hkcook@artsci.wustl.edu
My theoretical approach borrows from anthropology, political science, and political economy. I refine models of collective action by including the need for leaders to overcome free-riding, the effects of scale as a constraint and the centrality of concern with bargaining power. The social and political institutions in small communities constrain leaders whose higher profiles pose a threat to the relative standing of other community members. Distrust of leaders, combined with cheap information in small communities, provide a fertile environment and accessible mechanisms for leveling leaders through gossip, shunning and economic boycotting. Concern with relative status in small communities as a way to preserve bargaining power effectively limits collective action. Leaders are unable to maneuver in the ways that are essential to bring about planned change.
I have applied this theoretical approach more generally to leaders and leveling in states and firms in collaborative work with a colleague in the business school.
My theoretical focus is reflected in my teaching as a conflict in human society between individual and collective interests. My introductory cultural anthropology courses as well as those I teach on diversity in U.S. society deal with this conflict by analyzing individual action in the context of social and political institutions.