Collective Risk Generation and Risk Management: the Unexploited Potential of the Social Dilemmas Paradigm

A social dilemma is a situation where a collective cost or risk is incurred, taken or generated through the combined negative external effects of various individuals who act (relatively) independently from one another. Vivid present-day examples of collective risk generation via individual activities are: littering of public places by individuals spending some time in them; threats to the quality of public education through individuals’ desires to increase private spending capacity; loss of natural open space through individual preferences for more spacious household premises; over-harvesting of ocean fish stocks for the survival of individual fishing organizations; local and regional air pollution from the use of numerous motor vehicles; and wholesale deforestation of tropical regions for the subsistence of local farmers and cattle-breeders. In many cases, collective risks also increase through the sheer growth in the number of separate actors such as inhabitants, households and commercial enterprises.