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Collective Action Dilemmas with Individual Mobilization through Digital Networks

This paper approaches political individualization through the lens of collective action. Contemporary protests—such as the global anti‐Iraq war protests—that are taken to be characteristic of individualized collective action are frequently impressive in terms of the numbers and diversity of people mobilized, as well as the short term focusing of attention on issues. Nevertheless, the very features that are so impressive also raise key concerns regarding the quality of action produced. While digital technology may facilitate organizing, critics doubt that loose multi‐ issue networks that are easy to opt in and out of can generate the commitment, coherence and persistence of action historically achieved by successful movements. This paper addresses the concerns arising at the interface between different action modes by linking the issues of collective action focus and capacity to questions about how organizational signals to individuals and each other affect the organization of a shared protest space. We propose the concept of an ecological collective action space (ECAS) in order better to assess the arrangements among actors in a particular political space. This conceptualization of action space directs attention to ways in which collective action configurations can shape the coherence, impact, and prospects of future actions: It highlights, first, how multiple organizational modes of communicating with individuals play out in the same event space, and second, how these patterns of communication affect the ways in which organizations, coalitions, and individuals negotiate, willfully or not, the qualities of the action space which they mutually constitute. We develop these ideas by analyzing the ecological space shared by two umbrella protest coalitions at the 2009 G20 London summit.