Assignment: Collective Action Problems
Have you ever wondered why it is so difficult for some groups or organizations to succeed? Well, a given group’s success depends on cooperation, and without it, these groups will most likely fail. However, it is important to understand why some groups easily achieve their goals while others do not. Collection action problems are situations or occurrences that limit groups’ success that have a common goal due to conflicting interests between the members. When the interests of the members differ, joint action that fuels goals achievement is highly discouraged. As a result, these groups fail terribly in the pursuit of certain goals. Examples of collection action Even though some groups fail, others still succeed, and the big question is, what are they doing that we are not? Certain groups’ success amid collection action problems can be attributed to their capacity to device methods that help solve conflicting interests any time they arise. Political parties, electoral process, and interest groups are examples of groups whose success is highly dependent on collaboration. As a result, they must have different methods to solve collections action problems to achieve their ultimate goals.
Political parties are made up of different groups, some that are organized while others are not, and as a result, they face different collection action problems. The conflicting interests can be attributed to the differences in class, religion, gender, and even ethnicity (Berg-Schlosser, Badie and Morlino 576). Some of the main collection action problems that political parties face are making collective choices when making policies, competition for given positions between members, and low voter turnout. During the policy-making process, all the group members participate in formulating vital procedures in all decision-making. However, during the process, each individual has a proposal that feels to be most suitable for the organization. As a result, interest conflicts arise between members of the party. Besides, political parties face challenges associated with recruiting a candidate for each electoral position whereby the members compete. The competition is mainly because of personal goals rather than the ultimate goal of the party. Further, political parties face low voter turnout either because of conflicts regarding the best brand name to adopt. When disputes regarding party identification and the best brand name arise, a political party’s electoral motivation falls, and as a result, the party experiences low voter turnout and loose make office positions in a government.
Bearing that political parties focus on winning the different offices to control the government, they have to adopt different mechanisms of solving collection action problems. Some of the methods through which political parties solve collection action problems are forming conventions such as the national committee, conducting nominations, and forming coalitions. Conventions such as the national committee nominate the party’s presidential candidate and draft the rules that regulate each member’s behavior in the party (Sidlow 41). In so doing, disputes such as competition for a particular seat are mediated. Besides, parties conduct nominations either open or closed primaries to solve the conflicts of interest for a particular position between the members.
Moreover, parties form coalitions to solve policy-making related action problems. On the low voter turnout issue, political parties focus on raising to enhance the party’s identification. Besides, parties provide a brand name to the voters to motivate them to vote (Aldrich 200). Ultimately, conducting nominations and forming coalitions and national conventions are critical ways political parties solve collection action problems.
In the United States, for example, parties solved collection action problems by forming two major coalitions. These coalitions are also known as party systems, and they are the Republicans and the Democrats (Jackson 126). The two parties are made up of people from different religions, gender, ethnicity, and class. The different characters of the people are most likely to cause problems during the policy-making process. However, sorting different people into two major parties has helped solve policy-making problems and enhanced cooperation.
Electoral processes refer to all activities that regulate and outline how referendums and elections are done and how they are determined. Regardless of how important the electoral process is to a country, it faces different collection action problems. Some of such problems are ensuring the right person’s selection, low voter turnout, and holding politicians accountable. In many cases, there are problems with who is the right candidate to vote for, mainly due to the lack of adequate information. Besides, low voter turnout is a collection action problem that faces the electoral process due to the lack of proper party identification and poor campaigning. Further, holding politicians accountable is another issue that affects the electoral process. Ultimately, these problems affect the electoral process to regulate elections and nominations and determine election results.
Even though the electoral processes encounter different collection action problems, different are used to resolve them. Some of the resolution mechanisms is the use of Political Action Committee (PAC), issuing voting, and promoting party identification. The PAC helps to raise and distribute funds for the campaigns (Duignan 52). The low voter count issue is alleviated because the process, such as campaigns, voter registration, and nominations, becomes easy. Besides, the electoral process issues voting enabling politicians to be accountable because the elections are competitive. Further, the electoral processes aid party identification. This allows voters to select the right person because they will have adequate information to avoid adverse selection.
To promote high voters’ turnout in the 2016 U.S election, different Political Action Committees raised funds to donate for the campaigns. A good example of such a PAC is the Clinton Foundation that spent much money on administration, travel, salaries, and bonuses. During the 2016 U.S election, other PACs were Victory 2016, Great America PAC, and Patriots from Trump. These PAC made donations to promote the campaigns, either advocating for Donald Trump of Hillary Clinton (Department).
Interest groups are organizations that seek to benefit from certain policies rather than acquire government seats. In their pursuit to educate many people and protect members from adverse effects, the interest group faces different collection action problems. The two main collection action problems are the free-rider and upper-class bias. The free-rider problem occurs in interest groups whereby some individuals plan to use good that has been paid for by other people (Gorton 70). If members understand the free rider concept, they will not join interest groups. Besides, interest groups face the upper-class bias problem whereby only the well-informed, educated individuals will opt to invest and join them. As a result, their capacity to influence public policy is weakened due to the lack of proper support.
To overcome collection action problems, interest groups have devised different resolution strategies. One of the main ways interest groups solve the problems is to use different incentives to attract members (Knill and Tosun 51). Offering material benefits, information benefits, and salary benefits are methods used by interest groups to attract members and overcome the free-rider problem. Also, interest groups form coalitions to collaborate in the lobbying process. The capacity to form coalitions can be attributed to the Prisoner’s Dilemma Metaphor, whereby they focus on not snitching each other to ensure equal benefits. For example, when interest groups come together, they can acquire donations from PACs and share amongst themselves.
In conclusion, collaboration is an essential factor in different groups’ success, such as political parties, the electoral processes, and interest groups. As a result, these groups must have different methods to solve collection action problems to achieve their ultimate goals. Even though political parties face disagreements when making policies, competition for given positions between members, and low voter turnout, they use different methods to solve them, such as conducting nominations. Besides, electoral processes face challenges in the selection of the right person and holding politicians accountable. These challenges are solved by issuing voting and promoting party identification. Further, interest groups are affected by the free-rider and upper-class bias problems but solve those using incentives to attract members and forming coalitions.
Aldrich, John H. Why Parties?: A Second Look. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.
Berg-Schlosser, Dirk, Bertrand Badie and Leonardo Morlino. The SAGE Handbook of Political Science. SAGE Publications, 2020.
Department, Statista Research. “Top 10 PACs advocating for Donald Trump’s 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.” Statista (2016). <https://www.statista.com/statistics/565750/top-ten-pacs-advocating-for-donald-trumps-2016-us-presidential-campaign/>.
Duignan, Brian. Political parties, interest groups, and elections. New York: Britannica Educational Pub. in association with Rosen Educational Services, 2013.
Gorton, William A. Karl Popper and the social sciences. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006.
Jackson, John S. The American political party system : continuity and change over ten presidential elections. Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution Press, 2015.
Knill, Christoph and Jale Tosun. Public policy a new introduction. London: Macmillan Education, 2020.
Sidlow, Edward. Govt California Edition. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2011.
Police Body Cameras Policy Analysis and Implementation
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Police Body Cameras Policy Analysis and Implementation
The current challenges in the police department after complaints of an increase in brutality require new policies. One such policy is the adoption of mandatory body cameras for police throughout the United States. Markedly, the police’s adoption of body cameras will imply extra spending for the state government and formulate procedures for its application. The introduction of body cameras will help the police department reduce the community’s complaints and improve police officers’ and citizens’ relationships. An analysis of the implementation of mandatory body cameras for the police, its importance, and implications will help achieve the police department’s goals and citizens’ confidence in their functions.
The police chief will be responsible for the implementation of the mandatory body cameras for the police. The implementation will commence with a pilot study for three months, where 50 police officers will use body cameras. A single body camera set costs approximately $60, and the cost of its maintenance per month is approximately $20. The 50 police will use body cameras and serve throughout the locality, such as traffic stops and stores (Treen, 2015). The implementation will also involve assessing the body cameras to determine their efficacy by retrieving recordings from the cameras’ memory storage and analyzing the battery capacity. The police department will collect police officers’ views and review constitutional provisions on privacy in implementing mandatory body cameras for police officers (Dhana, 3015).
The implementation of the policy for mandatory body cameras among police officers will result in multiple benefits for the community and police department. First, body cameras will ensure accountability in the police’s conduct since it will allow for easy retrieval of evidence. Second, mandatory body cameras will shorten the justice process because the police will easily present evidence before the court during cases (Joyce & Murray, 2017). Third, body cameras will improve the community and the police’s relationship because of reduced police brutality or crimes against humanity. Lastly, the use of mandatory body cameras will augment the police department’s efforts to track criminal activities because the cameras will capture additional information that police memory or witnesses cannot provide (Conner, 2017).
The implementation of mandatory body cameras for the police will result in a positive relationship between the police department and the community. The body cameras will ensure police officers remain accountable for acts that constitute law breakages, such as brutality or extra-judicial offenses. Consequently, police will follow legal procedures in apprehending criminals by following laid-down procedures and a peaceful approach (Conner, 2017). Thus, the community will improve its relationship with the police department because it will trust police officers to protect them and prevent law breakage peacefully. Moreover, body cameras will contribute to evidence gathering that will ease litigation’s legal processes, significantly reducing crime levels in the community (Dhana, 3015).
The policy’s efficacy in reducing police brutality levels and increasing justice provision will undergo an evaluation through regular analysis. In particular, the policy’s implementation will face review within every two weeks during the three months of the pilot phase (Joyce & Murray, 2017). The evaluation will involve reviewing the details from the police body cameras’ memory cards to determine their conduct. The evaluation will also track court cases within the three months of the pilot phase to determine which one influences police body cameras (Treen, 2015). As a result, the evaluation will assess the policy’s intricacy in promoting peace and order in the community through legal apprehension of suspects and criminals’ conviction.
The implementation of the mandatory body cameras for the police will influence the police department, either positively or negatively. Primarily, the policy will improve the conduct of the police positively by increasing levels of accountability. The police will adopt less forceful approaches when apprehending suspects, including those who counter peaceful arrest (Joyce & Murray, 2017). Moreover, applying the policy will improve the police department’s commitment to providing equal treatment to community members. As a result, the police will operate under the law’s confines and maintain equality in implementing a new culture of fairness and service to all citizens (Conner, 2017).
The policy’s implementation may also result in some police officers adopting negative qualities that develop an undesirable culture for the police department. Markedly, implementing the policy will result in some officers tampering with information from the body cameras (Dhana, 3015). Besides, some police officers will falsely manipulate footage from the body cameras that will lower the provision of care and justice by the department (Treen, 2015). As a result, the police may hinder the justice process by the provision of false evidence. Some police may exploit the advantage of body cameras by turning them off and committing extra-judicial expenses.
In conclusion, adopting the police’s mandatory body cameras will improve the relationship between the police department and the community. The policy requires an analysis to determine its intricacy and conduct that will result in either positive or negative application. Thus, the police chief must conduct a pilot to apply the policy within the community positively.
Conner, K. (2017, March 15). City to discuss police body cameras. Hays Daily News. Retrieved November 1, 2020, from https://eds-b-ebscohost-com.lopes.idm.oclc.org/eds/detail/detail?vid=6&sid=719af011-d654-477c-b037-4928f9d77652%40pdc-v-sessmgr03&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d#AN=2W61972384486&db=nfh
Dhana, S. (3015, September 3). LAPD body camera policy needs revision. Retrieved November 1, 2020, from https://go-gale-com.lopes.idm.oclc.org/ps/i.do?p=STND&u=canyonuniv&id=GALE|A427640798&v=2.1&it=r&sid=ebsco
Joyce, J., & Murray, A. (2017, April). The future of law enforcement. KM World, 12-24. Retrieved November 1, 2020, from https://eds-b-ebscohost-com.lopes.idm.oclc.org/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=0&sid=febf8dda-2450-4bba-8d36-8a7f3c12a660%40sessionmgr103
Treen, D. (2015, September 7). Cost an issue, but police see benefits in body cameras. Florida Times-Union. Retrieved November 1, 2020, from https://go-gale-com.lopes.idm.oclc.org/ps/i.do?p=STND&u=canyonuniv&id=GALE|A427910205&v=2.1&it=r&sid=ebsco
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