Thomas C. Schelling and the French Sociology School of Collective Action

Abstract

This article is based on a series of interviews that the author conducted with Thomas Schelling in 1998, 2004 and 2009. In the first part, the author presents what he considers to be the salient features of what he proposes to call the “French Sociology School of Collective Action (a mode of reasoning, a style of theorizing, an approach to empirical research). In the second part, the author uses excerpts from his interviews with Schelling to document the proximity of the theoretical and methodological framework of this school with a number of elements which also characterize Schelling’s approach to the study of negotiation and of social dynamics more generally, an approach which Schelling himself has labeled as “vicarious problem-solving”.