ABSTRACT
This chapter is broadly concerned with affective and effective collective action beyond the
family/household. Its focus is on the social structuring of human relationships beyond the
primary group. It begins with an articulation of rational choice theory at this level and poses
the question of what determines the extension of conditional cooperation and how this can
be promoted. A distinction is made between patterns of co-operation at a more informal level
(‘communities’), and the institutionalisation of that co-operation in formal social organisations
(‘associations’). The chapter first explores briefly the ways in which co-operation becomes
institutionalised, in markets, bureaucracies and political arenas, and indicates how these different
institutional forms arise on the basis of characteristic conditions of reciprocity and rational
choice, as also on the basis of characteristic types of power relations and affective ties. The
social relations of community are then examined in detail, and explained on the basis of
rational choice theory. The chapter concludes with an evaluation of community development,
in the light of the findings concerning the nature of communities.
