This book examines how different levels and forms of human collectivity have interacted, voluntarily or coercively, and how these transformed societies and polities.

Every size and type of human collective involve co-operation among members and competition with other groups. The two most recent trends in human relations – individualism and economic globalisation – have contributed to authoritarianism in politics and inequality among citizens. This book analyses how collective action might offset the most destructive consequences for well-being of these two tendencies. It explores these manifestations of collective action and their impact on social relations and social policies in the developed world. Further, the volume sets out a programme for more progressive and egalitarian future for global populations.

Engaging, accessible and transdisciplinary, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of politics and public policy, sociology, social psychology, social policy and social work, as well as political philosophy, political economy and migration studies.