread through enough social relations. Conversely, it might also impact perceptions of inequality; individuals may for example underestimate inequality between groups/individuals due to a lack of connections between them.

The project will start with a literature review on how inequality and social cohesion interact in the emergence of collective action. Based on this analysis, testable hypotheses are formulated. For example, different types of inequalities – such as income, geographic, education and intergenerational inequalities – might be promising areas of research. We might also zoom in on how inequalities and perceived unfairness and injustice within and across generations could affect cooperative behaviour. At least one of the studies will focus on climate adaptation as a case study. The methodology used to test hypotheses will be behavioural social experiments, which make it possible to identify causal mechanisms under a wide range of social conditions. In such experiments, conducted in the lab or online, collective action may be conceptualized as contributions in public good games while social cohesion may take the form of structures of interdependence relations (social networks), trust or shared norms. In turn, social inequality can be implemented as inequality in resources or power hierarchies, or be based on the actual social backgrounds of participants. At least one of the articles written will be sociological and/or philosophical theory, developing a theoretical lens of the interaction between social cohesion and inequality and what it tells us about the possible (dis)value of equality.

Anderson, L. R., Mellor, J. M., & Milyo, J. (2008). Inequality and public good provision: An experimental analysis. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 37(3), 1010–1028.

Nath, Rekha. (2020). Relational egalitarianism. Philosophy Compass 15(7), Article e12686. https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12686