This book seeks to answer two questions: one theoretical, the other empirical. How do individuals come together to act collectively in their common interest? Why is it that those who promote collective action so often turn to stories? Answering these questions requires recognizing the power of story to overcome the obstacles to collective action: to surmount the temptation to free ride, to coordinate group behaviour, and, indeed, in the first instance, to arrive at a common understanding of the collective interest. Humans are, whatever else we, a storytelling, story-consuming animal. We use st ... More

This book seeks to answer two questions: one theoretical, the other empirical. How do individuals come together to act collectively in their common interest? Why is it that those who promote collective action so often turn to stories? Answering these questions requires recognizing the power of story to overcome the obstacles to collective action: to surmount the temptation to free ride, to coordinate group behaviour, and, indeed, in the first instance, to arrive at a common understanding of the collective interest. Humans are, whatever else we, a storytelling, story-consuming animal. We use stories to make sense of our experience and to imbue it with meaning. Our self-narratives define our sense of identity and script our actions. Because we are constituted by narrative, we can be moved by the stories told to us by others. That is why leaders who call a community to action seek to engross it in a story in which tragedy and triumph hang in the balance, in which taking part in the collective action becomes a moral imperative rather than a matter of calculated self-interest. Drawing on insights from political science and sociology, behavioral economics and neuroscience, history and cultural studies, literature and narrative theory, this book sheds light on a wide range of political phenomena from social movements to electoral politics.