| Session | Theme | Reading | Guest Speaker |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | A New Literacy of Cooperation and Collective Action Overview of Cooperation Landscape - visualizing and catalyzing an open-ended interdisciplinary discourse | In class participants will spend a half hour playing cooperation games. | IFTF Team, games led by Scott Brave, Stanford University |
| #2 | Social Dilemmas and the Mythic Narratives that Frame Collective Action What are social dilemmas and where do we find them in society, business, globally? -how have these dilemmas been framed in past/current narratives? -what are the implications of thinking about social dilemmas in these ways? | Peter Kollock, Social Dilemmas: The Anatomy of Cooperation 31 pages. Kollock Social Dilemmas Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation | Peter Kollock, Associate Professor of Sociology, UCLA. |
| #3 | Creating Institutions for Collective Action What institutions help create collective action? How and why do they work? How do property regimes influence productive relationships and wealth creation? | Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, Chapters 1-2, pp1-55, plus Howard's book report on Governing the Commons. J.S. Lansing, J. H. Miller, Cooperation in Balinese Rice Farming, 13 pages Lansing/Miller] Garrett Hardin's original article, [[http://dieoff.org/page95.htm | The Tradedy of the Commons | Paul Hartzog, IFTF Team |
| #4 | Where Does Cooperation Come From? Are we wired to compete or cooperate? -how and when does cooperation work in the natural world? | Frank Ryan, Darwin's Blind Spot pp 15-24; 50-53; 84-97 Genetic and Cultural Evolution of Cooperation, Dahlem Workshop Reports, Ch 19, pp.357-388, ch.22-23, pp.429-468 | TBA |
| #5 | Class Discussion | Review of the readings and online discussion; class discussion augmented in real time by wiki and blog, enabling online participants to contribute. How does the reading help reframe social, political economic challenges? Can we use levers to help think about ways to improve cooperation? | IFTF Team, other guests TBS |
| #6 | Technologies of Cooperation How do technologies of cooperation lower the barriers to cooperate and change the payoff structure? How does social software facilitate collective action or enable sharing economies? | Howard Rheingold, Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, Introduction, pp xi-xxii; 47-56; 208-215. David Reed, That Sneaky Exponential---Beyond Metcalfe's Law to the Power of Community Building, 8 pages Reed "Beyond Metcalfe" | Howard Rheingold, Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia |
| #7 | The Cornucopia of the Commons What is new about the political economics of P2P? production? -where and how is wealth generated in cooperative systems? | Steven Weber, The Success of Open Source,pp1-19; 224-27; Yochai Benkler, Coases Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of the Firm, Benkler: Coase's Pengiun James Boyle, The Second Enclosure Movemen and the Construction of the Public Domaint 1-11; 35-43 http://www.law.duke.edu/pd/papers/boyle.pdf http://www.law.duke.edu/pd/papers/boyle.pdf | Steven Weber, Professor of Political Science, University California, Berkeley |
| #8 | Collective Intelligence: When all of us is smarter than each of us How can the knowledge gathering activities of self-interested individuals add up to wise judgements and public goods? | Eric Bonabeau, Swarm Intelligence: From Natural to Artificial Systems Bonabeau: Swarm Intelligence Bernardo Huberman "The Dynamics of Collective Action", (with N. S. Glance), Computational Economics,8, 27 (1995). "Forecasting Uncertain Events with Small Groups", (with Kay-Yut Chen and Leslie Fine), Proceedings of the 3rd ACM Conference on e-commerce, 58-64 (2001). "Predicting the Future" (with Kay-Yut Chen and Leslie Fine), Information Systems Frontiers, Vol. 5, 47-61 (2003) James Surowecki, Wisdom of Crowds, Pp 124-127; 139-142; 192-198; 220-223 | Bernardo Huberman, Senior Fellow and Director, Hewlett Packard Labs |
| #9 | Emergent Democracy , Open Source Politics, and the Future of Public Policy How could cooperation studies help explain recent political eruptions and/or influence the priorities and strategy of public policy? | J. Ito et al, ' Emergent Democracy, Joi Ito et al Ito: Emergent Democracy J. Moore, The Second Superpower Rears Its Beautiful Head, Moore: Second Superpower M. Sifry "The Rise of Open Source Politics", The Nation, November 22, 2004 Sifry: Rise Zephyr Teachout, Come Together, Right Now: The Internet's Unlit Fuse'' Teachout: Come Together | Ross Mayfield, SocialText? Software Zack Rosen, CivicSpace? Software |
| #10 | Implications for the Future How could a new literacy of cooperation change the narrative of collective action? -what new opportunities does this create for society and governance? | Students build a graphic map of the long-term implications and opportunities from cooperative structures and strategies. Discuss next steps in building a community of interest around cooperation studies. | IFTF Team Graphic Recorder |